chapter iii

.

The tardy realization of this fact placed the delegates of the government party in a serious dilemma. Sweeping socialization had been promised, and the rank and file of the party expected and demanded it. In these circumstances it was obvious that a failure to carry out what was at the same time a party doctrine and a campaign pledge would have serious consequences, and it must be reckoned to the credit of the leaders of the party that they put the material welfare of the state above party considerations and refused to let themselves be hurried into disastrous experiments along untried lines. Their attitude resulted in driving many of the members of the Socialist party into the ranks of the Independents, but in view of the fact that the government nevertheless remained strong enough to defeat these elements wherever they had recourse to violence, and of the further fact that to accede to the demands of these intransigeants would have given the final blow to what little remained of German industry, the leaders must be said to have acted wisely and patriotically.

With organization effected, the National Assembly settled down to work. But it was work as all similar German organizations in history had always understood it. All the political immaturity, the tendency to philosophical and abstract reasoning, the ineradicable devotion to the merely academic and the disregard of practical questions that are such prominent characteristics of the people were exhibited just as they had been at the Congress at Frankfort-on-the-Main seventy years earlier. It has been written of that Congress:

"But the Germans had had no experience of free political life. Nearly every deputy had his own theory of the course which ought to be pursued, and felt sure that the country would go to ruin if it were not adopted. Learned professors and talkative journalists insisted on delivering interminable speeches and on examining in the light of ultimate philosophical principles every proposal laid before the assembly. Thus precious time was lost, violent antagonisms were called forth, the patience of the nation was exhausted, and the reactionary forces were able to gather strength for once more asserting themselves."[64]

[64] _Encyclopedia Britannica_, title "Germany."

Except that the reactionary forces were too weakly represented at Weimar to make them an actual source of danger this characterization of the Frankfort Congress might have been written about the proceedings of the National Assembly of February. It is a significant and illuminating fact that the greatest animation exhibited at any time during the first week of the assembly was aroused by a difference of meaning as to the definition of a word. Professor Hugo Preuss, Prussian Minister of the Interior, to whom had been entrusted the task of drafting a proposed constitution for the new republic, referred in a speech elucidating it, to "an absolute majority."

"Does 'absolute majority' mean a majority of the whole number of delegates?" asked some learned delegate.

The other delegates were galvanized instantly into the tensest interest. Here was a question worth while! What does "absolute majority" mean? An animated debate followed and was listened to with a breathless interest which the most weighty financial or economic questions had never succeeded in evoking.

And while the National Assembly droned thus wearily on, clouds were again gathering over Berlin and other cities in the troubled young republic.

##