Every German statesman looked upon the Socialists as a great danger, and, taking his cue from the Emperor, expressed his fears somewhat too loudly in speech and writing. What was the use of sounding the fire-alarm, as if the house were already in flames, when as a matter of fact it was not even threatened? Why all this scare, which seems to us rather absurd to-day? German political science had tried every remedy against the Socialist taint and found it wanting, from the repressive system of Bismarck to the social reform policy of Posadowsky. In reality, however, the microbe of Social Democracy was perfectly harmless. Prince von Bülow, in his book, comes to the conclusion that the danger would become serious if Socialism, after making havoc among the proletariate, wormed its way into the middle classes, those steadfast bulwarks against all change. In point of fact it had already made considerable advance in this direction, and it drew its leaders from the intellectuals of the struggling bourgeoisie. I have heard it prophesied in Berlin that the Empire would be lost on the day that the Socialist propaganda pierced the chain-armour of Prussian discipline and found its way into the army. But some fifty per cent. of the young soldiers were adherents of Socialism; have they fought any the less sturdily on that account? This exaggerated fear, or rather this annoyance, felt by the Emperor was surely due to the unceremonious behaviour of Socialist deputies in the Reichstag and their refusal to shout the traditional “Hoch!” in his honour—a mere piece of schoolboy impertinence. It needed no profound study of the movement to realize that Social Democracy was becoming transformed from day to day. It had passed through several phases since those heroic times when, in spite of the threat of imprisonment, it had boldly declared war upon capitalist society and the imperialist system. The generation of veteran revolutionaries, of Liebknecht, Bebel, and Engels, had passed away. Those who took their place, men like Franck, Bernstein, Heine, and Sudekum, became opportunists or “revisionists.”[9] The change grew more perceptible than ever when Bebel, the last apostle of the Marxian gospel, was snatched away by a heart-attack from the benches of the Reichstag and the leadership of the party. It was he who had been its patient organizer, finding an invaluable ally in that spirit of discipline for which the Germans are peculiarly noted. The heirs of this great speaker and great fighter ostensibly retained the teachings of Karl Marx: the class struggle, the acquisition of political power in order to bring about a social revolution and establish a collective ownership of the means of production. But their actual programme aimed at more practical reforms, especially in the way of guarantees for the worker against the employer, and of rates and taxes.