all of the countries under consideration have come to
the same conclusion as we in Germany. The French have approved the war
credits, the Belgians have admitted Vandervelde to the Ministry for
Defense. That our comrades in England have come out for the strictest
neutrality is easily understood. Any other attitude on their part would
be a crime against socialism. No one would be so ignorant as to find
analogies between the situation of the German and the English
Socialists. We in Germany had to perform the duty of protecting
ourselves against Czarism, we had to accomplish the task of saving the
country in which Social Democracy has reached its highest point of
development, from impending subjection to Russia. In England the
decision had to be made only as to whether sides should be taken in the
conflict between Russia and Germany, or whether neutrality should be
preserved.

A Germany under the yoke of the Czar would have set back a century the
Socialist movement not only of Germany itself but of the whole world.

Moreover, we Social Democrats have never ceased to be Germans, because
we belong to the Socialist International. And if we in the Reichstag
have unanimously approved the war credit, we have done no more after all
than to carry out what has often been repeated by our greatest
Socialists from the Reichstag platform.

Quotes Bebel and Elder Liebknecht.

The words of Bebel and of the elder Liebknecht have always been heard
with favor in America. And what, for example, has Bebel said in this
connection?

In the preservation of Germany's independence all the laboring
classes, to the very least among them, are just as much concerned
as those who consider themselves the chosen leaders and rulers of
the people, and the working class in nowise desires to bend its
back under any sort of foreign rule.

Still more fully did Bebel declare himself during the session of the
Reichstag of March 7, 1904. At that time he said:

Gentlemen: You cannot in the future carry on any successful wars
without our aid. ["Very true!" "Right!" from the Socialists.] If
you conquer you will conquer with us and not against us; without
our help you can no longer subsist. ["True!" "Right!" from the
Socialists.] I will go still further, we would have the greatest
possible interest were we to be involved in a war--a war in which
the existence of Germany was threatened, for--and I giv