Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/584

 association based chiefly upon their own exertions, nevertheless the law stands that the real improvement of the situation of the workingman, which he has a just right to demand, and to demand for the whole working class as such, can be accomplished only by this aid of the State. No more should you allow yourselves to be misled and deceived by the cry of those who talk about Socialism or Communism and try to oppose this demand of yours by such cheap phrases; but be firmly convinced regarding such people that they are only trying to deceive you, or else they themselves do not know what they are talking about. Nothing is further from so-called Socialism and Communism than this demand according to which, if realized, the working classes, just as they do today, would maintain their individual liberty, individual manner of living, and individual compensation for work, and would stand in no different relation to the State, except that the necessary capital, or credit, for their association would be provided for them by it. But that is exactly the office and the destiny of the State—to make easy and provide means for the great cultural progress of humanity. This is its ultimate purpose. For this it exists. It has always served this purpose and always must.

I will give you a single example among hundreds—the canals, highways, postoffices, steamboat lines, telegraph lines, banking institutions, agricultural improvements, the introduction of new branches of industry, etc., in all of which the intervention of the State was necessary—a single example, but one which is worth a hundred others, and one which is especially near at hand. When railroads were to be built, in all German as well as in all foreign states except in some few isolated lines, the State had to intervene in one way or another—chiefly by undertaking to guarantee at least the dividends on the stock, in many countries going much further than this.

The guarantee of dividends constitutes a one-sided contract of the rich stockholder with the State—namely, if the