My ardent wish has not been fulfilled. The Chancellor’s resignation
has been accepted, and the President of the Chamber has been nominated
as his successor. It seems the Cabinet was not able to come to a
unanimous determination to accept the responsibility of allowing the
Chancellor to engage a few servants for his private convenience. The
chief ground for this was, that such an infraction of the principle of
social equality would lead to altogether incalculable consequences.
Hence the necessity for the reconstruction of the Cabinet. Let us bear
in mind the danger we should run of causing the whole socialistic
edifice to come tumbling about our ears if only one single essential
key-stone were once tampered with. It was in reference to this very
identical question of boot-cleaning that Bebel once wrote: “No man is
degraded by work, not even when that work consists of cleaning boots.
Many a man of high birth has had to find this out in America.”
The Government was strongly inclined to follow the method proposed by
Bebel for the solution of this difficulty in practical life, by turning
increased attention to the question of getting clothes brushed and
boots cleaned by means of machinery. But the prospect of having to wait
for suitable machinery to do all such offices for him did not seem at
all to the Chancellor’s taste, so he has retired from office.
His successor is stated to be of a more conciliatory, but less
energetic, character; a man who is determined not to be obnoxious in
any quarter, but to make matters pleasant all round.
With somewhat too much ostentation, the new Chancellor appeared to-day
at the State cookshop of his district, duly taking his place in the
long row, and dining when it came to his turn. Afterwards he was to be
seen, _Unter den Linden_, with a large bundle of old clothes under his
arm, which he was taking to the district repairing-shop to have cleaned
and repaired.