Membership in the International is one of the conditions of membership in the revolutionary organization of the Black Hand in Spain.[180] Prince Krapotkine and others were this year condemned to imprisonment for belonging to an International Association of Laborers, and to-day organizations are being formed in America, with the title of Branches of the International Association of Laborers. At the great mass meeting held in Cooper Union to honor the memory of Karl Marx, March 19, 1883, speeches were delivered in English, German, Russian, and other languages, to illustrate the spirit of the International, and to impress upon laborers the fact that at such a time no differences existed between them due to the accident of nationality. One of the speakers declared triumphantly to the audience that the spectacle they were then witnessing was conclusive proof that the International still lived. He was right. The International has caused the governments of Europe no inconsiderable alarm at various times, and it is likely that its importance has been overrated. Still it must be acknowledged that the existence of such a society, presided over by a man of undoubted ability, spreading itself over Europe and America, was in itself a significant fact. Its importance must by no means be estimated by the number of its declared adherents or the attendance at its congresses. Where one laborer avows himself openly an Internationalist, we may be sure that there are twenty holding like views who conceal them from motives of policy. Moreover, the society is still in its infancy. It may yet play a _rôle_ in the world’s history. At present, the International appears like a little cloud on the horizon, no larger than a man’s hand, but it is possible that it points to growths and formations which in the future shall darken the heavens with black and heavy clouds. It is possible, it foreshadows a tragedy of world-wide import, which shall make all the cruelty and terror of the French Revolution sink into utter insignificance. It is possible, it portends the destruction of old, antiquated institutions, and the birth of a new civilization in a night of darkness and horror, in which the roll of thunder shall shake the earth’s foundations, and the vivid glare of lightning shall reveal a carnival of bloodshed and slaughter.