"I learned later in the day that many of the paraders had been induced to attend by the representation that it was to be a demonstration in favor of the national assembly. It is also asserted that others were forced by Spartacans with drawn revolvers to leave their factories. "December 17th. The second day's session of the Congress was marked by a virulent attack on Ebert by Ledebour, between whom and Liebknecht there is little difference. The reception of his speech by the delegates again demonstrated that the Majority Socialists make up nine-tenths of the assembly. Barth also took it upon himself to attack Ebert and to disclose secrets of the inner workings of the cabinet. Ebert answered with an indignant protest against being thus attacked from the rear. Barth has the lowest mentality of all the six cabinet members, and I am informed on good authority that he has an unsavory record. His alleged offenses are of a nature regarded by advanced penologists as pathological rather than criminal, but however that may be, he seems hardly fitted for participation in any governing body. "Liebknecht's followers staged another demonstration like that of yesterday. The Congress had decided that no outsiders should be permitted again to interrupt the proceedings, but a delegation of some forty men and women from the Schwarzkopff, Knorr and other red factories, bearing banners inscribed with Bolshevik demands, insisted on entering and nobody dared oppose them. They filed onto the platform and read their stock resolutions, cheered by the little group of their soul-brothers among the deputies and by fanatics in the public galleries. Beyond temporarily interrupting the proceedings of the Congress they accomplished nothing. "The incompetence--to use no stronger word--of the _Vollzugsrat_ was again demonstrated today, as well as its careless financial methods.