otes is swelled by thousands of voters who express
their general discontent in that way. The state in Germany owns
railroads, telegraph and telephone lines; operates mines and certain
industries, and both controls and directly helps certain large
manufactories which are either of benefit to the state, or which, if
they were entirely independent, might prove a danger to the state. The
state enforces insurance against sickness, accident, and old age, and
the three million office-holders are dependent upon the state for
their livelihood and their pensions.

It is a striking thing in Germany to see human nature cropping out,
even under these ideal conditions; for it is difficult to see how the
state could be more grandmotherly in her officious care of her own.
But this is not enough. Physical safety is not enough, the demand is
for political freedom, and for a government answerable to the people
and the people's representatives. Rich men, powerful men,
representative men by the thousands, men whom one meets of all sorts
and conditions, and who are neither radical nor socialistic, vote the
Social Democrat ticket. The Social Democrats are by no means all
democrats nor all socialists. As a body of voters they are united only
in the expression of their discontent with a government of officials,
practically chosen and kept in power over their heads, and with whose
tenure of office they have nothing to do.

The fact that the members of the Reichstag are not in the saddle, but
are used unwillingly and often contemptuously as a necessary and often
stubborn and unruly pack-animal by the Kaiser-appointed ministers; the
fact that they are pricked forward, or induced to move by a tempting
feed held just beyond the nose, has something to do, no doubt, with
the lack of unanimity which exists. The diverse elements debate with
one another, and waste their energy in rebukes and recriminations
which lead nowhere and result in nothing. I have listened to many
debates in the Reichstag where the one aim of the speeches seemed to
be merely to unburden the soul of the speaker. He had no plan, no
proposal, no solution, merely a confession to make. After forty-odd
years the Germans, in many ways the most cultivated nation in the
world, are still without real representative government.

Why should the press or society take this assembly very seriously,
when, as the most important measure of which they are capable, they
can vote to have themselves