When, therefore, in 1878, by a curious coincidence, two attempts were made upon the life of Emperor William I (one by Hödel, an irresponsible person of diseased mind and body, who had been dismissed from the Social Democratic party; and another by Nobiling, who was not a Social Democrat), Bismarck immediately and easily seized this occasion to crush Social Democracy and increase the imperial power. He dissolved the Reichstag, and in one month the law-courts inflicted no less than five hundred years of imprisonment for _lèse-majesté_. Within eight months the authorities dissolved two hundred and twenty-two workingmen's unions, suppressed one hundred and twenty-seven periodical and two hundred and seventy-eight other publications, and innumerable _bona-fide_ co-operative societies were compelled by the police to close their doors without trial and with no possibility of appeal. With equal despatch numerous Social Democrats were expelled from Germany on a few days' notice. This traditional attitude toward the Social Democrat, who from our standpoint is the German radical and liberal, appears again in the present Emperor when he declares (May 14, 1889) that every Social Democrat is synonymous with enemy of the country. How Social Democracy has grown in spite of the Emperor's attempt to check it will be evident from a consideration of the following figures, in which the forty political parties are grouped into their four larger divisions: +----------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+ | | 1871 | 1881 | 1893 | 1907 | 1912 | +----------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+ | Right, or | | | | | | | Conservative | 895,000|1,210,000|1,806,000|2,151,000|1,149,916| | Liberal |1,884,000|1,948,000|2,102,000|3,078,000|3,227,846| | Clerical | 973,000|1,618,000|1,920,000|2,779,000|2,012,990| | Social | | | | | | | Democrats | 124,000| 312,000|1,787,000|3,259,000|4,238,919| +----------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+