Paul-Louis

“ The democratic alliances that might have worked out slow transformations, the coalitions between the workingmen and the liberals or the radicals are more precarious, more chimerical, and more ineffective in Germany even than in any other country. Even when the ire of the parties devoted to constitutional parliamentarism is roused against the imperial whims and vagaries, they still retain their distrust of the Social Democracy. ”

“ When they united and agreed upon the program of Gotha, both sides condemned irritating controversies with each other, and thought they had found the cement to hold them together in their respective activities in the common war which they waged against the Empire. However great the enthusiasm that their victories at times inspire, however stern the repression of the government the opposing conceptions of forty years ago still clash. Moreover, new conceptions have appeared, which add to the vivacity of the debates. No Socialist party has achieved more thoroughgoing unity than the German party. ”

“ It is certain that the Social Democracy, of necessity uncompromising, despite the revisionist tendiencies that occasionally crop up, is now advancing to the number of four million voters. Many persons who do not allow themselves to be prejudiced or blinded estimate it will have one hundred and twenty seats in the next Reichstag. If we take into consideration the fact that some socialist seats represent 100,000 votes each, while some conservative seats represent no more than 5,000 votes, it will be evident what the moral effect of this invasion must be. ”

“ The radical left dreads the threats of the Social Democrats more than the fatuous blunders of the Kaiser. The very logic of events condemns revisionism and dedicates the workingman to majestic isolation. But this isolation engenders a revolutionary spirit. Allied with the liberals the Social Democracy would eschew all action outside the law. ”

“ The middle class of Würtenburg, Bavaria, and the Grand Duchy of Baden, in order to defend the prerogatives they had acquired—among others a certain degree of liberty of speech and of thought—have courted the proletariat, and visibly sought to obtain its support. The Prussian bourgeois who did not have the same historical education and who did not come into collision with clerical ambitions had no incentive whatsoever to seek the co-operation of the people. ”

“ In many respects the giant cities of contemporary Germany are more remarkable in their development than the mushroom cities of the western United States, Australia, and South America. A leisurely trip through the environs of Hamburg, where all the creations of the engineer's art are piled up, or through the environs of Cologne, reveals the causes of the expansion of the Social Democracy. The revolutionary proletariat in automatically formed in an environment such as is provided by the Germany of factory and mills. ”

“ Daily life naturally leaves its impress, even upon Socialist theory. In France the socialism of the Haute-Garonne and of the Pyrenees-Orientale differs somewhat from that of the industrial zone of which Lille, Roubaix, and Armentières are the centers.
The Germany of the North and the Germany of the South have undergone very distinct historical developments, both before and after the unification. The principle of divine right is grounded on the one hand upon a perfected militarism and an intolerant nagging bureaucracy, penetrated by the idea of its own importance ”

“ Yet in no country do the eternal conflicts spring up with more sustained periodicity. After all, such conflicts are the law of life itself. They have never retarded the progress of power nor dimmed the light of ideas. ”

“ However, the forward march of German Socialism presents nothing surprising or inexplicable to the observer who takes account of the economic transformation of the Empire. Within a few years Germany has undergone an evolution which required almost a century in the other western countries of Europe. ”

“ German Socialism is not free from doctrinal differences and differences as to tactics, no more than is French, English, or German Socialism. Historically it is composed of two parts, two groups, which manifest tendencies if not antagonistic, at least very divergent, the Marxists and the Lassallians. ”

“ Recently the Social Democracy illustrated its activity and accentuated its energy in a whole series of events, the congresses at Copenhagen and Magdeburg, the Moabit disturbances, the successful elections piling up one upon the other, a bold and growing opposition to the imperial will. ”

“ It is certain that such a prohibition has only a symbolic value, which value, however, is by no means a negligible quantity. The rejection of the budgets demanded by the government shows that Socialism fights the modern state face to face, and refuses it the means of subsistance in proportion as its power increases. ”

“ The German Social Democracy is backed by a powerful labor union organization, almost equal in strength to British trade unionism. It may be called upon to intensify its activity with reinforced celerity. The German labor unions profess the collectivist principles, and stand on the ground of the modern class struggle. ”

“ Even those who pretend to scorn it and question its future chances manifest very marked signs of uneasiness, and those who reproach the German Social Democracy with the heaviness of its gait and the timidity of some of its declarations are obliged to render homage to die tenacity of its efforts and the discipline of its organization. ”

“ The normal rule for contemporary politics is the liberal-agrarian combination; nay more, it is the grouping of all the forces of social conservation against the party which seeks to overthrow the present order of society. ”

“ The bourgeoisie of Brandenburg and Pomerania have as a rule been rather feeble in demanding rights for themselves, while they demanded nothing at all for the workingmen. Their acquiescence or timidity consolidated absolutism in the nineteenth century. The particularism of the South screens itself behind the parlimentary professions which the North never knew. The conflict of the classes is necessarily keener in a country in which the elementary liberties are proscribed than in a country which has a less superannuated political régime. ”

“ Nowhere else has the government such elements of coercion at its disposal, nowhere else does it more loudly proclaim the principle of divine right, yet nowhere else are the elements of subversion gathered in such numbers, and nowhere else do they press forward on their course with more energy and determination. ”

“ The large manufacturing plants built in centres that until then remained secondary, the sudden development of the great sea and river ports, like Hamburg, Bremen, Ruhrort, and Duisburg, the utilization of all the mining resources and all the natural forces have brought about a concentration of men unequalled in the old world. ”

“ The bourgeoisie of Würtemburg collaborated with the people to introduce institutions limiting autocratic power, and this task was the easier for them since the feudalism of the South never had the pretensions nor the territorial power of the country squires of Prussia and Mecklenburg. ”

“ It moves at an even pace with the enrichment of the Krupps and Thyssens, with the great trusts, which exploit the blast furnaces of Westphalia and the factories of Ruhr, the chemical products of Saxony and the shipyards of Stettin, with the extension of the docks of the Elbe and the Weser, with the multiplication of the large banks which drain the savings of the masses and dominate trade. That is the ransom that power has to pay. A crack is methodically making its way from the bottom to the top of the imperial edifice, apparently so massive and sumptuous. ”

“ The North is predominatingly Protestant, the great majority of the South are Catholic. Even though Protestantism is economically and socially as conservative as Catholicism, yet it is inclined to dissemble and disguise its tendencies. ”

“ While factory chimneys rise on all sides in the Rhine basin of the province of Westphalia, in Saxony and Silesia, Würtemburg, Baden and Bavaria are countries of rather small and moderate manufacturing enterprises and agricultural exploitation. ”

“ The rapidity of their progress, to which eleven successive elections testify, was so unexpected that it threw all conservative elements into dismay. The reactionary factions have come to admit more and more that the hour to resort to force has struck. ”

“ The Lassallians sought to bring about a transformation of society by conquering and democratizing the state. The Marxists distrusted the state and addressed themselves rather to the strength of the wage workers themselves. ”