ency of Germany to become divided between two great
hostile camps, the one representative of the military, bureaucratic,
agrarian, financial classes and, in general, the forces of resistance
to change, the other representative of modern democratic forces,
extreme and in principle even revolutionary. Leaving out of account
the minor particularist groups, the most reactionary of existing
parties is the Conservatives, whose strength lies principally in (p. 239)
the rural provinces of Prussia along the Baltic. The most radical is
the Social Democrats, whose strength is pretty well diffused through
the states of the Empire but is massed, in the main, in the cities.
Between the two stand the Centre, the Radicals, and the National
Liberals. The Centre has always included both an aristocratic and a
popular element, being, indeed, more nearly representative of all
classes of people in the Empire than is any other party. Its numerical
strength is drawn from the peasants and the workingmen, and in order
to maintain its hold in the teeth of the appeal of socialism it has
been obliged to make large concessions in the direction of liberalism.
At all points except in respect to the interests of the Catholic
Church it has sought to be moderate and progressive, and it should be
observed that it has abandoned long since its irreconcilable attitude
on religion. Geographically, its strength lies principally in the
south, especially in Bavaria.

*255. The Social Democrats.*--Nominally revolutionary, the German Social
Democracy comprises in fact a very orderly organization whose
economic-political tenets are at many points so rational that they
command wide support among people who do not bear the party name.
Throughout a generation the party has grown steadily more practical in
its demands and more opportunist in its tactics. Instead of opposing
reforms undertaken on the basis of existing institutions, as it once
was accustomed to do, in the hope of bringing about the establishment
of a socialistic state by one grand _coup_, it labors for such reforms
as are adjudged attainable and contents itself with recurring only
occasionally and incidentally to its ultimate ideal. The supreme
governing authority of the party is a congress composed of six
delegates from each electoral district of the Empire, the socialist
members of the Reichstag, and the members of the party's executive
committee. This congress convenes annually to regulate the
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