Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/271

 give way to other historical problems. This is the way of organic developments.

I deem it my duty to take up this question quietly and without party vehemence, because I do not know who else could do this successfully if not the Imperial Government. It is a pity that party questions should be mixed up in it. The previous speaker has referred to a supposedly active exchange of telegrams between "certain parties" and "an high official," which in this case, I must believe, means me. I am mentioning this, in passing, because he said the same thing a few days ago in another speech. Gentlemen, this is a very simple matter. I receive thousands of telegrams; and, being a polite man, I should probably reply also to a telegram from Mr. Richter, if he were to honor me with a friendly despatch. When I am cordially addressed in a message, I have to reply in cordial terms. I cannot possibly have the police ascertain to what party the senders belong. Nor am I so diffident in my views that I should wish to catechize the senders as to their political affiliations. If anybody takes pleasure in making me appear to be a member of anti-semitic societies, let him do so. I have kept away from all undesirable movements, as my position demands, and I could wish that also you gentlemen would refrain more than heretofore from inciting the classes against each other, and from oratorical phrases which fan class-hatred. This refers especially to those gentlemen who have bestowed their kind attention upon the Government and upon me personally. When we heard the representative, Mr. Lasker, say the other day that the policy of the government was aristocratic, this term was bound to render the whole aristocracy and what belongs to it suspected of selfishness in the eyes of the poor men, at whose expense the aristocracy seemingly exists. When such expressions fall on anti-semitic ground, how is it possible to avoid reprisals? The anti-semites will coin their own word with which to designate—as they think appropriately—the policies opposed to ours. The resulting epithet I do not