The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 10

The universal and direct franchise is, as now appears, not merely your political principle—it is your social principle, the fundamental principle of all social advancement. It is the only means for improving the material condition of the working class. But how can they accomplish the introduction of the universal and direct franchise? For an answer, look to England! The great agitation of the English people against the corn laws lasted for more than five years, but then they had to go—abolished by the Tory ministry itself.

Organize yourselves as a general workingmen's union for the purpose of a lawful and peaceable, but untiring, unceasing agitation for the introduction of universal and direct suffrage in all German states. From the moment when this union includes even one hundred thousand German workingmen, it will be a force with which everybody must reckon. Send abroad this call into every workshop, every village, every cottage. Let the city workingmen pass on their higher standard of judgment and education to the country workers. Debate, discuss, everywhere, daily, untiringly, incessantly, as was done in that great English agitation against the corn laws, in peaceable public assemblies as well as in private meetings, the necessity of the universal and direct franchise. The more the echo of your voice resounds in the ears of millions, the more irresistible its force will be.

Establish financial committees, to which every member of the German workingmen's union must contribute, and to which your plans for organization can be submitted.

With these contributions establish funds which, in spite of the smallness of the individual amounts, would form a tremendous financial power for the purpose of agitation. A weekly contribution of only one silver groschen each from one hundred thousand members of the union would produce over one hundred and sixty thousand thalers yearly. Establish newspapers which would daily bring forward this demand and prove that it is founded upon social conditions; send out by the same means pamphlets for the same purpose; employ with the resources of this union agents to carry this same view into every corner of the land, to arouse with the same call the heart of every workingman, of every cotter and plowman; indemnify from the resources of this union all those workingmen who suffer injury and persecution on account of their activity in this cause.

Repeat daily, unceasingly, this same call. The more it is repeated, the more it will spread and the mightier will become its power. The whole art of practical success consists in concentrating all efforts at all times upon one point, and that the most important one, looking neither to the right nor to the left. Look you neither to the right nor to the left; be deaf to everything which does not mean universal and direct suffrage, to everything which is not connected with it, or able to lead to it.

If you have really spread this call, as you can do within a few years, through the 89 to 96 per cent. of the total population which, as I have shown you, constitutes the poor and propertyless classes of society, then your will can no longer be resisted—depend upon that! Quarrels and feuds may exist about political rights between the government and the capitalist. You may even be denied political powers and therefore universal suffrage, because of the luke-warmness with which political rights are regarded; but universal suffrage, which 89 to 96 per cent. of the population regard as a life question, and therefore spread with the warmth of life through the whole national body—depend upon it, Gentlemen, there is no power which can resist it.

This is the banner which you must raise. This is the standard under which you will conquer. There is no other for you.

1

From Glimpses of Modern German Culture. Permission Dodd, Mead & Company, New York.

2

From The Love Letters of Bismarck. Permission Harper & Brothers, New York.

3

This note has been lost.

4

In subsequent letters he speaks of her "blue gray-black eyes."

5

Inspector at Schönhausen.

6

Compare the enclosure, in which I used often to find the expression of my inmost thought. Now, never any more. (Enclosed was a copy of Byron's poem, "To Inez.")

7

Fraülein von Blumenthal, afterwards Frau von Böhn.

8

English in the original.

9

English in the original.

10

Von Puttkamer Poberow.

11

Frau von Blanckenburg

12

English in the original.

13

English in the original.

14

English in the original.

15

"Right honorable," a common form of address on letters. B. refers more than once to her distinctive way of writing this title.

16

English in the original.

17

Fiancé.

18

Frau von Zanthier, born von Puttkamer.

19

Military chargé.

20

Von Bismarck, the oldest nephew.

21

Von Thadden, commanding a squadron in the First Dragoon Guards.

22

Permission: Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York.

23

Admiral Irminger was charged with the task of notifying in Berlin and Vienna Christian IX.'s accession to the throne; he was granted no audience in Berlin, and left that city on the 5th for Vienna as, in Bismarck's opinion, the Emperor would more easily receive him than the King of Prussia could.

24

About £60,000.

25

Silver wedding.

26

Minister for the Interior, and Vice President of the Ministry of State.

27

From Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman. Permission Harper & Brothers, New York.

28

a gathering of, it is said, 30,000 at the Castle of Hambach in the Palatinate; where speeches were made in favor of Germany, unity, and the Republic.

29

An attempt made by a handful of students and peasants to blow up the Federal Diet in revenge for some Press regulations passed by it. They stormed the guard house, but were suppressed.

30

See the "Proceedings during my stay at Aachen" in Bismarck-Jahrbuch III., and the "Samples of Examination for the Referendariat" in Bismarck-Jahrbuch II.

31

Say "red tape."

32

Polstiche Reden (Cotta's edition), i. 9.

33

See Bismarck-Jahrbuch, iii. 86.

