COMMONWEALTH EDISON COMPANY, THE, supplying electric light and power in Chicago, derives from the Western Edison Company, chartered on May 25, 1882, and suc ceeded in 1887 by the Chicago Edison Company. By absorptions and consolidation after 1892, the Chicago Edison became the Commonwealth Edison Company in 19o7. Meanwhile it had in stalled in 1903 the first large all-turbine steam-power station in the United States (5,000 kilowatts).
The Chicago generating capacity in 1892 was 3,18o kw. The Commonwealth Edison generating capacity Nov. 1, 1928, was 1,155,000 kw. (1,S4o,000 horse-power). It was then serving over 900,00o customers. It has immediate interconnections traversing three states. Its maximum demand on December 16, 1927, was 916,000 kw., the highest ever put upon a steam-powered station up to that time. The company's fixed capital as of Dec. 31, 1927, was $242,430,262.78; total assets, par value of outstanding capital stock, $111,088,000; par value of outstanding bonds, $119,774,000; total capital liabilities, $230, 862,000. (J. F. O'K. ) COMMUNE, in its most general sense, a group of persons acting together for purposes of self-government, especially in towns. (See BOROUGH, and COMMUNE, MEDIAEVAL, below.) "Commune" (Med. Lat. communia, Lat. communes, common), is now the term generally applied to the smallest administrative division in many European countries.
"The Commune" is the name given to the Bela Kun regime in Hungary (see HUNGARY : History) and more generally to the Parisian insurrection of March 18 to May 29, 1871. Short-lived communes appeared at the same time in Marseilles, St. Etienne, Lyons and Narbonne. During the Franco-Prussian War the complete separation between Paris and the provinces had led to a total division of political sentiment ; the peasant districts, disliking the prolongation of the war by the republic, returned a majority of monarchist deputies to the new assembly which was elected on Feb. 8, while Paris, which had ardently desired a continuance of the war, returned extreme Republicans. Adolphe Thiers (q.v.) who was selected as premier concurred with the assembly in believing that the disarmament and crushing of the armed National Guard of Paris was a necessary preliminary to the restoration of order. On the night of March 17-18 by his orders General Vinoy made an attempt to seize the cannon of the National Guard parked in Montmartre. This miscarried in the early morning owing to Vinoy's regular soldiers revolting and joining the Guard. In the ensuing tumult two generals were killed and the Government with the exception of Jules Ferry precipitately fled from Paris. The elective "Central Committee" of the Guard was thus unexpectedly left as the only effective authority : it negotiated elaborately with the local mayors (as the remaining legal authorities) and secured their consent to holding on March 26 an election for a commune, which resulted in a heavy "Red Republican" and Socialist majority. Despite the memories of 1793 called up by this name, it was intended by a majority of the members to mark only the assumption by Paris of the municipal powers previously denied her, and on this basis negotiations were privately opened with Thiers. He, however, adhered to his original policy and on April 2 bombarded Paris. A Communard sortie next day was repulsed and thenceforward war was unceasing.
The policy of the Commune was only partly Socialist : the most advanced department in this respect being Leo Frankel's department of labour. Other departments were disorganized by the absence of Blanqui (a prisoner in Thiers' hands) whose followers comprised the majority and were accustomed to work only under his immediate direction. The Commune, which afterwards was regarded as the first "workers' republic," had hardly begun to carry out its semi-Socialist programme, largely adapted from the International, when the military situation became untenable.
Disorganization and unequal odds had led to the loss of Forts Issy and Vanves and the breaching of the wall at Porte Maillot and Auteuil. Thiers' troops entered by the latter on May 22 and occupied the west end, shooting a number of prisoners. Certain of the members of the Commune fled; others, after ordering the shooting of 67 hostages in their hands, con ducted an embittered resistance which only ended with the capture of Fort Vincennes on May 29. The victors executed most of their prisoners out of hand : 20,000 Parisians without distinction of sex or age are generally supposed thus to have perished, though some writers put the figure as high as 36,000. The survivors were mostly deported to New Caledonia. The scene of the greatest slaughter, a wall in Pere Lachaise cemetery, is the site of an annual international Socialist celebration.
See INTERNATIONAL ; BLANQUI, L. A. ; DELESCLUZE ; CLUSERET ; FERRE; FRANCE: History. (R. W. P.)