"The  organization  of  the  party  is  known  as  the  "Republican
Feileration."  It  is  administered  by  a  general  council  of  fifty
members  elected  by  itself.  The  council  merely  gives  its  advice,
while  a  directing  committee  of  twenty  members  proposes  measures
for  the  consideration  of  a  bureau  consisting  of  a  president,  six
vice-presidents,  a  secretary-general  and  a  treasurer.  In  each  ar-
rondisscment  or  commune  and  department,  cither  a  committee,  a
federation,  or  a  union,  directs  the  party  activities.  In  some  centers,
such  as  Lyons  and  Toulouse,  there  are  regional  organizations.     A

24


PARTY  PHILOSOPHIES

In  its  electoral  methods,  the  party  is  often  willing  to
support  candidates  of  other  parties  professing  similar
doctrines,  if  its  own  have  no  chance  of  success.  As  long
as  the  purely  progressist  element  of  the  party  is  in  con-
trol, its  prospects  for  electoral  victories  are  slight ;
but  under  more  advanced  leadership,  it  would  doubtless
have  a  considerable  following  among  the  great  class  of
' '  moderate ' '  Frenchmen.
The  ** Democratic  Republican  Alliance"  is  the  other
great  party  of  the  parliamentary  Center.  It  is  not  so
conservative  as  the  Progressists,  and  it  is  not  radical.
It  announces  its  platform  as  "Neither  Reaction  nor
Revolution,  Neither  Imprudence  nor  Adventure."  Its
part  has  been  to  reconcile  the  conservatism  and  the  radi-
calism of  the  Republic.
The  Alliance  was  the  first  party  after  the  war  to  an-
nounce a  program  of  reconstruction  and  reform.  It  de-
nounced all  attempts  to  stir  up  class  antagonism  as  an
invention  of  Teutonic  imperialism,  and  it  pleaded  for
the  union  of  all  parties  in  the  task  of  reconstruction.
