Page:Edward Aveling - Wilhelm Liebknecht and the Social-Democratic Movement in Germany (1896).djvu/3





The occasion of Liebknecht's visit to England on a lecturing tour under the auspices of the Zürich Committee for the International Socialist Workers and Trade Union Congress, London, July, 1896, is taken advantage of by that Committee to give English leaders some idea of the work that has been done by Liebknecht during his long life. That life has now lasted 70 years. His 70th birthday, on the 29th of March, 1896, was celebrated in Berlin with as much demonstration of rejoicing as if it had been the birthday of a monarch; except that here the feeling was spontaneous and genuine. And the celebration and congratulations were not confined to Germany alone. The whole world took part in them. This year is not only the 70th of Liebknecht's life; it is also the 50th since his first expulsion by the German police.

Whilst, as he humourously put it, he has kept his seventieth birthday several times, the most important of its celebrations was the dinner and soirée given to him on the night of March 28 and the morning of March 29, by his fellow workers on the daily Socialist paper, the Vorwärts, and his fellow workers in the German Parliament. The place was the Feen palace, whose great hall and adjoining rooms were filled with his friends. After dinner there was a concert, and the recitation of a poem in which the passage most loudly applauded ran: "And yet even this very day they spare not thy silver white hairs. The turnkey is beckoning once again. … Thou as heretofore wilt take the place of honour behind the prison bars." The reference here, of course, is to the fact that Liebknecht has been condemned to four months imprisonment for the grievous crime of insulting the half lunatic jackanapes who calls himself the German Emperor. In fact, as soon as the English lecturing tour is over, the old man of 70 will go back to Germany and to prison. After the poem came a speech from Borgmann. We quote part of this speech, and would have it remembered that this quotation and the others that we give are given with the view of showing in what estimation Liebknecht is held by those that know him. Borgmann said: "If to-day the German Social-Democratic Party is the strongest party in Germany, next to the sacrifices