enings of the workshop, barracks, farmyard, shop and office have
been systematically reported to the local Press, and local committees of
the Democratic Party; the ammunitions thus obtained have been just as
systematically employed to fire insidious paragraphs and Press articles
at governments, local authorities, employers, officers, and even the
employers of servant-girls. Of late years it has been dangerous to have
a difference even with a maid-servant; a few days later the inevitable
insidious, anonymous attack would certainly appear in one or other of
the S.D. journals.
One instance will suffice to illustrate the everyday routine of the
class-war (_Klassenkampf_) in which the whole energies of the Social
Democrats have been absorbed for a quarter of a century. An acquaintance
of the author's, Major Schub, in the 19th Infantry Regiment, stationed
in Erlangen, dared some years ago to send his orderly with a she-goat to
a peasant in the district who kept the indispensable he-goat. Two days
later he was pilloried in a Furth paper for calling upon a private
soldier to fulfil such a degrading office. German workmen do not read
the _Vorwaerts_ (its circulation is well under 100,000), but they read
one or other of the seventy purveyors of filth and class hatred which
form the stock-in-trade of the Social Democratic Party.
The author of this work, knew as early as July 25th, that reserve
officers had been warned to hold themselves in readiness; on succeeding
days he saw tangible evidence that mobilization was proceeding
stealthily, and it would be ridiculous for him to claim greater
knowledge than the hundred and eleven S.D. members of the Reichstag, and
the seventy-seven editors of their party papers--especially when these
have an army of millions of spies at their command.
In order to obtain a correct judgment of the motives which actuated
German Social Democrats in their complete support of the German
Government it is necessary to consult the works published by them during
the war. Karl Kautsky writes:[74] "That which under these circumstances,
was most immediate and pressing in determining the attitude to war, not
only for the masses, but also many of our leaders, was the fear of a
hostile invasion, the urgent necessity to keep the enemy out of our
territory, no matter what the causes, object or results of the war may
be. This fear was never greater and more justified than on this
occasion; never have the devastatin
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