With this powerful backing Liebknecht asked the repeal of the "Explosives Act." A violent debate took place. Liebknecht said: "I will tell you this: we do not appeal to you for sympathy. The result is all the same to us, for we shall win one way or another. Do your worst, for it will be only to our advantage, and the more madly you carry on the sooner you will come to an end. The pitcher goes to the well until it breaks."[17] Bebel roused all the fury of Bismarck when he warned him that if Russian methods were imported there would be murder. In July of this year (1886) at Freiburg occurred the memorable trial of nine Socialist leaders, including Bebel, Dietz, Von Vollmar, Auer, Frohme, and Viereck, charged with participating in an illegal organization. All were sentenced to imprisonment for terms varying from six to nine months. Preceding the election of 1887 the Reichstag had been dissolved on the army bill. The patriotic issue, always effective, was made the universal appeal by the government. In spite of this the Social Democrats polled 763,128 votes, a gain of 213,128. Saxony had succeeded in holding down the vote to 150,000; but in Prussia the result was startling; in Berlin forty per cent. of the voters were Social Democrats. With all their voting strength the party elected only eleven members to the Reichstag. With proportional representation they would have elected forty. The Bismarck Conservatives returned forty-one members with fewer votes than the Socialists. Finally in 1890 came the end of this farce. It was also the end of the chancellorship of Bismarck. His old Emperor had died, and a young and daring hand was at the helm. Bismarck proposed to embody the anti-Socialist laws permanently in the penal code. This might have passed; but he also proposed to exile offenders, not merely from the territory under minor siege, but from the Fatherland. This expatriation the Assembly would not brook and the Reichstag was prorogued. The Socialists left parliament with eleven members, they returned with thirty-five; they left with 760,000 mandates, they returned with 1,500,000, more votes than any other party could claim, and on a proportional basis eighty-five seats would have been theirs. Bebel was justified in saying in the Reichstag, "The Chancellor thought he had us, but we have him." When midnight sounded on the last day of the existence of the oppressive law, great throngs of workingmen gathered in the streets of the larger cities, to sing their Marseillaise, cheer their victory, and wave their red flag. Now they could breathe again. For the first time in thirteen years they met in national convention on German soil. The veteran Liebknecht, recounting their hardships and sacrifices, raised his voice in jubilant phrase: "Our opponents did not spare us, and we, too proud and too strong to prove cowardly, struck blow for blow, and so we have conquered the odious law."[18] IV