Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/489

 To be sure, the universal and direct franchise will be no magic wand, Gentlemen, which can protect you from temporary mistakes. We have seen in France, in the years 1848 and 1849, two unfavorable elections in succession, but the universal and direct franchise is the only means which automatically corrects, in course of time, the mistakes and temporary wrong to which this may lead. It is that legendary lance which itself heals the wounds it makes. In the course of time it is impossible, with universal and direct franchise, for chosen representatives not to be a completely faithful reflection of the people who have elected them. The people, therefore, at every time will consider universal and direct franchise as an indispensable political weapon, and as the most fundamental and important of their demands.

Let us now glance at the moral bearing of this social principle which we are considering.

Perhaps the idea of the lowest classes of society as the controlling principle of society and of the State may appear very dangerous and immoral, one which threatens to expose morality and culture to the danger of being overrun by a "modern barbarism."

And it would be no wonder if this thought should appear so at present. For even public opinion—I have already indicated by what means, namely, through the newspapers—receives today its imprint from the coining-die of capital and from the hands of the privileged capitalist class.

Nevertheless this fear is only a prejudice; and it can be proved, on the contrary, that this thought would represent the highest moral progress and triumph which the world's history has shown. That view is a prejudice, I say, and it is the prejudice of the present time, which is still controlled by privilege.

At another time—at the time of the first French Republic of 1793, which was necessarily forced to fail from its own lack of clearness—the opposite prejudice prevailed. At that time it was held as a dogma that all the upper classes