Honorable gentlemen. I did not intend to speak today because, as a member of the city council, I have already analyzed the [budget] proposal and have already voted in favor of it. I shall, therefore, not speak at length about details. I have requested the floor, as it happens, only because of the speeches made by the opposition against us. The first speaker was Councillor Zifferer, who held forth in the funereal tone with which you have been familiar for years.
Well, gentlemen, he not only objects to not spending something that is in the proposal but also to any savings achieved at the end of the fiscal year. Gentlemen, I would like to ask, Where in the world, in what country, is there any kind of budget that is calculated to come out exactly to the penny? He knows there is none, but he exercises his criticism in the same monotone that we have observed for years.
Take, for instance, any sort of person, any one of us. Suppose he plans on purchasing a winter coat, but it remains warm until the new year. Therefore, he does not buy it and saves 50 florins, which then go into the budget of the next year. How much more is this the case with a budget of 140 million, where so many building projects and so many other things are to be done? These are influenced by forces of nature and certain eventualities with which we are all familiar and which will always happen in a great city, as long as it remains one. The proposal cannot be completely accurate, and any sort of savings must be corrected in the balancing of the budget. So, I beg you, cease this criticism; it is monotonous.
Councillor Zifferer has mentioned among other things the interest rate on unused funds that are not yet budgeted and that are deposited abroad. Had he read page 99 (of the budget report), he would have seen the interest rate we get, which is certainly not the worst: from 4 to 4 ¼ percent. Formerly, such unused funds were deposited with the Jew, Pollak von Borkenau, at 2 percent. That was a poor investment. Today, when such colossal earnings are to be had and these unused funds are invested at a quite competitive rate of interest, Mr. Zifferer gets up and speaks against it, because it is "bad financial management.” He emphasizes among other things that the city is not much worried about the large funds it has in the Deutsche Bank. If he, Mr. Donat Zifferer, had twice as much money there, he would not be fearful, but the city should have cause to worry. Gentle-men! I say to you, if Mr. Zifferer who—I hope he will not be offended--belonged to the Israelite religion, is not fearful, then we need not be afraid either. I have not yet seen the Jew who did not know where to put his money. Therefore, let him calm down. Our funds are safe there.
So much for Councillor Zifferer.
Then came Councillor Schuhmeier. He has delivered a lament about oppression and called this financial management a scandal. He cries about violation, speaks of the majority and minority. It is curious that since we (Christian Socials) have gained a majority, we are continually asked not to emphasize the positive in the budget, the things that show how prudently we manage finances.
The millions that we have obtained by careful management, the results we have achieved, should speak for themselves. We are supposed to say in the [financial] report that this was no achievement, that it all happened by itself. Where will you find a majority that works and will not report its documented achievements?
On the question of oppression, the Social Democrats should be among the most silent. Nowhere in the world is there a party as terroristically inclined as the Social Democrats.
Not here in the city council; nothing can happen here because there are only two of them. But that's not our fault. It's their fault. Their program activities, their agitation in every respect, have led the population to say: two of them in the city council are more than enough.
[The Social Democrats] have completely forfeited the sympathies of w the broad masses, which have been given the right to vote for the first time by this mayor and his party, as has been mentioned many times. After all, to whom, Councillor Schuhmeier and Councillor Neumann, do you owe the fact that you are sitting here? None other than this mayor and this party. To be sure, you say that seventeen or eighteen year olds should also have been allowed to vote. Then there would be more of you in here. If the organized apprentices instructed by [Social Democrats] Seitz and Dr. Ellenbogen were allowed to vote, then a different sort of representation might sit here. But as long as honorably thinking men have the vote, you will see no more than two here. That's the story.
About terrorism, you say nothing. Look, for instance, how organized you were at the last session of Parliament. Now there are only ten Social Democrats in parliament as against the fifteen who were there before. And we are supposed to think that you are quite oppressed there. But what did you do? [You] abused [your parliamentary] immunity to excess; you insulted and befouled our mayor in a way never before experienced in history. I am no pussyfooter, either, it's true. I don't pull my punches, and when I was a member of parliament, I also let loose against my political enemies.
But I would have never used such words, even against a political enemy, as you have slung against this mayor, Dr. Karl Lueger. Your colleague, Pernerstorfer, produced an ocean of slime and a flood of vulgarity. And this, without reason; not because there was anything on the agenda that concerned the mayor, but during a debate when a capitalist exploiter, Lobmayr, was being discussed. One would have expected that the gentlemen Social Democrats would have nothing at all to say about this, for they certainly would not be expected to intervene on behalf of the exploiter.
But the gentlemen stood up there and lashed out in stentorian fashion against the mayor and against our party, while the exploiter Lobmayr, the millionaire, is allowed to appear with a veritable halo in the Austrian parliament. You call yourselves representatives of the proletariat, representatives of the hungry workers! (lively applause) You say nothing about terrorism. I myself have often taken offense at the mayor's being so conciliatory toward you and not toward me. That's the way things are. ("Quite right!") He very often brings us to order, while he proceeds against the two gentlemen with the greatest mildness. You have no cause to complain of terrorism here. Of course, we won't put up with everything. When Mr. Schuhmeier postures and spouts anything that comes to his Social Democratic imagination, when he speaks incredible lies that cannot be substantiated, and when he stands there and speaks as though he were the great corruption killer, then you will permit us to interject a word here and there. We get excited when such wholly unjustified reproaches are uttered.
