l, and then laid bare the consequences to the laboring
multitude that the adoption of such a measure would have.

A new tax, he explained, meant a further step in the pauperization of
the masses. He showed that this new tax was a superfluity, provided
the attempt was abandoned by the government to increase still further
the strength of the army.

"Gigantic sums of money are annually wasted by the government for the
military," said he, in a ringing voice. "Scarcely have millions upon
millions been voted for the introduction of new rifles and new guns;
scarcely have new regiments been formed and the conformation of
existing ones altered, when all these measures are found to be worse
than useless. Errors of calculation are discovered when it is too late
to retrieve them, and new sums of enormous size are demanded in order
to overcome innovations conceived in haste and executed without
judgment.

"Germany's reputation and her power in the world have been won by the
army, and it is her army which neighbors begrudge us. But have we not
arrived on the summit of military power? Must we extend militarism to
the point where it smothers and throttles all other organs of the
state machine?

"If we but devoted to other institutions of the empire a modest
portion of the untold money that is swallowed up every year by the
army, there would be no necessity for laying tax upon tax upon the
citizens until what remains to them of the fruits of their labor
hardly suffices for bare needs. If we did that, we should be a wealthy
country; the citizen would acquire material wellbeing. Industry would
revive and yield to the people all its blessings. But if it is not
intended to cease favoring the army to such an unreasonable extent,
let them take the money needed from the pockets of those who are
spending their days in sloth and wilful luxury. As it is, the wealthy
are not burdened any more than the poor laborer, while the latter
really has to surrender a portion of the scant bread he has earned for
himself and his family to maintain a state of things in which capital
enjoys all those advantages which are denied to him.

"Then I ask of what blessing is the army to the citizen, to the people
as a whole? It takes away his children; it uses up the best years in
their lives,--those years in which the youth ripens into a man, and in
which his character matures. It is during those years that our sons
are often treated with injustice and brutalit