Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/569

 Now for the social question which you raise, a question which rightly interests you to a still greater extent.

I have read in the papers, not without a sad smile, that part of the program for your Congress consists in debates concerning freedom of choosing places of residence and of employment for the workingman.

What, Gentlemen, are you going to debate about the right of choosing places of residence, the right of settling down anywhere without being specially taxed!

I can answer you on this point with nothing better than Schiller's epigram:

And is not the situation the same as to freedom of employment?

All these debates have at least one mistake—they come more than fifty years too late. Freedom of moving about and freedom of employment are things which nowadays are decreed in a legislative body in silence, but no longer debated.

Should the German working class repeat again the spectacle of assemblies whose enjoyment consists in giving themselves over to long purposeless speeches and applauding them? The seriousness and the energy of the German working class will know how to protect it from such a pitiable spectacle.

But you propose to establish institutions for savings, funds for retiring pensions, insurance against accidents and sickness? I am willing to recognize the relative usefulness of these institutions, although it is a subordinate one and hardly worth notice.

But let us make a complete distinction between two questions which have absolutely nothing to do with each other