But how is this picture changed as soon as we look upon the social democrats! Here national unity is the rule. Of the twelve elected, eight are without any local relation to their districts. Even with the other four birth, representation, and residence do not go hand-in-hand. Bebel, though residing in Saxony, is a native of Rhenish Prussia; Fritzsche is a native of Saxony, but lives in Berlin; Motteler lives in Saxony, but is a native of the Palatinate. (These three were elected in Saxony.) The only one who falls within the general rule is Rittinghausen, who represents Solingen.
The kingdom of Saxony, the hot-bed of particularism, is the rendezvous of the whole German social democracy. Auer, Kapell, Bracke, Liebknecht, Most, and Demmler were returned from that kingdom. The same is true of Schleswig-Holstein; and if it were an independent duchy instead of a Prussian province, it would probably have sent three social democrats into the Reichstag.
The German people have not attained a degree of development sufficient to permit of their coping successfully with the political and social problems spread before them. Meanwhile socialism is widening its sway. Whither it tends we shall proceed to show.
III.
In ten years the German social-democratic party has sprung into importance. In the American Congress no representative of the social democracy is yet seated. In the French Assembly no member would subscribe to the confession of faith of the German socialists. In the English House of Commons there are two working-class members—Burt and Macdonald—but neither have ever thought of the abolition of private industry, the organization of the proletariat with state capital, or the destruction of private property. In Denmark no socialist has yet gained an entrance into Parliament. The German nation alone is represented by men who have declared war against our whole political and social economy. There are twelve of them. Ever since a German Reichstag has existed they have increased. In 1867 two of them entered the constituent Reichstag; in 1868 five entered the North German Reichstag; in 1871 two entered the first German Reichstag; in 1874 nine entered the second German Reichstag; in 1877 twelve entered the present Parliament. To understand these figures it must be noticed that South Germany was without influence in this regular increase, for the districts beyond the line of the Main have not as yet returned one social democrat; the increase occurred wholly on the old ground. The figures speak still more convincingly when we go from the elected to the electors. In the year 1874 only 350,000 votes were cast in favor of the social democracy; in the year 1877 they received 485,000—an increase of well-nigh forty per cent. The whole number of electors who cast valid votes in 1877 was 5,535,000. Of this total 3,600,000 votes were cast for the successful candidates. The last number divided by 397 (the number of members) gives us the average of the number of voters which go to a representative, 9,000. The same process applied to the twelve social-democratic representatives, and the 111,000 votes which are united upon them, makes the proportion remain the same: each one elected represents 9,200 votes.
A different picture is presented if we regard the votes lost by scattering. The 3,600,000 successful voters are in the ratio of 67 per cent. of the total number of voters. This repeats itself if we apply the investigation to the several parties. The total of votes for the national-liberal party was 1,594,000. The number of votes represented in the Reichstag of this persuasion is 1,082,000—that is, a little more than 67 per cent. of those 1,594,000. By comparing with this the corresponding proportion between the number of social-democratic votes and the number which obtained representation, we find that this party has not attained to an equal degree of concentration in its elective elements. Against 485,000 votes cast we find here only 111,000 at the back of successful deputies—i.e., only 23 per cent. of the voters have effected representation. If the general proportion had gained expression here, the number of social-democratic deputies would be thirty-two, or almost as many as the members of the German liberal party. Only for this reason, that 77 per cent. of these votes were scattered, whereas by the general rule only 33 per cent. are scattered, have we escaped the fate of giving the world, in tangible figures, an idea of the intensity of the disease which is threatening our nation. But if for the present we remain safe from such a humiliation, it is none the less true that our political thinking and feeling are already as strongly affected as these figures attest. There may not as yet be any immediate danger from the action of the Reichstag. But in the very fact which is as yet paralyzing the effectiveness of the socialistic elective power lies the greatest danger. For this scattering of votes is an omen of a distribution of advance posts throughout the whole empire, which, if particular circumstances favor it, will suddenly gain in strength, and, joining hands, can obtain control of the country. Had we introduced a method of minority representation into the elective law, the socialistic faction would already be on an equal footing with the other parties. If we had the French method, by which several deputies in large districts are elected on one list, we would, perhaps, already number two dozen social-democratic members in the Reichstag.
