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 care to mention; every one will think
of it himself. When afterwards a newspaper like the _Tribune_, which
is said to be owned by Mr. Bamberger, makes itself the mouthpiece of
Mr. Lasker's expression, claiming it to be correct, and hailing the
invention of this word as a discovery worthy of Columbus, and when the
_Tribune_ finally asserts that "care for the poor" and "aristocracy"
cannot exist in the same train of thought, can you not imagine what
will happen when all this is turned around, and altered by an
anti-semite? Are you in doubt what he will substitute for
"aristocracy," and do you not know that he will repeat every twist and
turn of speech with which Mr. Bamberger's sheet imputes selfish
injustice to the aristocracy?
The representative Mr. Richter has called attention to the
responsibility of the State for everything it does in the field on
which it is entering today. Well, gentlemen, I feel that the State may
become responsible also for the things it does _not_ do. I do not
believe that the "_laissez faire, laissez aller_, theory," and the
unadulterated political theories of Manchester, such as "let each one
do what he chooses, and fare as he will," or "who is not strong enough
to stand, let him be crushed," or "he who has will receive more, and
he who has not from him let us take," can be practised in any State,
least of all in a monarchical State, governed by the father of his
country. On the contrary, I believe that those who shudder at the
State exerting its influence for the protection of the weaker
brethren, themselves intend to capitalize their strength--be it
financial, rhetorical, or what not--that they may gain a following, or
oppress the rest, or smooth their own way to party control. They
become angry, of course, as soon as their plans are spoiled by the
rising influence of the State.
The representative Mr. Richter says this legislation does not go far
enough. If he will have patience, we may perhaps be able to satisfy
him a little later--one should not be hasty or try to do everything at
once! Such laws are not made arbitrarily out of theories and as the
result of asking "what kind of law would it be wise to make now?"
They are the gradual outgrowth of earlier events. The reason why we
come to you today only with an accident-insurance law is because this
branch of the care of the poor and the weak was especially vigorous
even before I seriously concerned myself with such matters. Bequests,
suggestions, and notes for such a bill were on file when I assumed
office. According to the records this bill was needed more than any
other. When I began to study it, I must confess that it did not seem
to me to go far enough in theory, and that I was tempted to change the
words which occur, I believe in the first paragraph, "every workingman
who" and "shall be reimbursed in such and such a way," to read, "every
German." There is something ideal in this change. If one thinks of it
more seriously, however, and especially if one plans to include also
the independent workmen, who meet with an accident at no one's behest
but their own, the question of insurance is even more difficult. No
two hours' speech of any representative can give us so much concern as
this problem has given us: "How far is it possible to extend this law
without creating at the very start an unfavorable condition, or
reaching out too far and thus overreaching ourselves?" As a farmer I
was tempted to ask, whether it would be possible to extend the
insurance, for instance, also to the farmhands, who constitute the
majority of the workingmen in our eastern provinces. I shall not give
up hope that this may be possible, but there are difficulties, which
for the time being have prevented us from doing this; and concerning
these I wish to say a few words.
The farming industry, in so far as it has to do with machinery and
elemental forces, is, of course, not excluded from the law. But the
remaining great majority of the country population also comes in
frequent contact with machines, although these are set in motion not
by elemental forces, but by horses or fellow-laborers. Such
occupations are often dangerous and unwholesome, but it is
exceedingly difficult to gather statistics and percentages, and to
define the necessary amount of contributions to an insurance fund.
The representative Mr. Richter knows, apparently from experience, the
proper percentage in every branch of human occupation, for he has
quoted his figures with much assurance. I should be grateful to him if
he would mention also the source of his valuable information. We have
done the best we could. The preliminary drafts of the bill were based
on carefully selected facts--notice please, selected facts, and not
arbitrary statistics based on conjecture. If we had discovered those
figures, which the quicker eye of the honorable Mr. Richter seems to
have detected at a glance, and if we had believed them to be accurate,
we should have gone further in this bill.
