(3) the Right Center-led by Philipp Scheidemann — which theoretically held to the traditional party program, yet in fact strongly inclined to revisionism; (4) the Revisionists, led by Bernstein and Eduard David; and (5) the Imperial Socialists represented by Wolfgang Heine and Edmund Fischer who supported the demand for a large army, a strong navy, and an aggressive colonial and commercial policy.'

All in all, the party, while nominally revolutionary, was in fact a very orderly organization, whose immediate program was so moderate as to command support among vast numbers of people who did not bear the party label. The party grew ever more tolerant and opportunist. Instead of opposing reforms undertaken on the basis of existing institutions, as it once did, in the hope of bringing about the establishment of a socialistic state. by a single grand coup, it worked for such reforms as were felt to be attainable and contented itself with proclaiming only occasionally, and even only incidentally, its ultimate ideal. The state as at present constituted became a means of removing evils, not itself an evil to be removed. Perhaps we may say that the party was at once reforming and revolutionary -- reforming in that the great majority of its members definitely repudiated violence and forcible measures and advocated a positive, constructive policy of social amelioration; and yet revolutionary, because, after all, it clung to its faith in a radical transformation of society which should involve the end of social classes, the displacement of capitalist production, and the cessation of the exploitation of labor by the economically powerful.2

The Social Democrats and the Government. The German Social Democracy was by 1914 essentially political. In accordance with Lassalle's dictum, "Democracy, the universal ballot, is the laboring man's hope," it made its immediate issue the establishment of universal suffrage and the modernization in other respects of the electoral arrangements of Empire, states, and municipalities. "Marx," wrote a foreign observer in 1913, "is a tradition, democracy is an issue." Once the party's representatives were present in the Reichstag merely to make the cause of the workingman heard, to protest, to obstruct, and to embarrass the government. Gradually, and not without criticism from the extremists, they became constructive legis

1 E. Bevan, German Social Democracy during the War Lichtenberger, Evolution of Modern Germany, 172. internal differences in the party is fully related in E. cialiste allemande (Paris, 1893), 541-572.

(New York, 1919), 2−3. The earlier history of the Milhaud, La démocratie so

lators, introducing bills, serving on committees, seeking and holding offices, and finally, after the elections of 1912, joining with the Radicals in assuming virtual leadership of the Reichstag itself. In many of the states, notably Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg, they voted for budgets prepared by representatives of other parties, participated in court functions, and worked hand in hand, in campaigns and in local councils and diets, with Radical, and even National Liberal, organizations.

So far as the Empire as a whole and the kingdom of Prussia were concerned, the socialists advanced farther to meet the government than the government to meet the socialists. The belief was still prevalent in official circles that the Social Democrats were enemies of the monarchy and were conspiring its eventual overthrow. Hence, socialists were rigorously excluded from all positions of trust and honor at the disposal, directly or indirectly, of the government. No socialist was ever tendered a ministerial or other public office, and the ban was extended to judicial offices, professorships in the universities, pastorates in the state church, and teaching appointments in the public schools. The tension was less pronounced in the states of the south than in Prussia, but it existed in some degree everywhere.1

1 In addition to the references cited on p. 689, the reader may consult R. C. K. Ensor [ed.], Modern Socialism (2d ed., London, 1907); V. G. Simkhovich, Marxism vs. Socialism (New York, 1913); Orth, Socialism and Democracy in Europe, Chaps. vii-viii; W. E. Walling, "The New Revisionism in Germany," in Internat. Soc. Rev., Nov., 1909; J. E. Barker, Modern Germany; her Political and Economic Problems (new ed., London, 1912), Chaps. xviii-xix; and C. J. H. Hayes, "The History of German Socialism Reconsidered," in Amer. Hist. Rev., Oct., 1917.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE WAR-TIME MOVEMENT FOR POLITICAL REFORM AND THE REVOLUTION OF 1918

Demand for Political Reconstruction prior to 1914. The German governmental system as described in preceding chapters was bolstered up by many powerful influences, but it by no means met the approval of all elements of the people. The liberalism of 1848, which looked toward manhood suffrage, responsible ministers, limited monarchy, and guarantees of individual liberty, never wholly died out. In their official program, adopted at Erfurt in 1891, the Social Democrats called for a long and remarkable list of political reforms: universal, equal, and direct suffrage by ballot in all elections for all subjects of the Empire over twenty years of age, without distinction of sex; proportional representation; biennial elections to the Reichstag; an annual vote of taxes; direct legislation by the people by means of the initiative and the referendum; decision of questions of peace and war by the Reichstag; and " self-government by the people in Empire, state, province, and commune." Furthermore, for many years prior to the Great War the moderate, middleclass parties likewise advocated the abolition of the Prussian three-class electoral system, periodic reapportionment of seats, and the establishment of ministerial responsibility to the Reichstag.

