Bismarck proposes, then, to conquer social democracy by recognizing and adopting into his own platform what there is of good in its demands. It is curious to notice that friends of Bismarck and supporters of the government have even gone so far as to adopt some of the social democratic phrases. They have spoken of the laborers as the “disinherited” classes of society. Yet this originated with the social democrats; and a few years ago government gave as one reason for prohibiting the sale of a certain book in Germany the fact that it called the laborers the “disinherited” (_die Enterbten_). Thus far has Bismarck gone in the way of making concessions. In the one point of the Accident Insurance bill he has drawn a number of social democrats to his support. They look upon it as only a beginning, and, indeed, Bismarck has proposed to add features making provision for old age and for death from disease and other causes than accident. But all that Bismarck has promised is to them only one step. Those who regard the matter in this light are willing to support him in this first step. Bebel, one of their leaders at present, was one of the most earnest supporters of Bismarck’s Insurance bill in the Reichstag, when the measure was brought forward. Kayser, another social democrat, declared that he would let no one “terrorize him—he would defend Bismarck.” All this makes a strange impression upon us when we remember the cruelties and persecutions which the social democrats have suffered through the instrumentality of the great German statesman. It is amusing, and, at the same time, it is not devoid of a certain pathos. It reminds one of an ancient prophecy—“The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock.” However, the two parties drew near together only for one special purpose, and but for a moment. No reconciliation has taken place between the opposing elements of industrial society in Germany. Only one of Bismarck’s schemes for the amelioration of the condition of the laboring man has been adopted.