When I say that I do not give up hope that the farming industry may
yet be included, I am thinking of an organization which cannot be
created at one session of the Reichstag. Like the child which must be
small if it is to be born at all, and which gradually assumes its
proper proportions by growth, so also this organization will have to
develop gradually. Eventually the various branches of industry which
have insured their laborers should be formed into incorporated
associations, and each association should raise among its own members
the premiums needed for the proper insurance of its laborers. It
should at the same time exercise supervision over its members to the
extent that the dues should be as low as possible. Or, to put it
differently, the personal interest of the contributing members should
see to it that adequate means for the prevention of accidents are
adopted. If this can be accomplished by a gradual advance based on
experience, we may also hope to find, by experience, the proper
percentage as regards that branch of farming which does not employ
elemental forces.
Our lack of experience in these matters has also induced us to be very
careful about the assessment of the necessary contributions. I
certainly should not have the courage to press this bill if the
expenses which it entails were to be borne exclusively by the various
industries. If the assistance which the State would render--either by
provincial or county associations, or directly--were to be entirely
omitted, I should not dare to answer to our industries for the
consequences of this law. Perhaps this can be done, and after a few
years of experience we may be able to judge whether it is possible.
The State contribution, therefore, may be limited at first to three
years, or to whatever period you wish. But without any actual
experience, without any practical test of what we are to expect, I do
not dare to burden our industries with all the expenses of this
government-institution, and to add to their taxes. I do not dare to
place upon them the whole burden of caring for the injured factory or
mill hands. The county associations used to do this, and in the future
it will be done more fully and in a more dignified way by the insurers
and the State.
No entirely new charges are here contemplated; the charges are merely
transferred from the county associations to the State. I do not deny
that the tax of him who pays and the advantages which accrue to the
laborer will be increased. The increase, however, does not equal the
full third which the State is to bear, but only the difference between
what at present the county associations are obliged to do for the
injured workingmen, and what these men will receive in future. You
see, it is purely a question of improving the lot of the laboring man.
This difference, therefore, is the only new charge on the State, with
which you have to reckon. And you will have to ask yourselves: "Is the
advantage gained worth this difference,--when we aim to procure for
the laborer who has been injured a better and more adequate support,
and relieve him of the necessity of having to fight for his right in
court, and when he will receive without delay the moderate stipend
which the State decrees?" I feel like answering the question with a
strong affirmative.
Our present poor laws keep the injured laboring man from starvation.
According to law, at least, nobody need starve. Whether in reality
this never happens I do not know. But this is not enough in order to
let the men look contentedly into the future and to their own old age.
The present bill intends to keep the sense of human dignity alive
which even the poorest German should enjoy, if I have my way. He
should feel that he is no mere eleemosynary, but that he possesses a
fund which is his very own. No one shall have the right to dispose of
it, or to take it from him, however poor he may be. This fund will
open for him many a door, which otherwise will remain closed to him
and it will secure for him better treatment in the house where he has
been received, because when he leaves he can take away with him
whatever contributions he has been making to the household expenses.
If you have ever personally investigated the conditions of the poor in
our large cities, or of the village paupers in the country, you have
been able to observe the wretched treatment which the poor
occasionally receive even in the best managed communities, especially
if they are physically weak or crippled. This happens in the houses of
their stepmothers, or relatives of any kind, yes also in those of
their nearest of kin. Knowing this, are you not obliged to confess
that every healthy laboring man, who sees such things, must say to
himself: "Is it not terrible that a man is thus degraded in the house
which he used to inhabit as master and that his neighbor's dog is not
worse off than he?" Such things do happen. What protection is there
for a poor cripple, who is pushed into a corner, and is not given
enough to eat? There is none. But if he has as little as 100 or 200
marks of his own, the people will think twice before they oppress him.
We have been in a position to observe this in the case of the military
invalids. Although only five or six dollars are paid every month, this
actual cash amounts to something in the household where the poor are
boarded, and the thrifty housewife is careful not to offend or to lose
the boarder who pays cash.
I, therefore, assure you that we felt the need of insisting by this
law on a treatment of the poor which should be worthy of humanity.
