International Association, an association of trades unions, designed for the mutual defence of working men's interests in all countries. It originated at the time of the Polish insurrection of 1863. The London working men sent a deputation to Lord Palmerston, asking for interference on behalf of Poland, and also convoked an indignation meeting at St. James's hall, London, in April of that year. The Paris working men sent over two deputies, Tolain and, Fribourg, to this meeting; and from the conferences of these delegates with the leaders of the London working men sprang the idea of establishing the international association. A few weeks later George Odger, an unsuccessful working men's candidate for the house of commons, drew up a manifesto which was translated into French and spread among the working classes of the continent, inviting them to send delegates to a great inaugural meeting in the autumn holiday season (September, 1864). This gathering, which took place at St. Martin's hall, was largely attended by working men of nearly every European country, and presided over by Prof. Edward Spencer Beesley. A general manifesto and the statutes, both drawn by Dr. Karl Marx, were approved for publication; the association was declared established, some funds were collected, a provisional committee was appointed, and Mr. Odger elected president of the association.

Soon, however, this office having been declared incompatible with republican theories, the presidency was abolished, a chairman being elected at every weekly meeting of the general council, and Dr. Marx became the leading spirit of the association. The first continental strike in which the aid of the general council was appealed to and granted was that of the Leipsic compositors and printers in April, 1865. But the statutes of the association were not considered finally established until the first congress at Geneva (1866) had given them a definitive sanction, for three rival programmes were brought forward: that of Mazzini, highly centralized, strongly conspiratory, and dealing much more with politics than with labor and capital; a wild and desultory one of the Russian Bakunin; and the radical and revolutionary but business-like one of Karl Marx. The last met with little opposition, and the following were declared by the first general congress of Geneva to be the rules of the "International Working Men's Association:"

Considering that the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves; that the struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule; that the economical subjection of the man of labor to the monopolizer of the means of labor, that is, the sources of life, lies at the bottom of servitude in all its forms, of all social misery, mental degradation, and political dependence; that the economical emancipation of the working classes is therefore the great end to which every political movement ought to be subordinate as a means; that all efforts aiming at that great end have hitherto failed from the want of solidarity between the manifold divisions of labor in each country, and from the absence of a fraternal bond of union between the working classes of different countries; that the emancipation of labor is neither a local nor a national, but a social problem, embracing all countries in which modern society exists, and depending for its solution on the concurrence, practical and theoretical, of the most advanced countries; that the present revival of the working classes in the most industrious countries of Europe, while it raises a new hope, gives solemn warning against a relapse into the old errors, and calls for the immediate combination of the still disconnected movements: For these reasons, the first international working men's congress declares that this international association and all societies and individuals adhering to it will acknowledge truth, justice, and morality, as the basis of their conduct toward each other, and toward all men, without regard to color, creed, or nationality.

This congress considers it the duty of a man to claim the rights of a man and a citizen, not only for himself, but for every man who does his duty. No rights without duties, no duties without rights. And in this spirit they have drawn up the following rules of the international association: 1. This association is established to afford a central medium of communication and cooperation between working men's societies existing in different countries and aiming at the same end, viz.: the protection, advancement, and complete emancipation of the working classes. 2. The name of the society shall be "The International Working Men's Association." 3. The general council shall consist of working men belonging to the different countries represented in the international association. It shall from its own members elect the officers necessary for the transaction of business, such as a president, a treasurer, a general secretary, corresponding secretaries for the different countries. etc. The congress appoints annually the seat of the general council, elects a number of members, with power to add to their numbers, and appoints time and place for the meeting of the next congress. The delegates assemble at the appointed time and place without any special invitation.

The general council may, in case of need, change the place, but has no power to postpone the time of meeting. 4. On its annual meetings, the general congress shall receive a public account of the annual transactions of the general council. In cases of urgency, it may convoke the general congress before the regular yearly term. 5. The general council shall form an international agency between the different cooperating associations, so that the working men in one country be constantly informed of the movements of their class in every other country; that an inquiry into the social state of the different countries of Europe be made simultaneously, and under a common direction; that the questions of general interest mooted in one society be ventilated by all; and that when immediate practical steps should be needed, as, for instance, in case of international quarrels, the action of the associated societies be simultaneous and uniform. Whenever it seems opportune, the general council shall take the initiative of proposals to be laid before the different national or local societies.

To facilitate the communications, the general council shall publish periodical reports. 6. Since the success of the working men's movement in each country cannot be secured but by the power of union and combination, while, on the other hand, the usefulness of the international general council must greatly depend on the circumstance whether it has to deal with a few national centres of working men's associations, or with a greater number of small and disconnected local societies, the members of the international association shall use their utmost efforts to combine the disconnected working men's societies of their respective countries into national bodies, represented by central national organs. It is self-understood!, however, that the application of this rule will depend upon the peculiar laws of each country, and that, apart from legal obstacles, no independent local society shall be precluded from directly corresponding with the general council. 7. The various branches and sections shall, at their places of abode, and as far as their influence may extend, take the initiative not only in all matters tending to the general progressive improvement of public life, but also in the foundation of productive associations and other institutions useful to the working class.

