Page:Edward Aveling - Wilhelm Liebknecht and the Social-Democratic Movement in Germany (1896).djvu/9

 perhaps, in time. What we have here in these congratulations from thousands and thousands of people is evidence again of the fact that in the long run the people do not forget those that work for them, and that they never quite forget their martyrs. Undoubtedly, the working-class is a hard task-master, and has a natural aptitude for dwelling upon the deficiencies and the blunders rather than the efficiency and the good work done. But how completely the bourgeois miscalculate the real feeling of the working-class is shown by the remarkable demonstration in connection with Liebknecht's birthday. We cannot do better here than quote a few words of Bebel from his article on Liebknecht in the Neue Zeit:—"Although opposed to all cult of the individual, the Social-Democratic Party can and will not fail to pay to the man who has been its leader longer than the ordinary life of a man the tribute of thankfulness for what he has done, suffered, and gained for the party. In the person of Liebknecht, I repeat, is embodied that of the party ; his own life is that of the party; his life more than that of any other amongst us is bound up with the life and development of the party."

A brief sketch of that life we now give. He was born March 29th, 1826, at Giessen, of what is commonly called a good family. As far back as the beginning of the eighteenth century an ancestor of his was Professor and Rector of the University of Giessen, and as far back as the middle of the sixteenth century a certain ancestor of his, Martin Luther, was making some stir in the world. At the early age of sixteen Wilhelm Liebknecht entered the University of Giessen. Theology, philology, and later, and with much more intensity, philosophy, were his studies. Afterwards he was at the Universities of Marburg and Berlin. He was training for the position of a teacher, and at one time he had some idea of becoming an advocate. But events, in their inexorable way, forced him out of these quiet paths—if, indeed, the path of an advocate is very quiet. The absolute rule of Metternich and the writings of Saint Simon were among the forces that drove him into the revolutionary movement. What would be called an accident was another of the forces. Peeling that, with the conditions then obtaining in Germany, there was little chance for him as either teacher or advocate, he made up his mind to go to America. He was actually on bis way thither when he met a Zurich teacher, who induced him to come to Zürich.