Gentlemen, do we have any cause to postpone our demand for democratization in a time of martial law, the press censorship, the suspension of the miserable right of assembly, in a time of the darkest reaction, including the spy system in Prussia under the name of _Burgfrieden_ (civic truce) in a form of military dictatorship, celebrates its triumph, in a time when the people are more than ever without any rights, in a time when by the war not only the danger to all of the capitalistic economic order is made more striking than ever, but when political pressure lies harder than ever on the people. In such a time, there is no occasion for us to postpone our demands for democratization. ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.) Never did the class character of the present society of the Prussian state reveal itself so rude and unmasked as right now. Nor do we have any occasion to postpone our demands for democratization at a time when the dangerous reaction of the inner autocracy upon the external policy shows itself so awful and dangerous, at a time which is really clamoring for the democratization of exterior politics. ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.)
Gentlemen, Mr. Assemblyman Dr. Pachnicke said the war has given new support to the demand for electoral reform. Frhr. v. Zedlitz shouted a shrill denial of these words. ("Hear! Hear!" from the Soc.-Dem.) A word which lighted up the situation as a lightning flash, a word for which I and my friends thank him, a word of redemption which can be _a call of alarm_ for the further interior Prussian-German development. In fact, the war has given new support, not to a patch-work reform in the sense of which Mr. Pachnicke speaks, but to a reform of the Prussian state in body and soul. I mean in equal franchise and administration from below up to the highest ranks. And that not only on account of the warlike attitude of the German people, as Mr. Pachnicke thought. From entirely different grounds. There never before appeared so clearly on the surface the glaring contrast between the heavy duties of the majority of the people and the privileged character of the state and the Administration, as in these days; the contrast between the equal duties as cannon fodder and the political inequalities in the state. ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.)