Berlin, June 21. The more our political awareness develops and 
the more freely and loudly the public voice of Prussia makes itself 
heard, the more we feel at one with the other German races, and 
the greater the interest with which we view the manifestations of 
their state life. This is irrefutable testimony that the barriers which 
have existed so long in public opinion between Prussia and 
constitutional Germany have fallen, and that the national division 
resulting, on the one hand, from the arrogant self-sufficiency of 
many Prussians and, on the other, from the South-German 
liberals’ distrust of our government, no longer exists. Last year the 
reconciliation between the North-German and the South-German 
representatives of progress already found expression in the recep- 
tion which Welcker was given in Berlin as well as in the rest of 
North Germany, but it is only since the freer censorship in 
Prussia '*? that the two great halves of our Fatherland began to 
merge ever more visibly in the single striving for freedom. The 
Prussians have unexpectedly departed from their self-sufficiency, 
from their vainglorious boasting that their institutions are fault- 
less; in less than half a year defects have been -discovered whose 
very existence the majority of our fellow citizens had refused to 
imagine. The South Germans, on the other hand, owing to the 
independent-minded and often directly oppositional Prussian 
press, have got rid of the last remnants of their prejudices against 
the Prussian people and the latter’s degree of political education. 
In such circumstances it is understandable that the proceedings of 
the Baden Chamber of Deputies are being followed by us with the 
liveliest interest. After the Prussians had shown in the press that 


Participation in the Debates of the Baden Chamber of Deputies 299 


they had come of age politically, it was expected that the South 
Germans would do their utmost so as not to lag behind us. The 
Wirttemberg Chamber, however, showed only too clearly in its 
debates on judicial procedure how greatly it lacks the old 
coryphaei of 1833.%° From Baden, on the other hand, one could 
have expected that after what happened in the dissolved 
Chamber ‘*' political life would not so easily go to sleep. The 
powerful movements during the elections were a welcome sign of 
alertness and interest in domestic affairs; and although the press 
was not permitted to let us participate in these from afar and in 
thought, nevertheless they found expression in the election de- 
bates in the Chamber and now come into full evidence before our 
eyes. These debates, together with the hints that the press here 
and there contained about the celebrations prepared for individual 
deputies, gave us a clear picture of those days of tension and 
struggle. It was shown also, again in the most conspicuous way, in 
connection with the Schwetzingen-Philippsburg election among 
other things, that nothing is more harmful to governments 
anywhere than exaggerated zeal on the part of officials. The 
machinations resorted to here to secure votes for Rettig are 
unprecedented in Baden’s constitutional history. The simple fact 
that a constituency, which for twenty years in succession was always 
represented by von Itzstein, should now all at once have dropped 
him after he has often enough given evidence of his frame of 
mind and elected a deputy from the governmental party, suffi- 
ciently proves that this election was not a free one. The more 
welcome therefore was the reparation made to von Itzstein by the 
' Chamber.’ There one was glad to hear the veterans of free 
thought, Itzstein and Welcker, as well as representatives of the 
younger generation, Rindeschwender and others, speak in the old 
familiar way. The fact that the election of Mathy as deputy was 
secured in spite of all hostility, makes an all the better impression 
since in general he is the first journalist in Germany to have a seat 
in a Chamber. 


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