Next year I shall be able fully to satisfy Mr. Richter in regard to
the amount and the extent of attention which the State will give to a
better and more adequate care of all the unemployed. This will come as
a natural consequence, whether or no the present bill is passed. Today
this bill is a test, as it were. We are sounding to see how deep the
waters are, financially, into which we are asking the State and the
country to enter. You cannot guard yourselves against such problems by
delivering elegant and sonorous speeches, in which you recommend the
improvement of our laws of liability, without in the least indicating
how this can be done. In this way you cannot settle these questions,
for you are acting like the ostrich, who hides his head lest he see
his danger. The Government has seen its duty and is facing, calmly and
without fear, the dangers which we heard described here a few days ago
most eloquently and of which we were given convincing proofs.
We should, however, also remove, as much as possible, the causes which
are used to excite the people, and which alone render them susceptible
to criminal doctrines. It is immaterial to me whether or no you will
call this Socialism. If you call it Socialism, you must have the
remarkable wish of placing the Imperial Government, in so far as this
bill of the allied governments is concerned, in the range of the very
critique which Mr. von Puttkamer passed here on the endeavors of the
Socialists. It would then almost seem that with this bill only a very
small distance separated us from the murderous band of Hasselmann, the
incendiary writings of Most, and the revolutionary conspiracies of the
Congress of Wyden; and that even this distance would soon disappear.
Well, gentlemen, this is, of course, the very opposite of true. Those
who fight with such oratorical and meaningless niceties are counting
on the many meanings of the word "socialism." As a result of the kind
of programs which the Socialists have issued, this term is, in our
public opinion today, almost synonymous with "criminal." If the
government endeavors to treat the injured workingmen better in the
future, and especially more becomingly, and not to offer to their as
yet vigorous brethren the spectacle, as it were, of an old man on the
dump heap slowly starving to death, this cannot be called socialistic
in the sense in which that murderous band was painted to us the other
day. People are playing a cheap game with the shadow on the wall when
they call our endeavors socialistic.
If the representative Mr. Bamberger, who took no offense at the word
"Christian," wishes to give a name to our endeavors which I could
cheerfully accept, let it be: "Practical Christianity," but _sans
phrase_, for we shall not pay the people with words and speeches, but
with actual improvements. Yet, death alone is had for the asking. If
you refuse to reach into your pocketbook, or that of the State, you
will not accomplish anything. If you should place the whole burden on
the industries, I do not know whether they could bear it. Some might
be able to do it, but not all. Those who could do it are the
industries where the wages are but a small fraction of the total cost
of production. Among such I mention the chemical factories, and the
mills which with twenty mill hands can do an annual business of
several million marks. The great mass of laborers, however, does not
work in such establishments, which I am tempted to call
aristocratic--without wishing to excite any class-hatred. They are in
industries where the wages amount to 80 or 90 per cent, of the cost of
production. Whether the latter can bear the additional burden I do not
know.
It is, moreover, perfectly immaterial whether the assessment is made
on the employer or on the employee. In either case the industry will
have to bear it, for the contribution of the laborer will
eventually, and of necessity, be added to the expenses of the
industry. There is a general complaint that the average wages of the
laborers make the saving of a surplus impossible. If you wish,
therefore, to add a burden to the laborers whose present wages are no
more than sufficient, the employers will have to increase the wages,
or the laborers will leave them for other occupations.
