Part 8 (2/2)
The Centrum, or Catholic party, is in theory not a religious party; in practice it is, though it does not bar out Protestant members who hold similar views to their own. Its political activity began in 1870, and the first call for the formation of the party came from Reichensperger in the Kolnischer Volkszeitung. The famous leader of the party, and a politician who even held his own against Bismarck, was the Hanoverian Justizminister, Doctor Ludwig Windthorst. The stormy time of the party was from 1873 to 1878, when Bismarck attempted to oppose the growing power of the Catholic Church, and more particularly of the Jesuits.
The so-called May laws of that year forbade Roman Catholic intervention in civil affairs; obliged all ministers of religion to pa.s.s the higher-schools examinations and to study theology three years at a university; made all seminaries subject to state inspection; and gave fuller protection to those of other creeds. In 1878 Bismarck needed the support of the Centrum party to carry through the new tariff, and the May laws, except that regarding civil marriage, were repealed. The party stands for religious teaching in the primary schools, Christian marriage, federal character of empire, protection, and independence of the state. More than any other party it has kept its representation in the Reichstag at about the same number. In 1903 they cast 1,875,300 votes and had 100 members. In 1907 they had 103 members, and in the last election of 1912 they won 93 seats. Even this Catholic party is now divided. Count Oppersdorff leads the ”Only-Catholic” party, against the more liberal section which has its head-quarters at Cologne, where the late Cardinal Fisher was the leader.
At the session of the Reichstag in 1913, when the question of the readmission of the Jesuits was raised, the Centrum party even sided with the Socialists in the matter of the expropriation law for Posen, in order to annoy the chancellor for his opposition to themselves. Such political miscegenation as this does not show a high level of faith or of policy.
It may be of interest to the reader to know that in 1903 the population of Germany was 58,629,000, and the number qualified to vote 12,531,000; in 1907 the population was 61,983,000, and the number qualified to vote, 13,353,000; in 1912 the population was 65,407,000, and the qualified voters numbered over 14,000,000, of whom 12,124,503 voted. In 1903 there were 9,496,000 votes cast; in 1907, 11,304,000.
The German Reichstag has 397 members, or 1 representative to every 156,000 inhabitants; the United States House of Representatives has 433 members, or 1 for every 212,000 inhabitants; England, 670 members, or 1 for every 62,000; France, 584, or 1 for every 67,000; Italy, 508, or 1 for every 64,000; Austria, 516, or 1 for every 51,000.
Despite the fact that the Conservative and the Catholic parties have much in common, and are the parties of the Right and Centre: these names are given the political parties in the Reichstag according to their grouping on the right, centre, and left of the house, looking from the tribune or speaker's platform, from which all set speeches are delivered, they are often at odds among themselves, and Bismarck and Bulow brought about tactical differences among them for their own purposes. Their programme may be summed up as ”As you were,” which is not inspiring either as an incentive or as a command.
The Liberal parties are the National liberale; Fortschrittspartei, or Progressives; and the Freisinnige Volkspartei, or Liberal Democratic party.
The National Liberal party was strongest during the days when Prussia's efforts were directed mainly toward a federation and a strengthening of the bonds which hold the states together; ”unter dem Donner der Kanonen von Koniggratz ist der nationalliberale Gedanke geboren.” Loyalty to emperor and empire, country above party, a fleet competent to protect the country and its overseas interests, are watchwords of the party. The party is protectionist, and in matters of school and church administration in accord with the Free Conservatives.
The Liberal Democratic party demands electoral reform, no duties on foodstuffs, and imperial insurance laws for the workingmen.
The Fortschrittspartei finds its intellectual beginnings, in the condensing of the hazy clouds of revolution in 1848, in the persons of Wilhelm von Humboldt and Freiherr von Stein. Politically, the party came into being in 1861, and Waldeck, von Hoverbeck, and Virchow are familiar names to students of German political history; later Eugen Richter was the leader of the party in the Reichstag. This party is still for free-trade, in opposition to military and bureaucratic government, favorable to parliamentary government. Of the grouping and regrouping of these parties; of their divisions for and against Bismarck's policies; of their splits on the questions of free-trade and protection; of their leanings now to the right, now to the left; of their differences over details of taxation for purposes of defence; of their att.i.tudes toward a powerful fleet, and toward the Jesuits, it would require a volume, and a large one, to describe. Though it is dangerous to characterize them, they may be said without inaccuracy to represent the democratic movement in Germany both in thought and political action, and to hold a wavering place between the Conservatives and the Social Democrats.
The Social Democratic party, the party of the wage-earners only a.s.sumed recognizable outlines after the appeal of Ferdinand La.s.salle for a workingman's congress at Leipsic in 1863. In 1877 they mustered 493,000 voters. Bismarck and the monarchy looked askance at their growing power. It was attempted to pa.s.s a law, punis.h.i.+ng with fine and imprisonment: ”wer in einer den offentlichen Frieden gefahrdenden Weise verschiedene Kla.s.sen der Bevolkerung gegeneinander offentlich aufreizt oder wer in gleicher Weise die Inst.i.tute der Ehe, der Familie und des Eigentums offentlich durch Rede oder Schrift angreift.” This was a direct attack upon the Socialists, but the Reichstag refused to pa.s.s the law. In May, 1878, and shortly after in June, two attempts were made upon the life of the Kaiser. Bismarck then easily and quickly forced through the new law against the Socialists.