After 1900 discussion in liberal circles centered mainly around two proposed reforms: the establishment of ministerial responsibility, especially as applied to the Chancellor, and the abolition of the Prussian three-class system. The first question was brought unexpectedly to the fore in the autumn of 1908 by the famous Daily Telegraph incident. At a moment when the international situation was exceptionally tense over the Casablanca episode the London Daily Telegraph published an account of an interview in which the Kaiser declared that while the prevailing sentiment among large sections of the middle and

1 Precipitated by the arrest of some German deserters from the French Foreign Legion at Casablanca, in Morocco. Annual Register (1908), 298–299.

lower classes of his own people was not friendly to England, the German government was well disposed and had actively befriended that country during the South African war. The interview was a masterpiece of indiscretion, and it aroused a storm of disapprobation in Germany such as the Emperor had never before encountered. "A stranger," relates the American ambassador of the time, "might easily have inferred from the tide of public feeling that swept over the Empire that William II was about to be deposed. The serious journals were loud in their protests. The comic papers were remorseless in their caricatures. One would have supposed that there was no law in Germany against lèse majesté."

"1

At the Wilhelmstrasse it was revealed that the manuscript of the interview had been submitted before publication to the Chancellor, but had been returned to its author unread. For this negligence Prince von Bülow was duly apologetic. When, however, the Emperor refused to accept his resignation the minister did not refrain from throwing the final burden on his master by pledging that while he remained Chancellor such personal interference in the conduct of foreign affairs would not be allowed to occur again. "The perception," the Chancellor declared in the Reichstag, "that the publication of these conversations in England has not had the effect the Kaiser wished, and in our own country has caused profound agitation and painful regret, will . . . lead the Kaiser for the future, in private conversation also, to maintain the reserve that is equally indispensable in the interest of a uniform policy and for the authority of the Crown. If it were not so, I could not, nor could my successor, bear the responsibility." Following this announcement, the Official Gazette stated that "His Majesty, while unaffected by public criticism which he regards as exaggerated, considers his most honorable Imperial task to consist in securing the stability of the policy of the Empire while adhering to the principle of constitutional responsibility. The Kaiser accordingly indorses the statements of the Imperial Chancellor in the Reichstag, and assures Prince von Bülow of his continued confidence." Chastened by the protests of his long-suffering people, the lordly monarch thus promised to mend his ways, when a less conciliatory policy might have produced revolution. The popular victory-if such it be considered-was, however, hollow. The Reichstag gained no new power; stitutional responsibility" continued to mean responsibility

1 Hill, Impressions of the Kaiser, 112.

to the Emperor only; the Chancellor was still to be merely the Emperor's "other self "; the régime of personal diplomacy was not ended, and the issues of war and peace still lay absolutely in the hands of the ill-balanced, irresponsible head of the Prussianized Empire.1

The issue was kept alive by a prolonged controversy between the Chancellor and the Reichstag over financial reform. Von Bülow proposed to meet recurring deficits by a new inheritance tax, arranged to fall mainly on the landed and capitalist classes. Rather than approve the plan, the Conservatives deserted their newly acquired allies, the National Liberals, and resumed working relations with the Center; and the revived Blue-Black bloc thwarted the reform. The resignation of the Chancellor followed; but, as has been pointed out elsewhere, the act involved no recognition of responsibility to the Reichstag. Von Bülow retired partly because he was unwilling to go on without the tax upon which he had set his heart, but also partly, and perhaps mainly, because he felt that his relations with the Emperor could never again be what they had been before the Daily Telegraph affair. During the fiscal controversy the principle of ministerial responsibility was strongly asserted on the floor of the Reichstag. But the new Chancellor, von BethmannHollweg, promptly and fully repudiated it. "A Chancellor dependent only upon the Emperor and the king of Prussia," he declared," is the necessary counterpoise to the freest of electoral laws, devised by Bismarck on the supposition that the Bundesrath and the Imperial Chancellor would maintain their independence."

In 1913 the question was brought to the front again by the Saverne or, to use the German name, Zabern- incident. During a street disturbance in the Alsatian garrison town of Zabern a swaggering lieutenant slashed an unoffending crippled cobbler with his sword. The affair brought the civil and military authorities of Alsace-Lorraine into conflict and aroused indignation among non-militaristic people throughout the Empire. In the Reichstag the Socialists and Radicals, who were in the majority, bitterly assailed the government; and when the Chancellor announced that the action of the troops would be upheld, they carried a vote of "no confidence" by the heavy majority of 293 to 54. The only result was that the Emperor

On the Daily Telegraph episode see Annual Register (1908), 299-302, and Shaw, William of Germany, 304 308. The complete text of the interview is printed in Hill, Impressions of the Kaiser, 329-335.