Page:Ferdinand Lassalle - Lassalle's Open Letter to the National Labor Association of Germany - tr. John Ehmann and Fred Bader (1879).djvu/20

 but a small part of the entire product: not more than is barely sufficient to support life, while the surplus falls to the share of the employing class, making them rich. Be assured that this is the only true method of release for the working class, all others being specious and illusory.

But how is the change to be effected? Throwing a glance upon the railroads, the dry docks, the cotton spinneries, the calico factories and such like formidable institutions; then, dwelling for a moment on the enormous amount of capital needed, you will see in your empty pockets nothing but mockery of the suggested design. Where, you exclaim, are the millions to come from to inaugurate this projected system of the future? You stand appalled at the threshhold of your enterprise. To you nothing can be more apparent than your helplessness. If left to yourselves, you are indeed without help.

For this very reason, it is the duty and becomes the business of the State to come to your rescue, to enable you to expedite and give form and vitality to the scheme so promising of betterment to the working class of the nation. The State ought to regard it as its holiest duty to assist in making certain the possibility of your self-organization and association; for in your elevation lies the secret of the grandeur and completeness of the State.

And here do not allow yourselves to be misled by the cries of those who say that all interventions of the State must necessarily weaken social self-help. It does not follow that I hinder a man from reaching a certain elevation in climbing a steeple because I reach him a ladder or a rope to assist him. Shall it be said that the State seeks to suppress self-effort in study because it establishes schools, hires teachers and opens libraries to facilitate instruction? Can I be accused of putting impediments in the way of a man who seeks to cultivate a farm by lending him a modern plow? And surely it cannot, be said that I am anxious to defeat an enemy when I put weapons into the hands of others for the destruction of that enemy.

I admit that single individuals have educated themselves without teachers, schools or libraries; it is true that people have been known to climb steeples without the aid of ladders or ropes. It is true that the peasantry of Vendee, in the Revolutionary war, defeated their enemies without weapons,