The chief characteristic of the reformists is, indeed, frankly to claim, either that all the capitalist-collectivist reforms of the period are Socialist in origin, or that they cannot be put into execution without Socialist aid, or that such reforms are enacted only as concessions, for fear that Socialism would otherwise sweep everything before it. Rev. Carl D. Thompson, formerly a Socialist member of the Wisconsin Legislature, and now Town Clerk of Milwaukee, for example, claims Millerand as a Socialist minister, though the French Socialist Party agreed by an almost unanimous vote that he is not to be so considered, and attributes to this minister a whole series of reforms in which he was only a single factor among many others. Many important legislative changes which have taken place in Italy since 1900, Mr. Thompson accredits to the opportunist Socialist leader, Turati, with his handful of members of the chamber, though it is certain that even at the present moment the Socialists have not yet arrived at a position where they can claim that they are shaping governmental action as strongly as their Radical allies. Mr. Thompson states that the "Socialist Independent Labour Party" of Great Britain had thirty-four representatives in Parliament at a time when the larger non-Socialist Labour Party, which included it, had only this number. He claimed that a majority of this latter party were Socialists, when, as a matter of fact, only a minority were members of any Socialist party even in the ultra-moderate sense in which the term is employed in England, and he accredits all the chief reforms brought about by the Liberal government to this handful of "Socialists," including even the old age pensions which were almost unanimously favored by the old parties.[96] He even lists among his signs of the progress of Socialism the fact that, at the time of writing, fifty-nine governments owned their railways, while a large number had instituted postal savings banks. The same tendency to claim everything good as Socialism is very common in Great Britain. Even the relatively advanced Socialist, Victor Grayson, avoids the question whether there is any social reform which is not Socialism,[97] and it seems to be the general position of British Socialists that every real reform is Socialism--more or less. August Bebel, on the contrary, is quoted as saying, "_It is not a question of whether we achieve this or that; for us the principal thing is that we put forward certain claims which no other party can put forward._" The great German Socialist sees clearly that if Socialism is to distinguish itself from the other parties it must rest its claims solely on demands which are made exclusively by Socialists. This is what those who claim that every reform is Socialism, or is best promoted by Socialists, fail to see. By trying to make the word, "Socialism" mean everything, they inevitably make it mean nothing.