w
with one person, now with another in purely party questions. Theories
I barter away cheaply. First let us build a structure secure on the
outside and firmly knit on the inside, and protected by the ties of a
national union. After that, when you ask my advice about furnishing
the house with more or less liberal constitutional fittings, you may
perhaps hear me say, "Ah well, I have no preconceived ideas. Make your
suggestions, and, when the sovereign whom I serve agrees, you will
find no objections on principle on my part." It can be done thus, and
again thus. There are many roads leading to Rome. There are times
when one should govern liberally, and times when one should govern
autocratically. Everything changes. Nothing is eternal in these
matters. But of the structure of the German empire and the union of
the German nation I demand that they be free and unassailable, with
not only a passing field fortification on one side. I have given to
its creation and growth my entire strength from the very beginning.
And if you point to a single moment when I have not steered by this
direction of the compass-needle, you may perhaps prove that I have
erred, but you cannot prove that I have for one moment lost sight of
the national goal.

[Illustration: PRINCE BISMARCK FRANZ VON LENBACH]

* * * * *

PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY

April 2, 1881

TRANSLATED BY EDMUND VON MACH, PH.D.

[Prince Bismarck was trying to fight the revolutionary parties, not
only with such restrictive laws as had been passed against the
Socialists, but also with constructive measures like the one which had
been submitted to the Reichstag on March 8, 1881. It proposed the
insurance of the workingman against accidents, and the founding of a
governmental insurance company. The bill was severely criticized,
notably by Eugen Richter, who did not miss the opportunity of
attacking also the chancellor personally. Prince Bismarck's reply made
a deep impression in the country at large. The bill itself, however,
was so badly amended in the Reichstag, that Bismarck urged the
Bundesrat to reject it, which it did. Several changes, thereupon, were
made in the bill, and, after having been delayed in committee, it was
again brought up for discussion in 1884, when another exhaustive
speech by the chancellor, on March 15, brought about its acceptance.]

Before turning to the subject in hand, I wish to reply to some remarks
of the previo