WA2K Radio is now on the air, Part 3

A generous exchange.

A genial host wrote to a
friend, "You give me a date,
and I'll give you a dinner."

The Burnt Builder does not Dread the Fire.—The Commune did a vast
amount of evil in Paris, and Communists were guilty of wanton destruction.
If they had destroyed all the Theatres, and if, which is more important, Architects
could have been found to construct new ones with comfortable seats, wide
staircases, and many means of easy ingress and egress, something might have
been forgiven to the Commune. But let us look at home. How many of our
Theatres, which are comfortable enough as far as seats go, will stand the test of a panic ? And how about the Churches ?

The Paris Commune was a revolutionary socialist government that ruled Paris from 18 March to 28 May 1871. Following the defeat of Emperor Napoleon III in September 1870, the French Second Empire swiftly collapsed. In its stead rose a Third Republic at war with Prussia, who subjected Paris to a brutal four-month siege. A hotbed of working-class radicalism, during this time France's capital was primarily defended not by the regular French Army, but by the often politicized and radical troops of National Guard. In February 1871 Adolphe Thiers, the new chief executive of the French national government, signed an armistice with Prussia that disarmed the Army but not the National Guard.

The killing of two French army generals by soldiers of the Commune's National Guard and the refusal of the Commune to accept the authority of the French government led to its harsh suppression by the regular French Army in "La semaine sanglante" ("The Bloody Week") beginning on 21 May 1871. Debates over the policies and outcome of the Commune had significant influence on the ideas of Karl Marx, who described it as an example of the "dictatorship of the proletariat".