strictest neutrality is easily understood.  Any other attitude on their part would be a crime against socialism.  No one would be so ignorant as to find analogies between the situation of the German and the English Socialists.  We in Germany had to perform the duty of protecting ourselves against Czarism, we had to accomplish the task of saving the country in which Social Democracy has reached its highest point of development, from impending subjection to Russia.  In England the decision had to be made only as to whether sides should be taken in the conflict between Russia and Germany, or whether neutrality should be preserved.

A Germany under the yoke of the Czar would have set back a century the Socialist movement not only of Germany itself but of the whole world.

Moreover, we Social Democrats have never ceased to be Germans, because we belong to the Socialist International.  And if we in the Reichstag have unanimously approved the war credit, we have done no more after all than to carry out what has often been repeated by our greatest Socialists from the Reichstag platform.

Quotes Bebel and Elder Liebknecht.

The words of Bebel and of the elder Liebknecht have always been heard with favor in America.  And what, for example, has Bebel said in this connection?

In the preservation of Germany’s independence all the laboring classes, to the very least among them, are just as much concerned as those who consider themselves the chosen leaders and rulers of the people, and the working class in nowise desires to bend its back under any sort of foreign rule.

Still more fully did Bebel declare himself during the session of the Reichstag of March 7, 1904.  At that time he said: 

Gentlemen:  You cannot in the future carry on any successful wars without our aid. ["Very true!” “Right!” from the Socialists.] If you conquer you will conquer with us and not against us; without our help you can no longer subsist. ["True!” “Right!” from the Socialists.] I will go still further, we would have the greatest possible interest were we to be involved in a war—­a war in which the existence of Germany was threatened, for—­and I give you my word for it—­we are ready to the last and the oldest man among us to shoulder arms and protect German soil not in service to you but to ourselves—­as far as I am concerned, in fact in defiance of you. ["True indeed!” “Right!” from the Socialists.]

We live and fight on this soil, the land of our fathers, as much if not more our fatherland than yours, to the end that it will be a joy even for the last and least among us to live therein. ["Very good!” from the Socialists.]

That is our endeavor and that it is which we are laboring to achieve, and it is for this reason that we shall repulse with all the power at our command and to our very last breath every attempt to snatch from this Fatherland one inch of land. ["Very good!” from the Socialists.]

There are numerous declarations of similar nature which have been uttered by our great friend, Wilhelm Liebknecht has also spoken in similar fashion.  On the 28th of November, 1888, he addressed the Reichstag as follows: