"I will further every endeavour which positively aims at improving the condition of the working classes. ... As soon as a positive proposal came from the Socialists for fashioning the future in a sensible way, in order that the lot of the working-man might be improved, I would not at any rate refuse to examine it favourably, and I would not even shrink from the idea of State help for the people who would help themselves."
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Military leaders from GermanyPrussiansChancellors of GermanyGerman foreign ministersMinisters of Germany
Original Language: English
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Sources
Speech to the Reichstag (9 October 1878), quoted in W. H. Dawson, Bismarck and State Socialism: An Exposition of the Social and Economic Legislation of Germany since 1870 (1891), p. 45
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck
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