The Elections (25 January 1849)

* Cologne, 24 Jan. As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth  
Neue Rheinische Zeitung.  
No. 204, 25 January 1849

Ehren-Brüggemann after a new “saving deed of the crown”. The same profound thinker who not long ago praised universal suffrage as one of the most glorious and precious “March achievements”; the same thoroughly honest man is today of the opinion that even the present octroyed and restricted suffrage must again be octroyed away.

“So much,” says Ehren-Brüggemann, “so much must have become clear to the observer yesterday, to whatever party he belongs – the present electoral law, so long as a more general participation in the elections and a more frequent contact and better mutual acquaintance of the district comrades are not brought about by other political institutions, makes reasonable and decisive elections impossible.” And why not? With a deep sigh Brüggemann answers:

“There is no longer any doubt whatever that on the whole the united Left with its candidates (in its distress the *Kölnische Zeitung* manages to write even worse German than usual) have carried the victory over the candidates of the constitutional party.”

And where the constitutional party, this “true majority”, this “core of the population”, is so beaten, as here in Cologne the day before yesterday, there can of course be no talk of “reasonable and decisive elections”. That is no popular representation. The best people, the pillars of the good constitutionalists, obviously did not vote. A small but active minority has spirited the elections away in the absence of the majority. Just listen to the wise Brüggemann:

“The principal cause of this unexpected result is to be sought in the alarming apathy of the middle bourgeoisie.”

So that is the result of the 182,000 leaflets and 162,000 reprints in the noble *Kölnische* – the alarming apathy of the middle bourgeoisie! What “alarming” tediousness and emptiness the “middle bourgeoisie” must have discovered in those sixteen constitutional leaflets! What naivety of the Citizens’ Club newspaper, to see precisely in the ineffectiveness and impotence of its most convulsive efforts the “principal cause” of the defeat!

But what about this “alarming apathy of the middle bourgeoisie”?

Let one just look through the lists of the elected electors, to see whether the majority does not belong precisely to the “middle bourgeoisie”! Let one look at the constitutional lists of candidates, to see whether they do not, for the most part, contain candidates who do not belong to the middle bourgeoisie, but possess “a social position”! Let one compare these lists with the democratic ones, to see whether everywhere wealth, traditional prestige, official position, have not precisely been defeated by the “middle bourgeoisie”!

Just a few examples:

In the 3rd electoral district the five democratic candidates were five times opposed by Pastor Busch, and he was five times defeated by a grammar-school teacher, a linen weaver, a painter, a comb-maker and a manufacturer.

In the 9th district five democratic candidates defeated five gentlemen of the higher bourgeoisie, among them a town councillor and a square-footer.

In the 29th district, Town Councillor Michels was defeated five times against candidates who can all be counted as belonging to the middle bourgeoisie.

In the 30th district a journeyman tailor defeated a very wealthy pump-maker, a grocer defeated the chancellor of the cathedral chapter, Herr von Groote, a brandy distiller defeated the cathedral capitular Herr Trost, etc., etc.

In the 32nd district the five principal candidates, among them three advocates, won for the simple reason that 138 electors from the middle bourgeoisie did not vote. The majority of them would have voted for the democrats. “The alarming apathy of the middle bourgeoisie” thus helped not the democrats, but the constitutionalists to victory here!

In the 49th district Herr Karl Boisseree, coal merchant, etc., not belonging at all to the middle bourgeoisie, was defeated eight times against eight democrats from the “middle bourgeoisie”.

Finally in the 45th district, but first let us hear Herr Brüggemann himself:

“In the 45th district, which contains 530 primary electors, at the first ballot with 242 actually voting, the commandant, Colonel Engels, was elected an elector as candidate of the latter at the third ballot, after the democrats had fetched some succour over midday, with 260 actually voting – a man of the very extremest socialist-democratic views! What then is the conviction and views of the 45th district?”

Herr Brüggemann could answer this last question himself, since he notoriously stayed in the polling station of the 45th district for the whole two election days and sought by all means to bring about the victory of the constitutional candidates in this headquarters of the Citizens’ Club. But in vain, and hence the tears!

