hey have performed their
work for the commonweal? Was it not true that if mankind would not
renounce its claims to bread and other necessities, it must pay for the
satisfaction of wants with the tribute of health and life? that every
comfort, every pleasure added to existence was paid for by human
sacrifice? that the masks of tragedy worn at this meeting were merely
the corporate expressions of a law which united development and
progress with pain and destruction? In this case the whole socialist
programme was manifestly wrong, and the sum of the workman's grievances
was not the result of the economical arrangements of society, but of
the eternal conditions of civilization, that the theory of the methods
of labor and their amelioration was not the expectation of an equal
division of property, but rather of the contrivances of the inventor.

While Wilhelm was absorbed in these reflections the first speaker of
the evening appeared on the platform, a little dapper man, restless as
quicksilver, with long hair, large mouth, and a shrill voice. He opened
the meeting with an extraordinary volubility, in a whirl of pantomimic
gesture and excitement, violently denouncing the capitalists; "infamous
bloodsuckers" as he called them. He painted hopelessly confused
pictures, with constant faults of grammar--of the hard fate of the
workingman, and the black treachery of the property-owning classes.
They were slaveowners who paid them their daily wages by shearing the
wool off their backs, and enjoyed riotous luxury themselves while the
poor destitute ones were engulfed in a chasm of misery. The workman
must possess the fruit of his labor himself, like the bird in the air,
or the fish in the water. He who produced nothing was a parasite, and
deserved to be extirpated; he was only a drag, consequently a poison
for the rest of mankind. The Commune in Paris was the first signal of
warning for the thieves of society. Soon the great flood would burst
forth which would carry away all thieves and tyrants, usurers and
bloodsuckers, and the workingmen must be united and get their weapons
ready. Unity was strength, and to allow themselves to be fleeced by
these hyenas of capitalism was an insult to any free, thoughtful man.

He went on in this style for about half an hour, during which time the
words came out in a constant stream without a moment's pause.
Schrotter's expression became sad, while Paul banged the table with his
mug and cried "Bra