The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1871-04-15
FROx LEIPZIG.
LsIpKIG, Feb. 20, 1871.

TO the Editor Of the WoaKHsAAE's ApvOeArR
Tt is common for OUT German middle
classmen. if you talk to them about the
misery OF our working classes, and the
necessity Of helping them, to answ er
you; What YOU say, may be very
well for England or France, but it does
not apply TO Germany The Germen
workmen as a body are neither in a
bad condition nor dissatisfied win their
To-; exceptional cases, if the chronic
famine and starvation Of the Siesian
weavers are not to be counted-excep-
lions proverbially proving the rule, and
the rule is: prosperity and happiness.
Nobody would talk of socialism and a
social question 10 Germany, if such un-
sound ideas had not been imported
from England and France BY parcel
Of Disconnected fellows. whom DO gov
eminent and no state OF society will
please, and whose mainsprings OF &C
ton are sel6shness and ambition" If
you reply, that the grievances of the
German was King classes are admitted
to be real even by conservative polite
ians and by clergymen, then the retort
is: "These conservative politicians
and clergymen are not in earnest
they only wish to use the social ques-
ton as lever against the middle
class" And this is true enough. How
ever, the motives of these gentlemen
(of whom more by-and-by) do not af-
iect the truth Of their statements with
regard to the condition of the German
working classes.
BY some lucky accident happened
to discover some tims ago little Trea-
tise or rather memorial, printed in few
copies only and not destined for public
ity, written neither by a demagouge
nor by conservative hater Of the bour-
geoisie, but by a man who stands sloof
from party strife, who has, ~ far as
| can make out, no political principles
whatever, certainly none, which could
bias his Judgment, who is untainted by
the slightest vestige Of socialistic poi
son, and who has been driven to speak
solely by the aweful amount OF misery
he got acquainted with in the course of
his professional experience in one of
the chief centres of German industry.
The Treatise ION the influence Of some
branches Of industry on the sanitary
state) has been published FIVE years
ago, in the spring Of 1866, and is ded-
icated to the Saxonian Ministry, of rffe
Interior. The author, DR.. MicEaels.
physician, was living them and had
been living for long time at OLmitz,
small town in the heart of the Erzoe
birqe Gore mount ains-in Saxony, am
stretching into Bohemia aud Bavaria, J
amidst teeming population OF weav-
ers', miners, stocking weavers and
ace and fringmakers. Here, in III,
most thickly populated part OF Germa-
ny, to which in point OF industrial i'm
portance only Rhenish Prussia can be-
compared, a large portion Of those
wares is produced, that enable German
industry successfully to compete with
English industry in many markets ol
the world. Immense wealth il created
there, and the national riches "aur
nented" with dazzling veloci.y-and
the creators Of this wealth, the aug
mentors of our national riches stary
Ing-their life slow, hunger death-slow
dying Of hunger Thus tells US hon
est, impartial DIR. MichaeIis. The men
stunted, weak, the women sickly, the
chlldren--growing up into men still
more stunted and weak, into women
still more sickly, unless they die before
they are grown up, And that the ma