an initiative was successful if at least 10% of those entitled to vote approved it. The Reich Committee's relationship to the people's legislative power was purely a means to pursue an aim. Franz Seldte made this clear in a speech on 26 October: "The initiative is only a means of struggle. Whether we get 3 million or 6 million [votes], we are ready and determined to continue the struggle with new weapons." On 28 September 1929 the Reich Committee for the initiative against the Young plan submitted a bill to the Reich ministry of the interior that both the right wing of the DNVP around Hugenberg and the NSDAP had been involved in drafting. It stipulated that it was to be put to a popular vote if the Reichstag rejected it. Reich Minister of the Interior Carl Severing (SPD) allowed the proposal to go forward in spite of reservations from within his own party. He assumed that a refusal would only play into the hands of the right wing and that the initiative drive would likely fail. The draft was entitled: "Law Against the Enslavement of the German People". In its abbreviated form it was called propagandistically the "Freedom Law". The draft was divided into four paragraphs and went beyond reparations issues in the narrow sense. §1 rejected the recognition of war guilt. §2 demanded the abrogation of the corresponding Article 231 in the Treaty of Versailles. §3 rejected accepting new reparation obligations. §4 stated that "Reich Chancellors and Reich Ministers and their authorized agents who, contrary to the provision of §3, sign treaties with foreign powers are subject to the penalties provided for in §92 No. 3 of the Criminal Code." That clause referred to treason, which was punishable by no less than two years in prison. Paragraph 4 in particular was included at Hitler's insistence. The last paragraph was highly controversial even within the Reich Committee. Hugenberg and the Agricultural League found the passage embarrassing and wanted to dispense with it altogether, but the NSDAP made its continued participation conditional on retaining it. Hitler insisted on his position, and at the meeting of the Reich Committee on 21 September, the supporters of Section 4 prevailed. The clause was, however, made somewhat less provocative. In a first draft it would also have affected Reich President Paul von Hindenburg. While Joseph Goebbels and other National Socialists would have had no