r withdrew nothing of his previous
accusations. But the Baden Social-Democrats finally decided that, if
they did not support him, some important reforms would be lost,
especially a proposed improvement of the suffrage for town and township
officials. This was not a very radical advance, for even the
_Frankfurter Zeitung_, a strongly anti-Socialist organ, wrote that "from
the standpoint of consistent Liberalism the bill left so many
aspirations and so many just demands unfulfilled that even the parties
of the left, not to speak of the Social-Democrats, would be justified in
declining to pass the measure."

Indeed the South German reformists do not really pretend that it is any
one particular reform that justifies laying aside or temporarily
subordinating the fight against capitalist government. At the Nuremburg
Congress in 1908 the ground given for an act of this kind was that if
Socialists did not vote for that budget particularly, a large number of
the officials and workingmen employed by the government would fail to
receive the raise of wages or salary that it offered. Herr Frank,
spokesman of the Baden Party, now defended the capitalist government of
Baden and the Socialist action in supporting it, on the general ground
that _advantages could thus be secured for the working classes_. Of
course, this brings up immediately the question: if moderate material
advantages are all the working people are striving for, why cannot some
other party which has more _power_ than the Socialists give still more
of these advantages? Indeed, the fact that all these reforms were
supported by capitalist parties and were allowed to pass by a frankly
capitalistic government (progressive, no doubt, but anti-Socialist),
gives this government and these parties a superior claim to the credit
of having brought the reforms about.

What were "the advantages for the struggle of the working class" that
Frank and his associates could obtain by voting for the Baden Budget of
1910--besides the extension of the suffrage? First importance was placed
upon school reforms. Several religious normal schools were abolished;
women were permitted to serve on municipal committees for school affairs
and charities; the wages of teachers were somewhat increased; school
girls were given an extra year; physicians were introduced into the
schools; and a law was passed by which, for the first time, children
were no longer forced to take religious instruction against