The socialistic party may justly boast that it is stronger than it appears to be by its representation in the Reichstag, and that it may reasonably hope for a speedy development of its parliamentary power. But even to-day it is strong. The twelve socialistic members may possibly hold the balance of power. A closer inspection of the election returns shows that nearly one-half of the voters in 1877 were hostile to the development of the German Empire on its present basis. Poles, Welfs, Swabian democrats, protesters from Alsace, social democrats, added to the ultramontanes who serve them as a firm nucleus, bring the sum of the combination up to 2,395,000 voters out of 5,535,000. An increase of but three or four hundred thousand votes would deliver the empire into the hands of its foes. Besides, circumstances favor the socialists. In large cities like Berlin, Hamburg, Breslau, Eberfeld, Bremen, and Lübeck a strong working-class element is easily concentrated. Seven of the twelve socialist members of the Reichstag were elected in Saxony. But wherever the local mind has had a definite and fixed idea socialism has made no progress. It is thus in the Catholic portions of Bavaria and in Alsace-Lorraine. In other quarters, where opinions are more divided, the Catholics form coalitions with the socialists. In France a large class of property-owners incline to Catholicism, because they believe that through it they can save the state and society. In Germany Catholicism throws itself into the arms of inimical elements, in order to strengthen itself.
The official reports of the annual congress of the socialists are highly instructive. The Protocols of the Socialistic Congresses are issued at Hamburg, “printed and published by the brotherhood’s book-printing establishment.” For twenty-five cents as much instruction may be gleaned from them as in the whole mass of socialistic literature. Until recently the socialists were divided into two factions, each represented by a journal which attacked the other violently. But in 1875 they settled their differences, and united in issuing a paper called Forwaerts, or “Progress.” This is the official organ; but besides it there are forty-one socialistic journals in Germany, one of them an illustrated paper, The New World; and fourteen industrial journals, more or less imbued with the spirit of socialism. Of these forty-one organs of the social democracy thirteen appear daily, thirteen tri-weekly, three bi-weekly, and eleven weekly. Twenty-five of them are printed in offices belonging to the brotherhood. Eighteen of these journals have had their birth within the last year. “The rapid augmentation of our press,” says the report of the last congress, “is enormous, not only in the number of journals but in the number of subscribers.”
Germany is the breeding-house for the representation and distribution of socialistic teachings in the rest of the world; it is the apostolic seat of the new faith, whence missionaries are sent to all lands, preaching in all tongues. Wherever in Europe or America a communistic congress or insurrection is to be noted, Germans are at its head, or exercise control. At the congresses of the International, held since 1866 in Geneva, the Hague, and Brussels, Germans have always taken the front seats. The English communists were represented in Geneva in 1873 by the tailor Eccarius, a German Swiss, with whom, in truth, the congress of English workmen which met at Sheffield in 1874 wished to have nothing to do.[[98]] Next to Eccarius, the Germans Johann, Philip, Becker, and Amandus were especially prominent at Geneva. At the Congress of the International at the Hague in 1872 Carl Marx presided in person. This German ascendency is seen also in America.
Here Dr. Bamberger enters into a long description of our railway strike last summer, tracing its origin to German influences. The beginning of all socialistic combinations in America, he says, can be traced to German origin. The “International Working Confederation” of 1867 was founded by German emissaries from Marx’s mother-lodge, and Chicago was its headquarters. The point is made that at the meeting in New York on the 25th of July last Germans were prominent; at a similar meeting in St. Louis, suppressed by the police, among the arrested leaders were Germans, one of whom on the 26th of July, when the mob for a moment seemed victorious, had sent this despatch to Leipzig: “St. Louis, a city of three hundred thousand souls, is in our power.”