The International Workingmen's Association 1864
To the Editor of the Stuttgart Beobachter
Written: in 28th November 1864;
First published: in the Nordstern, No. 287, December 10, 1864;
Printed according to: the copy in Mrs. Marx's hand, corrected by the author and collated with the newspaper;
Transcribed: by director@marx.org.
Sir,
Through his man-of-straw in Bradford, Dr. Bronner, Herr Karl
Blind has sent you a long epistle by, for, and about Herr Blind,
into which, among other curiosities, the following passage slips:
"I do not wish in this connection to return to that old dispute"
in respect of the leaflet "Zur Warnung" against Vogt "which was
settled by statements from all concerned and which the editorial
office has brought up anew."
He "does not wish to return"! What magnanimity!
As evidence that the pompous vanity of Herr Karl Blind occasionally
propels Herr Karl Blind beyond the bounds of pure comedy, you make mention
of my work against Vogt. From Blind's reply you and your
readers must draw the conclusion that the accusations made in that work
against Herr Karl Blind have been settled by "statements from all concerned".
In actual fact since the appearance of my work, that is for four years,
the otherwise so prolific Herr Karl Blind has never once dared to
"return to the old dispute" with so much as a word, much less with "statements
from all concerned".
On the contrary, Herr Karl Blind has been content to remain
branded an "infamous liar" (see pp. 66, 67 of my work). Herr Karl
Blind has repeatedly declared in public that he did not know by
whom the leaflet against Vogt had been cast into the world, that
"he had absolutely no part in the affair", etc. In addition, Herr
Karl Blind published a statement by the printer Fidelio Hollinger,
flanked by another statement by the compositor Wiehe, to the effect
that the leaflet had neither been printed in Hollinger's printing-shop
nor had it emanated from Herr Karl Blind. In my work against Vogt may be
found the affidavits (statements made under oath) of the compositor
Vögele and of Wiehe himself made before the Bow Street Magistrates
Court, London, proving that the same Herr Karl Blind wrote the manuscript
of the leaflet, had it printed by Hollinger, personally
corrected the proofs, fabricated a false certificate to refute
these facts, and deviously obtained the signature of the compositor
Wiehe for this false certificate by proffering promises of money from
Hollinger, and future gratitude on his own part, and finally sent this
false document fabricated by himself, along with the signature he himself
had dishonestly obtained, to the Augsburg Allgemeine and other German
newspapers as morally outraged evidence of my "malicious invention".
Thus publicly pilloried, Herr Karl Blind kept silent. Why? Because
(see p. 69 of my work) he could only refute the affidavits by me
by means of counter-affidavits, but he found himself "under the
grave jurisdiction of England", where "felony is no joining matter".
In the aforementioned letter to your newspaper there are also some strange
statements about Herr Karl Blind's American industriousness. In
order to clear up this point allow me to cite an extract from a letter
from J. Weydemeyer that arrived here a few days ago. You will recall
that J. Weydemeyer used to edit the Neue Deutsche Zeitung
in Frankfurt along with O. Luning, and was always one of the most stalwart
champions of the German workers' party. Shortly after the outbreak of the
American Civil War he entered the ranks of the Federals. Summoned by Fremont
to St. Louis, he served initially as a captain in the Engineer Corps there,
then as lieutenant-colonel in an artillery regiment, and when Missouri
was again recently threatened with enemy invasion, he was suddenly given
the task of organising the 41st Missouri Volunteer Regiment, which he now
commands with the rank of colonel. Weydemeyer writes from St. Louis,
the capital of Missouri, where his regiment is stationed, as follows:
"You will find enclosed a cutting from a newspaper here, the Westliche
Post, in which the literary pirate Karl Blind is again strutting
and swaggering with all his might at the expense of the 'German republicans'.
Of course here it is rather irrelevant how he distorts Lassalle's
aspirations and agitations; anyone who has read the works of the latter
knows what to think of Blind's harlequinades; anyone who has not
taken the trouble of becoming somewhat better acquainted with that agitation,
may gullibly admire the wisdom and 'staunchness of spirit' of the great
man of Baden, conspirator par excellence and member of every secret
society and future provisional government; such a judgment is of no consequence.
Also people have other things to do here at present than to concern
themselves with Blind's protests. But it would surely be appropriate
to rap this pompous ass strongly over the knuckles at home, and
so I am sending you the article, which is only a small specimen of similar
earlier products."
The cutting from the Westliche Post sent by J. Weydemeyer is headed:
"A Republican Protest, London, September 17, 1864", and is the American
edition of the "Republican Protest" which the same unavoidable
Herr Karl Blind simultaneously sent under the same title to the
Neue Frankfurter Zeitung, and then with his customary, assiduous
ant-like industriousness forwarded to the London Hermann as a reproduction
from the Neue Frankfurter Zeitung.
A comparison of the two versions of Blind's clumsy handiwork would show
how the same Herr Karl Blind, while protesting in Frankfurt and London
with a respectable, republican, Cato-like woeful countenance, simultaneously
gives free rein in far-off St. Louis to the most malicious idiocy and the
vilest impudence. A comparison of the two versions of the "Protest", for
which there is no space here, would also result in a new amusing contribution
to the method of fabricating letters, circulars, leaflets, protests, provisos,
defences, proclamations, appeals, and other similar head-shakingly solemn
Blindian political recipes, from which there is as little chance of escaping
as from Mr. Holloway's pills or Mr. Hoff's malt extract.
Nothing could be further from my mind than to seek to explain
a man such as Lassalle and the real tendency of his agitation to
a grotesque Mazzini-Scapin with nothing behind him but his own shadow.
On the contrary, I am convinced that Herr Karl Blind is only fulfilling
the calling imposed on him by nature and by Aesop in stepping behind the
dead lion.
London,
November 28, 1864
Karl Marx
1, Modena Villas
Maitland Park
Cover Letter
November 28, 1864
1, Modena Villas, Maitland Park,
Haverstock Hill, London
Dear Sir,
I beg you to accept for publication the enclosed letter concerning
Herr Karl Blind.
I have sent the same statement in the same form — as a letter
to the Stuttgart Beobachter — to some Prussian newspapers for publication,
and will also arrange for it to be reproduced in a German newspaper
here so that responsibility for it rests solely with me.
Yours faithfully,
K. Marx