In the 45th electoral district – you must know this, Herr Brüggemann – things went as follows:

The gentlemen of the Citizens’ Club had turned up most punctually at the appointed hour. The democrats stayed away a little longer. Immediately the gentlemen of the Citizens’ Club proceeded to ballot, and got Colonel Engels – hear, hear – admitted by a majority of one vote. And this one decisive ballot paper contained nothing but the name “Engels” without any further qualifications. Against this glorious election victory of Herr Engels by means of one dubious vote, however, two hundred and thirty-four primary electors of the district have lodged a protest – thus almost twice as many as voted for Herr Engels.

But how did things go for the other seven candidates of the Citizens’ Club?

The second candidate was Herr Stupp, the well-known ex-deputy, who ran away from Berlin and went to Brandenburg. Herr Stupp was defeated by Herr Hummelsheim, a decided democrat from the “middle bourgeoisie”.

The third was the highly esteemed and very wealthy merchant Herr Franz Heuser, who, as we saw above, to the great horror of Herr Brüggemann was defeated by a candidate of the “very extremest democratic-socialist” persuasion.

But the democrats had “fetched succour”!

Well, Herr Brüggemann, and why did you not fetch any succour? Why did you and the other gentlemen of the Citizens’ Club not run from house to house to rouse the “middle bourgeoisie” from its “alarming apathy”? Why did you not press a few more copies of those miracle-working leaflets, pulled off 344,000 times, into people’s hands? Ah, it would have been in vain! The democrats were too powerful. You see it, misunderstood Brüggemann, vous aviez travaillé pour le roi de Prusse!

But further. The fourth candidate was Herr Advokat-Anwalt Fay, co-chief of the Citizens’ Club and holder of the solution to the social question. Et tu, Brute! The pitiless voters sacrificed him to a printing works owner “from the middle bourgeoisie”, and Herr Fay was defeated.

The fifth was Herr Advokat-Anwalt Compes, ex-member of the National Assembly from Frankfurt. But no good star shone upon him either: he was defeated by the master locksmith Monius “from the middle bourgeoisie”.

The sixth was Herr Ochse-Stern, the pawnshop administrator, who rules the whole proletariat and the whole middle bourgeoisie with his pawn tickets. He was defeated by the private individual Froitzheim “from the middle bourgeoisie”.

The seventh was Herr Advokat-Anwalt Esser II, ex-deputy in Berlin, who competed with Herr Stupp in running away on 9 October. He followed his comrade here too; he was defeated by the tailor Tilz “from the middle bourgeoisie”.

The eighth, finally, Herr Pastor Rollertz, likewise succumbed to an opponent from the “middle bourgeoisie”, the merchant Herr Hospelt.

Thus seven democratic electors, almost all “from the middle bourgeoisie”, defeated seven local bigwigs, among them two ex-deputies, a pastor, a National Assembly member, and a solver of the social question – and only one bleater elector not belonging to the “middle bourgeoisie” got through, and on top of that with one dubious vote and pursued by a protest with 234 signatures!

And this district Herr Brüggemann selects in order to exclaim: What then is the conviction and views of this district! This district, in which the middle bourgeoisie decidedly won, he selects in order to prove “the alarming apathy of the middle bourgeoisie”! Poor Brüggemann! The consternation robs him of his last remnant of reason.

Incidentally, on the poor lists of the city of Cologne there are 25,000 heads receiving public support. These 25,000 heads, i.e., precisely 29 per cent, or almost a third of the total population, are not represented. Furthermore, those many workers are not represented who either have not been here for six months or who are not Prussians. Now deduct these categories from the total mass of the proletariat, and how many proletarians remain who have the right to vote? Truly, if the proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie had not held together, the conservative larger bourgeoisie would have had to win! And then a Brüggemann drivels on the alarming apathy of the middle bourgeoisie!

The matter is simple: Where the victory of the one or the other party was certain, many voters of both parties stayed away, or only appeared when the result began to waver. Precisely the certainty of the result made people seemingly indifferent. But had he driven them all thither, Herr Brüggemann would still not have secured a victory for his worthy party. The “saving deeds of the crown” have seen to that.

For the rest, the democrats should not be too arrogant. It cannot be denied that here in Cologne the elections turned out to be more undecided than elsewhere in the province. The democrats should see to it that our opponents do not regain at least a piece of the lost terrain by intrigues and splits among the electors. The complete exploitation of the victory won depends on the activity of the democrats. As long as the deputies are not appointed, we must not rest. Therefore watchful and active!