CAMPAIGN A GAINST GERMAN ORGANIZED LABOR 44 1
and will be presented to the representatives of the people in the course of this year. It provides that every man, whosoever he may be and whatever his name, who attempts to hinder a German laborer willing to work from prosecuting his labor, or who incites him to strike, shall be committed to the house of correction \^Zuchtltaus^. I promised this punishment at that time, and I hope that the German people will stand by me, in the person of their representatives, in protecting, so far as is possible, our national labor in this manner. Right and law must and shall be protected, and so far as lies in my power I shall see to it that they are maintained."
Like a bursting shell this speech struck into the circles of the laboring people and their allies. Nothing good had been expected ; suppression of the organizations had been anticipated ; but no one had suspected that men were to be liable to the house of correction for hindering others from labor, or simply for inciting to a strike. The house of correction is the severest penalty after capital punishment that our criminal law knows. Perjurers, counterfeiters, murderers, and other infamous criminals are sen- tenced to the house of correction ; and now this punishment was to be visited upon that laborer who urged his comrades to common resistance, in order to cooperate in improving their own and their children's condition in life. A tremendous excite- ment took possession of the whole labor population and all the liberal parties. The name "House of Correction Scheme" was given to the proposed law before its contents were fairly known. The National Socialists and the Social Democrats adopted in their conventions energetic resolutions against the law, the former with very tactful allusions to the social expres- sions of the Kaiser, who was now opposing the labor movement, who, however, eight 3-ears before had announced himself with great positiveness as in favor of the labor organizations. The latter party expressed themselves with very plain emphasis of their anti-monarchical tendency in general. The evangelical and Catholic labor organizations joined in these protests. Among the capitalists, on the other hand, this speech was celebrated with enthusiasm, as the word of salvation for which they had long
