Lecture and debate were followed, as I have said, with the closest attention by the forty or more men who were usually present. One saw in their bright and thoughtful eyes how their brains were at work to comprehend and assimilate the ideas presented to them. They generally smoked pipes, but now and then cigars, and they drank, on an average, one, or at most two, glasses of beer, costing either eight or fifteen pfennigs the glass, according to quality. Only a few left the meeting before its close; a few also, overcome by the fatigue of the day’s toil, fell at last quietly asleep, otherwise the most undivided attention prevailed; such evenings were for these men no mere recreation, but hard work; they were always hours of eager learning and profound reflection; they were inspiration and encouragement in the unvarying monotony of factory life. It may be said, without exaggeration, that such evenings have taken the place of the old accustomed churchgoing. And herein, precisely, lies the great agitative importance of the Social-Democratic Campaign Club, with its regularly recurring meetings, in centres like Chemnitz. It is these evenings which act silently, persistently, lastingly, upon the working man inclined towards social democracy, until he is identified in heart and mind with the whole system of thought of the Socialist party; it is they which train their convert so that the fire of conviction kindled within him shall not uselessly flicker out, but shall burn high in agitation among his fellow-workmen and in his own family, as well as in public assemblies, when he enters the lists, for the common cause, against his political opponents.
Outwardly these evenings passed always in the same manner and under the same order of business, which was as follows: – The admission of new members, the reading of the minutes of the previous meeting, the lecture, or, in its default, the reading of leading articles from some one of the social-democratic papers, ordinarily the Berliner Volkstribüne, a journal well suited to this purpose, and finally the questions and debate. Equally uniform and stereotyped were the words with which the otherwise eloquent president opened the meeting, and those in which the secretary presented the report of the previous evening; it was easy to see how superficial was the knowledge of parliamentary form among these simple people. Guests were always welcomed, but they were not very numerous, and were, without exception, from the labouring class. Every session was under the supervision of a royal gendarme and a local officer alternately; but these never stirred from their retired corner, and, on the whole, the personal relations between them and the workmen seemed friendly enough. There was almost always a mutual “good-evening” exchanged, and on other nights I often saw the same officer, in his uniform, in a certain cosy “kneipe” much affected by our workmen, amicably drinking his beer at the round table with all the rest.
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