The previous speaker called the bill defective, because the principle
of relieving the laborer from all contributions had not been
consistently followed; and he spoke as if this principle had not been
at all followed. Laborers, receiving more than 750 marks in three
hundred working days, are, it is true, not affected by it; and this is
due to the origin of the bill. The first draft read that one-third of
the contributions should be made by those county associations which
would have to support the injured man in conformity with the poor-laws
of the State. We did not wish merely to make a gift to these
associations, which at present are responsible for 80 per cent. of all
injured working-men, that is for those who do not come under the law
of liability. We, therefore, accepted as just the proposition that
these associations should pay one-third toward the insurance of those
men who formerly would have become their charges. Laborers, however,
whose pay is large enough to keep them from becoming public charges,
when they meet with an accident, hold an exceptional position. I am,
nevertheless, perfectly willing to drop this exception in the bill, as
I have said repeatedly. But since the Reichstag in its entirety has
thus far placed itself on record as opposed to any contribution from
the State, I should not gain thereby any votes for the bill. I wish to
declare, however, that this limit of 750 marks is of no consequence
compared with the theory on which the bill is based. It arose from a
sense of justice toward the county associations, which were not to be
burdened with higher taxes than would equal their savings under this
bill. Later it was discovered from many actual examples that the
insurance according to the existing county associations was
impossible, because the State, which really is responsible for the
care of the poor, had distributed it in an arbitrary and unjust way on
the various county associations. Small and weak country communities
are often overburdened with the care of poor people, while large and
wealthy communities may have practically no charges, since the
geographical position alone has determined the membership in the
various county associations. The result, therefore, of levying the
necessary contributions on these associations would have been a very
uneven distribution of the assessments. Being convinced of this, I
suggested the substitution of "provincial association" for "county
association"; and thus the bill read for several weeks, until we
yielded to the wishes of the allied states and of the Economic
Council, and left to each state the question whether it wished to take
the place of these various associations or preferred to call upon them
in any way it chose. These are the steps by which we reached the 750
mark exemption, and the unconditional share which is to be paid by the
State. This share is nothing but a hint to the legislature how to
distribute the care of the poor to the various county--and other
associations. Whatever is done, you will agree with me that we need a
revision of our poor-laws. Just how this will eventually be
accomplished is immaterial to me.
I am not astonished that the most divergent views are held on this new
subject, which touches our lives very intimately, and which no
experience has as yet illuminated. Because of this divergence of
opinion I am also aware that we may be unable to pass an acceptable
law at this session. My own interest in this entire work would be very
much lessened if I were to notice that the principle of a State
contribution were to be definitely rejected, and that the legislative
assembly of the country were to vote against State-contributions. This
would transfer the whole matter to the sphere of open commerce, if I
may say so, and in that case it might be better to leave the
insurance to private enterprise rather than to establish a
State-institution without any compulsion. I should certainly not have
the courage to exercise compulsion, if the State did not at the same
time make a contribution.
If compulsion is exercised, it is necessary for the law to establish a
department of insurance. This is cheaper and safer than any company.
You cannot expose the savings of the poor to possible insolvency, nor
can you allow any part of the contributions to be used for the payment
of dividends or interest on stocks and bonds. The representative Mr.
Bamberger based his opposition to the bill--you remember his strong
words--largely on his sorrow at the impending ruin of the insurance
companies. He said they would be crushed and annihilated, and he
added, that they were soliciting the gratitude of their
fellow-citizens. I always thought they were soliciting the money of
their fellow-citizens. If in addition they can get their gratitude,
they are turning a very clever trick. That they should be willing,
like good souls, to sacrifice themselves in the interest of the
workingmen, and establish their institutions of insurance without
issuing any shares, I have never believed, and it would be difficult
to convince me of it. According to my feeling of right and wrong, we
cannot force anybody to join private insurance companies which may
become bankrupt even under good management, owing to fluctuations in
the market, or to panics, and which have to arrange their premiums so
that dividends are realized for those who are investing their capital,
or at least interest on the invested money and the hope of dividends.
To this I cannot lend my assistance. If the State is going to exercise
compulsion, it must, I believe, undertake the insurance itself. It may
be the empire for all, or the individual State--but, without this, no
compulsion!
Nor have I the courage, as I have already said, to exercise any
compulsion if I cannot offer something in return. This contribution of
a third is, as I said before, much smaller than it looks, because
the associations will be greatly relieved of the old burdens which the
State had imposed on them. If this is communism, as the last speaker
called it, and not socialism, I do not care one iota. I shall call it
again and again "practical Christianity legally demonstrated." If,
however, it is communism, then communism has been extensively
practised in the districts for a long while, and actually under State
compulsion.
The previous speaker said that by our method the lower classes would
be oppressed with indirect taxes in order to collect the funds for the
care of the poor. But I ask you, gentlemen, what is being done in the
large cities, in Berlin for instance, which the speaker thinks is
splendidly governed by the liberal ring? Here the poor man is taken
care of with the proceeds of the tax on rents, which is exacted of his
slightly less poor brother; and to-morrow he may have this brother as
his companion in misery, when a warrant is executed against the latter
for the non-payment of this tax. That is more cruel than if the
payment were made from the tax on tobacco or on alcohol.