At the end of this year the reports given from the several states of the working out of the anti-socialist law were most discouraging to the Chancellor. From everywhere the report came that agitation was unintermittent, and being carried on with zeal and success. And Bebel said publicly that nowhere was the socialist party more numerous or better organized than in the districts where the minor state of siege had been proclaimed. The year 1886 was a sensational one. Nine of the socialists, including Bebel, Dietz, Auer, Von Vollmar, Frohme--all deputies--were charged with taking part in a secret and illegal organization. All the accused were sentenced to imprisonment for six or nine months, Bebel and his parliamentary associates receiving the heavier penalty. The Reichstag asked for reports upon the working of the law. Again the discouraging news came that the movement seemed to be growing faster than ever before. The crushing by repressive measures did not, however, exhaust Bismarck's plans for annihilating the socialists. At the same time he outlined an extraordinary program for winning the support of the working classes. Early in the eighties he proposed his great scheme of social legislation, intended to improve radically the lot of the toilers. Compulsory insurance against accident, illness, invalidity, and old age was instituted as a measure for giving more security in life to the working classes. Insurance against unemployment was also proposed, and Bismarck declared that the State should guarantee to the toilers the right to work. This began an era of immense social reforms that actually wiped out some of the worst slums in the great industrial centers, replaced them with large and beautiful dwellings for the working classes, and made over entire cities. The discussions in the Reichstag now seemed to be largely concerned with the problem of the working classes and with devising plans to obliterate the influence of the socialists over the workers and to induce them once more to ally themselves to the monarchy and to the _Junkers_.