Page:Wilhelm Liebknecht - Socialism; What It Is and What It Seeks to Accomplish - tr. Mary Wood Simons (1899).djvu/61

 that we wish to offer them violence we have added: "Associations which order their affairs independently."

In connection with this passage concerning the church we demand "Secularization of education." This means that the church, that religion, should have nothing to do with the school. We are bound by principle to demand this and the point is so clear that explanation seems unnecessary. However, it is worth while to meet beforehand all misunderstandings and intentional or unintentional misinterpretations to which such a demand in our platform could give occasion. It is well known how stubborlystubbornly [sic] the ecclesiastical bodies carry on the struggle concerning the school whenever that question comes to the front. One recognizes how much it means to them, catholics, protestants and others, to hold and make their control firm over the intellect. You know how the social democracy is represented as a red specter, how the ecclesiastical associations say of us that we are a party of atheists and that the social democrats would forcibly take religion from every one and violently crush the church. In order to take the foundation from and to break the point of these demagogical slanders and pious falsehoods, we state here that the regulation of religious matters lies with each individual, and we declare religion to be a private matter. I admit that I struggled for some time against taking up these practical considerations, since their meaning seemed so self-evident in the declaration of the platform. But in looking back over the systematic calumny of our position in regard to religion it appears necessary that they be stated. The social democracy as such has absolutely nothing to do with religion. Every man has the right to think and believe what he will and no one has the right to molest or limit another in his thoughts or beliefs, or to allow any one's opinions to be a disadvantage to him in any