Our esteemed colleague Schwer has expounded in detailed and irrefutable ways on the nature of the Social Democrats. If I were not pressed for time, I could speak volumes...on how the Social Democrats sin against their own party. As long as the Social Democrats stood on their own feet and showed that they were a true party of the proletariat, and proved it, all respect to them! I concede that we do not possess the patent on national salvation; perhaps we are mistaken. But your main program says this: land and property, labor and capital are the common goods of all men, and everything that bears the human countenance has equal rights. But the moment it concerns a Catholic, he ceases to have equal rights for you. (applause) Councillor Zifferer will tell me that the moment it concerns a Jew, he does not have equal rights with us. The difference, however, is that we speak the truth! Yes, we want to annihilate the Jews. We are not ashamed to say the Jew must be driven from society...
Yes, we were once a minority in this hall when Dr. Lueger had forty-six or thirty-six men. You'll say: you should have been here to see what they did! What did they do? The mayor sat here and made glowing speeches that went straight to the heart of the matter. And the population of Vienna said: "We have felt that, too." And then they elected Dr. Lueger and his supporters... Nobody usurped the podium; nobody violated the rules of orderly debate... Mayor Dr. Lueger and his party seized possession of the mayoralty, and 130 men sit here on the basis of the laws and elections, without violation of the laws. You, however, have devised rules of order that seek to muzzle our party. You, the Liberal party, have introduced lackey laws in this hall. Under the so-called iron mayor' you were the ones who created all the restrictions for us. But look; all the muzzling and terrorism availed you nothing.
If someday the population changes its mind and backs you against us, then all the rules of order that exist today will avail us nought. But you see that regard for the Christian Social, for the antisemitic, party, mounts from day to day...
Heterogeneous elements, such as red, international proletarians and nationalist, bourgeois exploiters, have united against us.
Add to this Jews and Jew liberalism and all that clings to them—thus has the phalanx closed around us. In the city and countryside they have beat the drum against us. If one read the newspapers for the last six months, the fickle of our party, to which, thank God, I do not belong, might well believe that it is all over for our party. But I've gone out to the lion's den, to the provinces, to the places where the great coalition was. And where were the gentlemen? I was there, and they were elsewhere! That's the story. The coalition was totally useless. Farmers, bureaucrats, workers, and tradesmen have got the message. We have conquered all the mandates (for the state parliament of Lower Austria, and a majority in the municipal council of the city of Vienna, even though universal suffrage with a three-year residency qualification has been introduced there. If you had struck a single spark of support in the people, surely you would have wrested away at least one mandate. Were it not for the Jews, your party would not even be worth discussing.
How many Social Democrats are there, anyhow? If the Hebrews, the dirty Jews, didn't vote, where would the Social Democrats be? They would be a mere dummy, nothing more! Without the Jews, the gentlemen would be a nullity, and it must be said, there are already Jews saying: "What shall we do? We can't win with them." Maybe they will even turn to anarchism and blow up the leaders of the Christian population with bombs, thereby finally destroying [our] party.
You see, you should not talk about terrorism, for all you need to do is attend a Social Democratic meeting. You'll only be able to leave it as a corpse, not as a healthy man.
Well, Councillor Schuhmeier also spoke on the schools... School doctors serve no purpose. They would only be an unnecessary expense, and they would not serve any purpose for you, my Liberal and Social Democratic gentlemen, either, for if ever they were introduced, you can be certain that as long as we are at the rudder, no Jew will be employed. You demand school meals, textbooks, doctors, gardens, in short, everything the children need, to be paid by the city. All the reds do is beget children. That's the whole story.
Now, let's talk about our own party... When foreigners come to Vienna nowadays, to fill their chops, as you say, they are genuinely enthusiastic about the city of Vienna.
Nowadays, all the foreigners come, and if you had heard what was said in the banquet hall, without regard to party affiliation, innkeepers, Pan-Germans, Czechs, Poles, Social Democrats were there, and all were united in praise and said: "We'd never have believed it. We thought Lueger was a cannibal, as we'd read." They looked at us as though we were savages. That's what was reported in the newspapers of Germany, France, and England. We were portrayed as a fanatical horde of uneducated and uncivilized men. That's what was spread by the educated Austrian, especially the Viennese Jewish press beasts. Here, in this hall, works have been created that even opponents have acknowledged. And what have the Jew papers said the next day? Exactly the opposite! A prominent Jewish journalist said: “It's all the same to us. Lueger can do what he wants with his party. We shall tear it all down!" The activity of those gentlemen who sit up in the (press) gallery (and if it's not them, then it happens in the editorial offices) is this: we must revile (the work] because the Jews command it to be so. And if we presented the most glorious budget in the world and if we made Vienna into the El Dorado of the world, the Jews would still say: "That cannot be, we will not have it, because we demand Jewish dominance!"
This is the inexpressible hatred of Jewry toward us...
If it were not for the Jewish press, the Christian Social party would be the only predestined one to rule in Austria. In our ranks you find the prince and the lowliest worker; this is the genuine people's party. But that doesn't do any good. As long as we show the Hebrews our teeth, nothing will happen. Antisemitism remains trump as long as we have the honor to be in this hall. They may call me stupid. I know I am the most slandered of all, scorned and ridiculed. But that doesn't matter to me. I have a thick skin. The dirty Jews can write whatever they want about me and the party. I and my colleagues and our mayor will go our own way, undisturbed, to work in the interests of the imperial capital and [Habsburg] residence city of Vienna. This is our ideal. We are available to Vienna's working population at any time. Otherwise there is just one word: checkmate the Jews, down with the betrayers of the people, down with the Social Democrats, away with traitors to the fatherland! That is our banner.
We shall not slacken in this struggle; we shall ruthlessly continue this fight as long as a drop of blood flows through our veins... We will, however, take every opportunity to announce to the world that the people of Vienna are honest, Christian, and pure German, but that it has as its program: the elimination of Jewry. From this we will not shrink.