With a clearness that has not been excelled, he showed the dependence of economic upon political power and influence. His economic program was none other than Louis Blanc's state-subsidized workshops. It made no great impression and soon faded away. But his bold plan of a workingman's party fighting fiercely for democracy, and for the betterment of the "normal conditions of the entire working classes," has been developed to surprising perfection. The state, he says, must be the instrument of their power, not the object of their striving. They are in politics, not as politicians, but as proletarians. "The state is nothing but the great organization, the all-embracing association of the working classes." No "sustaining and helping hand" will be their guide. Political supremacy is the "only way out of the desert." And how win the state? There is only one way: through universal suffrage, democracy. "Universal suffrage is not only your political but also your social foundation principle, the condition precedent of all social help. It is the only means for bettering the material conditions of the working classes." Cut loose from Rodbertus economically, and from the Progressists politically, Lassalle was invited to take the leadership of the new movement, which from the start was political rather than economic. He aimed to organize the German workingmen into a great national party, so powerful that it could control governments, make laws, and demand obedience. But it was slow work, and to the fiery spirit of Lassalle its snail's pace was exasperating. It provoked him into violence of speech which led him everywhere into the courts and into constant altercations with the Crown's solicitors. His powerful personality and unusually active mind made a profound impression everywhere. At the last conference of his association which he attended he claimed the Bishop of Mayence and the King of Prussia as converts. The Bishop, Baron von Ketteler, was indeed turning toward Socialism, but not Lassalle's political Socialism. He was the founder of that Christian Socialism which has made the Catholic Church in South Germany and the Rhineland a potent factor in the labor movement. The King, whose conversion Lassalle boldly announced, had only received a delegation of Silesian weavers who laid their grievances before him and were promised the royal sympathy.