[ALFRED KRUPP AND THE SOCIALISTS]
November 26, 1902
The present speech and the one which follows it, to the working men in Breslau, may conveniently be taken together, as they both concern the Emperor’s attitude toward the Socialists. Of all his policies, his attempt to destroy this political party has been least successful. It had increased from 763,000 in 1887 to 4,250,000 in 1912, when it numbered more than twice as many voters as its nearest competitor, the Centre party, 1,996,000. The Emperor had tried to introduce repeatedly subversion acts which would have made for the persecution of this the largest political party in his empire. When, on October 13, 1895, a manufacturer was murdered in Mülhausen by a workman who had been repeatedly convicted of theft, William II telegraphed to his widow: “Another sacrifice to the revolutionary movement engendered by the Socialists.” This hostile attitude was unavailing and aroused the criticism of the greatest German historian, Mommsen:
“It is unfortunately true that at the present time the Social Democracy is the only great party which has any claim to political respect. It is not necessary to refer to talent. Everybody in Germany knows that with brains like those of Bebel it would be possible to furnish forth a dozen noblemen from east of the Elbe in a fashion that would make them shine among their peers.
“The devotion, the self-sacrificing spirit of the Social Democratic masses, impresses even those who are far from sharing their aims. Our Liberals might well take a lesson from the discipline of the party.” And again, only about a week after this speech of the Emperor’s Mommsen wrote:
“There must be an end of the superstition, as false as it is perfidious, that the nation is divided into parties of law and order on the one hand and a party of revolution on the other, and that it is the prime political duty of citizens belonging to the former category to shun the labor party as if it were in quarantine for the plague and to combat it as the enemy of the state.”
The Emperor has had many friends among the leaders in the industrial world. Alfred Krupp had stood in close relation to his sovereign and had been one of the founders and prime movers in the German Navy League, which, more than anything else, had made possible the realization of the imperial naval policy. The Emperor is altogether mistaken in ascribing the stories circulated about Krupp to the malignity of Social Democratic editors. Very ugly rumors, whether true or false, had long before this time circulated about this industrial leader; they could have been heard in other countries of Europe, especially in Italy, and most particularly in Tiberius’s island of Capri, where he is said to have had a villa.
The address was delivered in the waiting-room of the station at Essen on the day of Krupp’s funeral.