men. Most of us have not had the means to get much schooling.
The struggle for our daily bread uses up all our time, and all the
brains we have. Look at me, Herr Doctor, for years I never had more
than five hours' sleep, and always used half the night to learn the
little I know. There are plenty of people among us who--more's the
pity--are distrustful of the better educated--call them upstarts, and
won't have anything to do with them. Their idea is that the proletariat
should be led by proletariars. But that is nonsense. No oppressed class
has ever yet been emancipated by its own members. It was always by
high-minded men of wider views out of the upper classes. Catilina was
an aristocrat, and put himself at the head of the populace. Mirabeau
belonged to the Court, and overthrew the monarchy. Wilberforce, the
defender of the negro, was not black himself."

Wilhelm now for the first time looked more attentively at this
stonemason, who talked so glibly of Catalina, Mirabeau and Wilberforce,
and the thought passed through his mind that, at any rate, there was
one good thing about Social Democracy--it brought education into
circles to which it otherwise would never have penetrated.

"And so," Hessel wound up, "we workmen too must be led to victory by
educated men."

"You overlook one point, however," remarked Wilhelm. "To be your
leader, one must before all things share your convictions."

"It is quite impossible that an educated and thoughtful man should not
see the injustice of the present social system. The government, which
oppresses us, sees it as clearly as we do ourselves. It is not fighting
for a conviction, but for the supremacy of a certain class."

"'It is impossible,' is no argument. In point of fact, I do not hold
with your doctrines. I know that the working-classes suffer, but I do
not know why, and I do not believe your theorists when they say it is
all because the workingman is ground down by the capitalist.
Furthermore, you speak of leading--where am I to lead you to?"

"To victory against the plundering feudalism of the State."

"That is a mere phrase. I know of no plan which will sweep poverty and
distress from the face of the earth. Even if you raise a revolution and
it succeeds, even if you destroy the feudal State and build up a
workingman's State upon the ruins, you will thereby only have improved
the condition of a select few, not of the whole--not even of the many.
I would not like to be in th