e you my
word for it--we are ready to the last and the oldest man among us
to shoulder arms and protect German soil not in service to you but
to ourselves--as far as I am concerned, in fact in defiance of you.
["True indeed!" "Right!" from the Socialists.]

We live and fight on this soil, the land of our fathers, as much if
not more our fatherland than yours, to the end that it will be a
joy even for the last and least among us to live therein. ["Very
good!" from the Socialists.]

That is our endeavor and that it is which we are laboring to
achieve, and it is for this reason that we shall repulse with all
the power at our command and to our very last breath every attempt
to snatch from this Fatherland one inch of land. ["Very good!" from
the Socialists.]

There are numerous declarations of similar nature which have been
uttered by our great friend, Wilhelm Liebknecht has also spoken in
similar fashion. On the 28th of November, 1888, he addressed the
Reichstag as follows:

What the opponents of German consolidation over there in France and
Russia fear is a German people united for the defense of their
land. And in this regard--that I can assure you--I have personally
removed for our part every doubt, if any existed, among influential
French politicians; if France attacks, straightway there is no
party in Germany on which she can rely, and straightway every
Socialist in Germany is pledged and prepared to march against the
invader.

For years we have been slandered by our enemies in Germany as traitors
and worse. The imperial anti-Socialist association has had an excellent
example of this alleged treachery of ours. Our vote has stretched the
anti-Socialists in the dust, together with all the other political
vultures who have lived by slandering us.

As Socialists of firm conviction we have voted for the war credit and
moved this vote through a declaration from the party representative,
Haase. In our programme we have demanded that a volunteer army replace
the standing army. Why do we demand the volunteer army? Because we
consider it the best protection against every attack on the Fatherland.
This is it, then! We, too, wish to defend the Fatherland. Suppose that
instead we had said in the hour of need: Yes, we want to protect our
Fatherland against the knout regiments of the Czar all right enough, but
we demand t