The general council shall encourage them in every possible manner. 8. Each member of the international association, on removing his domicile from one country to another, will receive the fraternal support of the associated working men. 9. Everybody who acknowledges and defends the principles of the international working men's association is eligible to become a member. Every branch is responsible for the integrity of the members it admits. 10. Every section or branch has the right to appoint its own corresponding secretary. 11. While united in a perpetual bond of fraternal cooperation, the working men's societies joining the international association will preserve their existent organizations intact. 12. Everything not provided for in the present rules will be supplied by special regulations subject to the revision of every congress.

At this congress of Geneva, also, the questions of the limitations of the working day, of juvenile labor, of cooperative labor, of trades unions, and of a statistical inquiry into the situation of the working classes, had been discussed in such a way as to attract the general attention of the European governments. The French government assumed a very hostile attitude toward the society, and the minister of police, M. Pietri, began not only to prosecute its members, but to accuse them of being connected with all the assassination plots which he constantly pretended to discover in France. This policy only helped the international by rendering the association both more popular with the working classes and more formidable in the eyes of capitalists. In the beginning of 1867 the bronze workers of Paris, about 5,000 in number, struck; and as the strike was firmly kept up by money sent over by the English members of the association, the employers yielded. On the other hand, the great strike of the London tailors in the summer of the same year was largely supported by contributions from Germany, France, Belgium, and Switzerland. The association also helped the great strike in the building trade at Geneva in 1868, so that it was carried through to the satisfaction of the working men concerned.

In England, however, where trades unions were already in a much more flourishing condition than on the continent, the main activity of the association consisted not so much in the supply of pecuniary means as in preventing the importation of cheap continental workmen into the British market. Formerly, when a strike took place, the English employers had the facilities for bringing over German, Belgian, and French workmen, and their mere threat of doing so sometimes put an end to the strike. But from the establishment of the international the importation of foreign labor became very difficult, if not impossible; for the moment a strike or lock-out occurred in any of the affiliated trades, the correspondents of the association on the continent were ordered to warn the workmen of their respective localities against concluding any contract with the British employers. The next congress was held at Lausanne in September, 1867. In August of the next year 122 branch societies of middle and south Germany held a meeting at Nuremberg and joined the association in a body.

The third general congress, held at Brussels about a month later (September, 1868), was probably the greatest success of the association, not only in the number of delegates attending it, but also in the importance that was given to the gathering by the leading journals. From the autumn of that year formidable strikes and disturbances occurred all over Europe until the beginning of the Franco-German war; among these were the cotton-spinners' strike at Rouen; the St. Etienne affair, in which more than 50 working men were killed by the troops; the strike at Le Creuzot; the monster disturbances at Vienna, in which more than 50,000 men took part and were dispersed by military force; and innumerable minor strikes in every European country and in almost every trade. At the fourth annual congress, held in Basel in September, 1869, at which a delegate from America was present, it was decided that the next annual gathering should take place in Paris in September, 1870. The war prevented the meeting, and seems to have inflicted a deathblow on the international, by weakening the radical party both in France and in Germany. At all events, the congresses, the general council, and the association itself were not heard of for 18 months, except in their manifestoes protesting against the savagery of warfare and defending the Paris commune.

After that and some disagreements at a congress assembled at the Hague, Dr. Marx withdrew from the association, and the whole establishment went to pieces. But it must not be inferred that the theories of the international have also been abandoned. The various branches of trades unions were trained and made acquainted with each other during its five years' existence, and they are now quite capable of sustaining themselves, supported and informed as they are by the various organs of their party. The number of these journals on the continent is 29. The most important of them are: the Volksstaat, published at Leipsic; Proletaries Munich; Volksfreund, Brunswick; Vollswille, Vienna; Arbeiter-Zeitung, Pesth; Werkman and As-modee, Amsterdam; Toekomst and Vryheid, the Hague; Vorbote and Egalite, Geneva; Arbeiter, Basel; Tagwacht, Zurich; Solidarite Neufchatel; "Cause of the People " (in Russian), Geneva; Internationale and Liberte, Brussels; Werker, Antwerp; Mirabeau, Ver-viers; Federacion, Barcelona; and Solidari-dad, Madrid. In the United States we know only of the "Workingmen's Advocate " of Chicago and Cincinnati, and the Arbeiterunion of New York, as accredited organs of the association. - The gist of all the theories of the internationalists is this: Wages-paid labor must pass away, as serf labor and slave labor have passed away, and must give place to associated labor, which is to be developed to national dimensions and fostered by national means.

No man has a right to call anything his own which he has not produced by his labor. - See the annual reports published in London; also an article by Prof. Beesley in the "Fortnightly Review" for 1870, and "History of the International," translated from the French of E. Ville-tard by Susan M. Day (New Haven, 1874).