Doctor Stampfer was not trying to be particularly logical. After all he felt himself to be in the provinces where a good player can without embarrassment cheat with a clearly marked card. In the first place all Germany's misfortunes stem from the endless multiplicity of regional parliaments. They should be abolished and centralised. Secondly, only a strong state power is capable of protecting the working class from the offensive of capital. Only the state (shouts: 'what sort?''bourgeois?') can uphold the eight-hour day for the workers. Even worthy, portly, greying SPD members started to feel ill at ease somehow, but German Mensheviks have the orator's ingenuous and always effective remedy: as soon as the gallery begins to whistle and the old men start looking round at each other restively and mutter:'Oh, yes? Well I never!', the speakerdrags Wilhelm out on to the stage. Alive, in moustache and full military dress. The speaker need only punch him on the nose, tell a couple of anecdotes about the ex-emperor's stupidity and have the unprecedented courage to abuse Wilhelm as a fool, idiot and maniac for the philistine to quake rapturously in the face of such blasphemy and the audience to be conquered. Having spat at Wilhelm the SPDer passes on to the communists.