Under this law newspapers were suppressed, organizations dissolved, meetings forbidden, and certain leaders banished. For twelve years the party was kept under the watchful restraint of the police, and their propaganda made difficult and in many places impossible. After the repeal of this law, and for the last twenty years, the party has increased with surprising rapidity. In 1893 the Social Democrats cast 1,787,000 votes; in 1898, 2,107,000; in 1903, more than 3,000,000; and in the last election, 1912, 4,238,919; and they have just returned 110 delegates to the Reichstag out of a total of 397 members.
It is noteworthy that in America there is one Socialist member of the House of Representatives; while in Germany, which combines autocratic methods of government, with something more nearly approaching state owners.h.i.+p and control, than any other country in the world, the most numerous party in the present Reichstag is that of the Social Democrats.
Freedom is the only medicine for discontent. There is no rope for the hanging of a demagogue like free speech; no such disastrous gift for the socialist as freedom of action. Imagine what would have happened in America if we had attempted to suppress Bryan! The result of giving him free play and a fair hearing, the result of allowing the people to judge for themselves, has been a prolonged spectacle of political hari-kiri which has had a wholesome though negative educational influence. The most accomplished oratorical Pierrot of our day, who changes his political philosophy as easily as he changes his costume, has seen one hundred and sixty cities and towns in America turn to government by commission, and has kept the heraldic donkey always just out of reach of the political carrots, until the Republican party itself fairly pushed the donkey into the carrot-field, but even then with another leader. No autocrat could have done so much.
As early as 1887 Auer, Bebel, and Liebknecht outlined the programme of the party, and this programme, again revised at Erfurt in 1891, stands as the expression of their demands. They claim that: ”Die Arbeiterkla.s.se kann ihre okonomischen Kampfe nicht fuhren und ihre okonomische Organisation nicht entwickeln ohne politisehe Rechte.”
Roughly they demand: the right to form unions and to hold public meetings; separation of church and state; education free and secular, and the feeding of school-children; state expenditure to be met exclusively by taxes on incomes, property, and inheritance; people to decide on peace and war; direct system of voting, one adult one vote; citizen army for defence; referendum; international court of arbitration. Their leader in the Reichstag to-day is Bebel, and from what I have heard of the debates in that a.s.sembly I should judge that they have not only a majority over any other party in numbers, but also in speaking ability. The members of the Socialist party always leave the house in a body, at the end of each session, just before the cheers are called for, for the Emperor. They have become more and more daring of late in their outspoken criticism of both the Emperor and his ministers. In consequence, they are replied to with ever-increasing dislike and bitterness by their opponents. At a recent banquet of old university students in Berlin, Freiherr von Zedlitz, presiding, quoted Barth and Richter: ”The victory of Social Democracy means the destruction of German civilization, and a Social Democratic state would be nothing more than a gigantic house of correction.”
In addition to the four important political divisions in the Reichstag, the Conservative, Liberal, Clerical, and Socialist, there are many subdivisions of these. Since 1871 there have been some forty different parties represented, eleven conservative, fourteen liberal, two clerical, nine national-particularist, and five socialist. To-day, besides four small groups and certain representatives acknowledging no party, there are some eleven different factions.
1871 1881 1893 1907 1912
Right, or Conservative. 895,000 1,210,000 1,806,000 2,141,000 1,149,916 Liberal................ 1,884,000 1,948,000 2,102,000 3,078,000 3,227,846 Clerical............... 973,000 1,618,000 1,920,000 2,779,000 2,012,990 Social Democrats....... 124,000 312,000 1,787,000 3,259,000 4,238,919
So far as one may so divide them, the voters have aligned themselves as follows: In the last elections, in 1912, the Conservatives and their allies elected 75 members; the Clericals, 93; the Poles, 18; and the Guelphs, 5; and these come roughly under the heading of the party of the Right. Under the heading Left, the National Liberals and Progressive party elected 88, and the Social Democrats 110 members to the Reichstag. The parties stand therefore roughly divided at the moment of writing as 191 Conservative, and 200 Radical, with 6 members unaccounted for. The Poles with 18 seats, the Alsatians with 5, the Guelphs and Lorrainers and Danes with 8 seats, and the no-party with 2 seats, are also represented, but are here placed with the party of the Right. To divide the parties into two camps gives the result that, roughly, four and a half millions voted that they were satisfied, and seven and a half millions that they were not.
