Page:Edward Aveling - Wilhelm Liebknecht and the Social-Democratic Movement in Germany (1896).djvu/4

 and endurance of the working classes Wilhelm Liebknecht has to be thanked among the first. Fifty years of thy life. Comrade Liebknecht, have been years of fighting, oblivious of self, for the emancipation of the people. We thank thee, indefatigable, undefeatable fighter, who hast always placed thine own interest far behind that of the general cause. Now, as in its metallic tones, the clock proclaims the beginning of a new day, the 29th of March, in the name of thy constituents and of all thy comrades in Berlin, I give thee the heartiest good wishes upon thy birthday. Still, for long years stay with us, old friend. Go on before us; we will follow thee. And now, do you oh comrades, join in the cry: 'Long life to our birthday child, the veteran of our party, Wilhelm Liebknecht.'"

After this speech Frau Scholz, on behalf of the women of Berlin, presented Liebknecht with a bouquet and still more verses. August Bebel also presented him with a bronze plaque on red plush with an oak crown round it, bearing the inscription "To its oldest member, Wilheleem Liebknecht, on the seventieth anniversary of his birth, from the Social-Democratic Fraction of the German Reichstag. Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. (Happy is he who can know the causes of things.)" Upon the ribbons of this bronze plaque or crown were the words, "Giessen, 29 March, 1826. Berlin, 29 March, 1896."

We quote a sentence or two from Liebknecht's reply in thanks. "As long as I have been in the fight, I have been used to being the target for all arrows. I am used to blame, to calumny, to enmity of all kinds, and I have learned to defy them all with laughter. But I am not used to praise, and that has so overwhelmed me. We Social-Democrats are not generally spoiled in that direction. We use sharp criticism among ourselves, and consequently this which has been my fate for some days—for this evening I am already celebrating my 70th birthday for the third time—has been new to me. I am really embarrassed with it all. These thanks which have been lavished upon me I must in great part return; for I should not have been able to do what I have done without my teachers, Marx and Engels—without Lassalle, without my fellow fighters here, without you all. I have often thought of the words of Napoleon after the Battle of Waterloo. 'These wretched English never know when they are beaten.' According to all the rules of warfare, the English were beaten at Waterloo; but they