stion, which has been before us for fifty years now, will be
definitely settled even by our children and children's children. No
political question ever reaches so complete a mathematical solution
that the books can be balanced. Such questions arise, abide a while
and finally give way to other historical problems. This is the way of
organic developments.

I deem it my duty to take up this question quietly and without party
vehemence, because I do not know who else could do this successfully
if not the Imperial Government. It is a pity that party questions
should be mixed up in it. The previous speaker has referred to a
supposedly active exchange of telegrams between "certain parties" and
"an high official," which in this case, I must believe, means me. I am
mentioning this, in passing, because he said the same thing a few days
ago in another speech. Gentlemen, this is a very simple matter. I
receive thousands of telegrams; and, being a polite man, I should
probably reply also to a telegram from Mr. Richter, if he were to
honor me with a friendly despatch. When I am cordially addressed in a
message, I have to reply in cordial terms. I cannot possibly have the
police ascertain to what party the senders belong. Nor am I so
diffident in my views that I should wish to catechize the senders as
to their political affiliations. If anybody takes pleasure in making
me appear to be a member of anti-semitic societies, let him do so. I
have kept away from all undesirable movements, as my position demands,
and I could wish that also you gentlemen would refrain more than
heretofore from inciting the classes against each other, and from
oratorical phrases which fan class-hatred. This refers especially to
those gentlemen who have bestowed their kind attention upon the
Government and upon me personally. When we heard the representative,
Mr. Lasker, say the other day that the policy of the government was
aristocratic, this term was bound to render the whole aristocracy and
what belongs to it suspected of selfishness in the eyes of the poor
men, at whose expense the aristocracy seemingly exists. When such
expressions fall on anti-semitic ground, how is it possible to avoid
reprisals? The anti-semites will coin their own word with which to
designate--as they think appropriately--the policies opposed to ours.
The resulting epithet I do not care to mention; every one will think
of it himself. When afterwards a newspaper like the _Tribune_, wh