No doubt any chancellor, including Doctor von Bethmann-Hollweg, would be glad to divide the Reichstag as definitely and easily as I have done. Theoretically these divisions may be useful to the reader, but practically to the leader they are useless. Bebel, the leader of the Social Democrats, declares himself ready to shoulder a musket to defend the country; Heydebrandt, the leader of the Conservatives, and possibly the most effective speaker in the Reichstag, has spoken warmly in favor of social reform laws; the Clericals are for peace, almost at any price; the Agrarians or Junkers for a tariff on foodstuffs and cattle, and one might continue a.n.a.lyzing the parties until one would be left bewildered at their refining of the political issues at stake. Back to G.o.d and the Emperor; and forward to a const.i.tutional monarchy with the chancellor responsible to the Reichstag, and perhaps later a republic, represent the two extremes.
Between the two everything and anything. It is hard to put together a team out of these diverse elements that a chancellor can drive with safety, and with the confidence that he will finally arrive with his load at his destination. In addition to these parties there are the frankly disaffected representatives of conquered Poland, of conquered Holstein, of conquered Alsace-Lorraine, and of conquered Hanover, this last known as the Guelph party; all of them anti-Prussian.
It is not to be wondered at that the comments, deductions, and prophecies of foreigners are wildly astray when dealing with German politics. In America, religious differences and racial differences play a small role at Was.h.i.+ngton; but the 220 Protestants, the 141 Catholics, the 3 Jews, the 5 free-thinkers, and so on, in the last Reichstag are in a way parties as well. In that same a.s.sembly 2 members were over 80, 78 over 60, 271 between 40 and 60, 42 under 40, and 3 under 30 years of age. One hundred and six members were landed proprietors; 220 were of the liberal professions, including 37 authors, 35 judges or magistrates, 21 clericals, 7 doctors, and 1 artist; 13 merchants; 21 manufacturers; and 20 shopkeepers and laborers. Seventy-two members were of the n.o.bility, a decided falling off from 1878, when they numbered 162. Two hundred and fifty members were educated at a university, and practically all may be said to have had an education equal if not superior to that given in our smaller colleges.
In the American Congress, in the House of Representatives, we have 212 lawyers, though there are only 135,000 lawyers in our population of 90,000,000. We have in that same a.s.sembly 50 business men, representing the 15,000,000 of our people engaged in trade and industry. Perhaps the German Reichstag is as fairly representative as our own House of Representatives, though both a.s.semblies show the babyhood of civilization which still votes for flas.h.i.+ng eyes, thumping fists, hollering patriotism, and smooth phrases. The surprising feature of elective a.s.semblies is that here and there Messrs. Self-Control, Ability, Dignity, and Independence find seats at all. The members are paid, since 1906, a salary of 3,000 marks, with a deduction of 20 marks for each day's absence. They have free pa.s.ses over German railways during the session. The Reichstag is elected every five years.
The appearance of the Reichstag to the stranger is notable for the presence of military, naval, and clerical uniforms. It is, as one looks down upon them, an a.s.sembly where at least one-fourth are bald or thin-haired, and together they give the impression of being big in the waist, careless in costume, slovenly in carriage, and lacking proper feeding, grooming, and exercise. It is clearly an a.s.semblage, not of men of action, but of men of theories. Not only their appearance betrays this, but their debates as well, and what one knows of their individual training and preferences goes to substantiate this judgment of them. There are no soldiers, sailors, explorers, governors of alien people; no men, in short, who have solved practical problems dealing with men, but only theorists. Such men as Gotzen, Solf, and others, who have had actual experience of dealing with men, are rare exceptions. Probably the best men in Germany wish, and wish heartily, that there were more such men; indeed, I betray no secret when I declare that the most intelligent and patriotic criticism in Germany coincides with my own.
The electoral divisions of Germany, as we have noted elsewhere, have not been changed for forty years, with a consequent disproportionate representation from the rural, as over against the enormously increased population, of the urban and industrial districts. The Conservatives, for example, in 1907 gained 1 seat for every 18,232 votes; the Clericals or Centrum, 1 seat for every 20,626 votes; the National Liberals, 1 for every 30,635 votes; and the Social Democrats, 1 for every 75,781 votes. It may be seen from this, how overwhelming must be the majority of votes cast by the Social Democrats, in order to gain a majority representation in the Reichstag itself. In 1912 they cast more than one-third of the votes, and are represented by 110 members out of the total of 397.
For the student of German politics it is important to remember, that the Social Democrats are not all representatives of socialism or of democracy. Their demands at this present time are far from the radical theory that all sources of production should be in the hands of the people. Only a small number of very red radicals demand that. Their successes have been, and they are real successes, along the lines of greater protection and more political liberty for the workingman. The number of their votes is swelled by thousands of voters who express their general discontent in that way. The state in Germany owns railroads, telegraph and telephone lines; operates mines and certain industries, and both controls and directly helps certain large manufactories which are either of benefit to the state, or which, if they were entirely independent, might prove a danger to the state. The state enforces insurance against sickness, accident, and old age, and the three million office-holders are dependent upon the state for their livelihood and their pensions.
It is a striking thing in Germany to see human nature cropping out, even under these ideal conditions; for it is difficult to see how the state could be more grandmotherly in her officious care of her own.
<script>