t thing or two. A score of embittered deputies advance
toward the tribune, red-faced and gesticulating in the German way
when excitement is the dominant passion. Their fists are clenched.
I say to myself that Liebknecht will this time be beaten down, if
he is not content to be shouted down. He makes an unforgettable
figure, alone there, assailed, barked and snarled at from every
side, a private in the German Army bidding defiance to a hundred
men, also in uniform, but superior officers. Mere _Kanonenfutter_
(cannon fodder) defying the majestic authority of its helmeted and
epauletted overlords! An unprecedented episode, as well as an
unforgettable one. . .

Liebknecht insists upon tempting fate once more. He is going to
try to outshout the crazy chorus howling at him. He succeeds, but
only for an instant and to the extent of one biting phrase:--"Such
treatment," I can hear him shrieking, "is _unverschaemt_
(shameless) and _unerhoert_ (unheard of)! It could take place in
no other legislative body in the world!"

With that the one German Social Democrat of conviction, courage,
and consistency retires, baffled and discomfited. Potsdam's
representative in the Reichstag is at last effectually muzzled, but
in the muzzling I have seen the German Government at work on a task
almost as prodigious as the one it now faces on the Somme--the task
of keeping the German people deaf, dumb, and blind.

Of what has meantime happened to Liebknecht the main facts are
known. He was arrested on May 1 for alleged "incitement to public
disorder during a state of war," tried, convicted, and sentenced to
penal servitude. A couple of months previously (on March 13) he
had delivered another bitter attack on the War Government in the
Prussian Diet. He accused the German educational authorities of
systematically teaching hate to school children and of distorting
even contemporary history so as to poison their minds to the
glorification of Prussian militarism. He said it was not the
business of the schools to turn children into machines for the
Moloch of militarism.

"_Let us teach history correctly_," declared Liebknecht, "_and tell
the children that the crime of Sarajevo was looked upon by wide
circles in Austria-Hungary and Germany as a gift from Heaven. Let
us. . . ._"

He got no farther, for the cyclone broke. He had dared to do what
no other man in Germany had done. He had publicly accused his
Government of making the wa