308 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
trial economically, as well as politically, more mature, united, and self-reliant. Thus the Prussian government indirectly con- tributed to their social education.
In the meantime the emigration of the young had practically ceased. Sons no longer left their fathers to struggle on alone, till death relieved them and German intruders took possession of the ancestral farms. The suicidal effects of this policy had been forcibly brought home by the constant decrease in the Danish vote. Those who in earlier years had preferred a sun- nier life in free Denmark or freer America could not return; when they did if only on a few days' visit to their parents they were immediately arrested and escorted back over the border. But, beginning in the early eighties, an ever-increasing number of the young men decided to remain at home, don the Prussian uniform, and in time fill the gaps in the ranks. After two years' military servitude in some far-off garrison they returned the better Danes for their experience in the barracks. Soon the polls began to tell of a turning of the tide ; the period of retrogression was at an end. Von Roller's frankly avowed replacement plan tended further to stimulate this determination ; and thus again he helped to defeat his own end.
Besides the local battlefield, where the weapons have been suggested by and adapted to the conditions of the struggle, there is another arena where the same war is being carried on upon different, though scarcely more favorable, terms. This is the legislative halls at Berlin, where the three representatives from North Sleswic year after year incessantly toll the bell of national toleration before a drowsy German conscience.
Danish Sleswic is represented in the Reichstag by but a single member. So adroitly have the electoral districts been " gerry- mandered " that, although the Danish votes at the first election (1867) in the new province to the parliament of the North Ger- man Federation outnumbered the German in the whole of Sleswic by 25,598 to 24,664, only one Danish candidate was elected to three German. This ratio has been maintained ever since. In the lower house of the Prussian Landtag two seats are occupied by Danes.
