Look at the diminution in the number of unemployed. The unemployed of yesterday are the army of today—their spirit is that of the soldier of yesterday and of today—the one spirit that animates us all.

When this spirit, this moral greatness of the people, when the proved heroism of our troops is called by our enemies militarism, if they call us Huns and barbarians, we can be proud enough and need not worry. This wonderful spirit in the hearts of the German people, this unprecedented unity, must and will be victorious. When a glorious and happy peace is concluded we will maintain this spirit as the holiest legacy of this terrible and serious and great time. I repeat the words of the Emperor:

"I know no parties. I know only Germans. When the war is ended parties will return without parties, without a political fight. There is no political life, not even for the freest and most united people."

Many seats are vacant here. Where are their holders? You know. There is the vacant seat of Herr Frank, (Socialist member;) but he will return no more. The spirit of cheerful self-sacrifice which animates us here as the guardians of the people's weal inspires the entire people.

Japan joined our enemies from a desire to seize as booty the monument of German culture in the Far East. On the other hand, we have found an ally in Turkey, as all the Moslem peoples want to throw off the English yoke and shatter the foundations of England's colonial power. Under the banner of our army and the flag of our fleet we shall conquer.

This, then, is our inspiration—our vow! Germany shall fight on and continue to sacrifice herself on the altar of civilization and progress and patriotism until she shall have secured a guarantee from all that none henceforth shall disturb—shall dare to disturb—the peace of this, our German land.

A SONG OF THE SIEGE GUN.

By KATHERINE DRAYTON MAYRANT SIMONS, Jr.

WELDED in the devil-workshop of the Essen blacksmith's stall,
There conceived and consecrated to the nations' final fall,
In the iron of my entrails, in my thews of shrunken steel,
In my mighty bore of barrel, in the claw of cleated wheel,
Through the travail of my forging, was there bred the ancient hate—
Primal blood-feud of the races, which the races' blood must sate!
You, the Empress of the Ocean—did your statesmen ne'er foretell
That your fortresses should crumble at the hot kiss of my shell?
While the garnered greed of ages lay in leash beneath my breast,
Did you deem an oath of honor more than is a royal jest?
While you slept my masters labored! In the metal of my frame
Molded they the mighty promise of a continent in flame!
In the casting of my carriage, in the boring of my sheath,
They have riveted my armor with the dormant dragon teeth!
By my twelve-mile range projectile, by my weight of forty tons,
Do I mock the slender playthings which Allies now call their guns!
Ever angry and unglutted, when the rocking fight is red,
Then my slogan stirs all sleepers save the still and dreamless dead!
Lo! The past is but a promise! When my Saturnalia comes,
Then the Saxon stands uncovered to a march of muffled drums,
Then the northern snows are trampled where the Slavic horsemen sleep,
And the Latin women tremble for their lovers as they weep!