34

Cf. Bismarck's letter to Gerlach of October 7, 1855.

35

Cf. Bismarck's utterance in the Imperial Diet on January 8, 1885. Politische Reden, x. 373.

36

Gramont, La France et la Prusse avant la guerre. Paris, 1872, p. 21.

37

The telegram handed in at Ems on July 13, 1870, at 3.50 p. m. and received in Berlin at 6.9, ran as deciphered:

"His Majesty writes to me: "Count Benedetti spoke to me on the promenade, in order to demand from me, finally in a very importunate manner, that I should authorize him to telegraph at once that I bound myself for all future time never again to give my consent if the Hohenzollerns should renew their candidature. I refused at last somewhat sternly, as it is neither right nor possible to undertake engagements of this kind à tout jamais. Naturally I told him that I had as yet received no news, and as he was earlier informed about Paris and Madrid than myself, he could clearly see that my government once more had no hand in the matter." His Majesty has since received a letter from the Prince. His Majesty, having told Count Benedetti that he was awaiting news from the Prince, has decided, with reference to the above demand, upon the representation of Count Eulenburg and myself, not to receive Count Benedetti again, but only to let him be informed through an aide-de-camp: That his Majesty had now received from the Prince confirmation of the news which Benedetti had already received from Paris, and had nothing further to say to the ambassador. His Majesty leaves it to your Excellency whether Benedetti's fresh demand and its rejection should not be at once communicated both to our ambassadors and to the press."

38

Play on the word gesprengt.

39

From Count Moltke's Letters from Russia, permission Harper & Brothers, New York.

40

Kopecks are equal to about one cent each.

41

A part of the castle in Marienburg, Prussia, containing the hall where the knights of the German order, "Deutsche Ritter," held their conclaves; also the hall itself, one of the showplaces of Eastern Prussia.—TRANSLATOR.

42

A whip with short handle and long thong.—TRANSLATOR.

43

Militia of the Emperor, but differently constituted from the American militia or Prussian Landwehr.—TRANSLATOR.

44

One of the summer palaces of the Emperor.

45

From The Franco-German War of 1870-71. Permission Harper & Brothers, New York and London.

46

From The Franco-German War of 1870-71. Permission Harper & Brothers, New York and London.

47

From Moltke: His Life and Character. Permission Harper & Brothers, New York and London.

48

The word bourgeoisie is henceforth used throughout the discussion to designate the political party now defined.—TRANSLATOR.

49

Here the speaker quotes statistics showing that, on the average, throughout Prussia, a vote by a man of the first class has as much weight as seventeen votes by men of the third class.—TRANSLATOR.

50

The criteria which are here appealed to as working the differences of spiritual constitution between the so-called Germanic peoples and the peoples of antiquity are today questioned at more than one point. And quite legitimately so. Considered as peoples simply, the Greeks or Romans were scarcely less capable of development than the Germanic peoples. That their States, their political organizations, collapsed because of the decay of certain institutional arrangements peculiar to the social life of the times, that is a fortune in which the states of antiquity quite impartially have shared with the various States of the Germanic world. Political structures in general are capable of but a moderate degree of development. If the development proceeds beyond this critical point the result, sooner or later, is a historical cataclysm, whereby the old State is supplanted by a new form of social organization resting on a new foundation. As elements in this new foundation there may be comprised new religious or new ethical notions, but, in a general way, it is to be said that, except in the theocratic States, the rôle played by religion is only of secondary importance even in antiquity.

Socrates was not the first nor the only one in Greece who had taught "new gods." That he in particular was called on to drink the hemlock was due to reasons of State policy, which had but a very slight and unessential relation to the acts of sacrilege of which he was accused. It may be added that this Greek promulgator of new gods is among the German peoples fairly matched by John Huss and thousands of other victims of religious persecution.

Lassalle's mistake lies in this, that he seeks the motor force of development in the "spirit" of the nations, instead of looking for an explanation of their spiritual life in the peculiar circumstances which condition their development. But, in spite of this, it must be said that his conclusions as bearing upon the modern situation are for the most part substantially sound.—TRANSLATOR.]

51

According to this doctrine, the motions of the "Monads"—animistically conceived units of which the entire universe, organic or inorganic, was held to be constituted—were (by the fiat of God at the creation of the world) bound in a preordained sequence, in such a manner that all these motions constitute a comprehensive, harmonious series. Wherefore, all events whatever that may take place, take place as the necessary outcome of the constitution of these monads moving independently of one another.—TRANSLATOR.

52

Permission to teach.

53

I have fought not without glory.

54

Don't disturb my circles.

55

A new and unheard-of-crime.

56

In case it becomes necessary.

57

Confusion of one thing with another.

58

Honor to whom honor belongs!

59

Hear also the other side.

60

That is, for high treason.

61

Calumniate boldly, some of it will always stick.