Letter to J. M. Weber, February 24, 1860

Add a subpage to this text

Read the help page for usage.

 

MARX TO J. M. WEBER

IN BERLIN

Manchester, 24 February 1860
6 Thorncliffe Grove, Oxford Road

Dear Sir,

I find it surprising that as late as yesterday I should still have been without an acknowledgment from Berlin of the registered letter despatched to you on 13 February.

Yesterday I mailed you from here—Manchester—in a second registered letter, the power of attorney together with seven other enclosures and, with reference to the said (numbered) enclosures, am today taking the liberty of sending a few additional notes on the chief points which I consider it necessary to stress in the action for libel against the Berlin National-Zeitung. At the same time, I enclose a letter of 19 November 1852, and a copy of the Revelations published by me in 1853.

I. a) The anonymous pamphlet Zur Warnung. In No. 41 of the Berlin National-Zeitung, leading article, 'Wie man radikale Flugblätter macht', page 1, column 3, there is a passage which runs as follows:

'The Marx party could very easily saddle Blind with the authorship of the pamphlet because and after he had expressed similar views to those contained in it in conversation with Marx and in an article in The Free Press. By making use of Blind's assertions and turns of phrase the pamphlet could be fabricated and made to look as if he (i.e. Blind) 'had concocted it.'

Altogether the whole intent of this column is to depict me as the fabricator of the said flysheet and, at the same time, to charge me with the infamy of having made it look as though it had been concocted by Blind.

Before dealing with the evidence provided in the enclosures I sent you yesterday, it would, I think, be pertinent to give you a concise history of this controversy.

In the course of its lawsuit with Vogt, the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung printed amongst other documents the following letter from me:

'October 19, 1859
9 Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park, Haverstock Hill, London

'Sir,

'As long as I had a hand in the German Press I attacked the Allgem. Zeitung and the Allgem. Zeitung attacked me. However, this does not of course prevent me from assisting the Allgem. Zeitung, as far as it lies in my power, in a case in which it has in my view fulfilled the primary duty of the press: that of the denunciation of HUMBUGS. The enclosed document would be a legal document here in London. I do not know whether it is the same in Augsburg. I have procured the said document because Blind refused to stand by statements which he had made to me and others, which I passed on to Liebknecht, and which allowed the latter no doubts about the denunciation contained in the anonymous pamphlet.

'Yours very sincerely, Dr K. Marx.'

The document enclosed in the letter to the Allg. Zeit, and also printed by the latter, runs:

'I hereby declare in the presence of Dr Karl Marx and Wilhelm Liebknecht that the flysheet published anonymously and without indication of the place of printing under the title Zur Warnung, which was reproduced in No. 7 of the Volk, had been

'1. composed and printed in the printshop of Fidelio Hollinger, 3 Litchfield Street, Soho, I myself composing part of the manuscript and F. Hollinger the other part;

2. that it was written in Karl Blind's hand, which was known to me from Karl Blind's manuscripts for the Hermann, and from anonymous flysheets written by Karl Blind, ostensibly printed at "Frankfurt am Main", but in fact composed and printed at F. Hollinger's, 3 Litchfield Street, Soho;

3. that Fidelio Hollinger in person told me Karl Blind was the author of the flysheet Zur Warnung, directed against Prof. Vogt.

August Vögele, Compositor.

The authenticity of the above signature is attested by W. Liebknecht, Dr. K. Marx.

London, 17 September 1859.'

(See Vogt's piece, 'Mein Prozess gegen die "Allg. Zeitung'", Documents, pp. 30, 31.)

In reply, the following letter from Karl Blind, together with the depositions of Hollinger and Wiehe, appeared in No. 313 of the Allgem. Zeitung and in the Kölnische Zeitung:

'London, 23 Townshead Road, St John's Wood, 3 November 1859.

In order to refute the allegation that I am the author of the flysheet Zur Warnung, I need do no more than make public the following document. This only in self-defence—not as a vindication of Karl Vogt, whose mode of action I and my friends of the republican party must unconditionally condemn in view of all that we have learned over the past six months. I can testify to the accuracy of the information provided by Mr Julius Fröbel to the effect that offers of money emanating from Vogt did, beyond doubt, arrive here, for the purpose of persuading Germans over here to influence the Press at home in the sense already mooted. Karl Blind.'

a) 'I hereby declare that the assertion of the compositor Vögele printed in the Allg. Z., No. 300, to the effect that the pamphlet Zur Warnung mentioned there was printed in my printshop or that Herr Karl Blind was its author, is a malicious fabrication. Fidelio Hollinger. 3 Litchfield Street, Soho, London, November 2, 1859.'

b) 'The undersigned, who has lived and worked in No. 3 Litchfield Street for the past 11 months, for his part testifies to the correctness of Herr Hollinger's statement. London, November 2, 1859. J. F. Wiehe, Compositor.'

(Cf. Vogt's book, Documents, pp. 37 and 38.)

To this I replied in No. 325 of the Allg. Zeit., the relevant cutting from the A. Z. having been sent you in my first letter from London.

Karl Blind, for his part, published a further rejoinder in the supplement to the Allg. Zeit, of 11 December, in which the editors declare:

'The following is the substance of Mr Karl Blind's statement: Having repeatedly based my testimony on the documents signed by Herr Hollinger, the printer, and Herr Wiehe, compositor, I declare here for the last time that the allegation (which is latterly put forward merely as an insinuation) that I am the author of the pamphlet frequently referred to is a downright untruth. The more recent statements about me contain distortions of the crudest sort. Let me repeat: I say this merely in self-defence against the Marx-Biscamp-Liebknecht camp, and not as a vindication of Vogt, my opposition to whom I have already voiced.'

The editors of the Allgem. Zeit, commented on this statement as follows:

'Since the further elucidation in these pages of the above circumstances, or the controversy over them, has long ceased to be of any interest to the public at large, we would request the gentlemen concerned to desist from any further exchanges.'

(Cf. Vogt's book, Documents, pp. 41, 42.)

Thus, the files were closed for the time being. No sooner had I got hold of the articles in the National-Zeitung containing the excerpt from Vogt's pamphlet and the commentary thereon, than I brought out the English circular (enclosure III), addressed to the Editor of the London Free Press: The aim was to impel K. Blind to bring an action for injuria against me, thus affording me the opportunity, first of providing legal proof in London as to the printing and provenance of the pamphlet Zur Warnung, and secondly of compelling its real author to produce incriminating evidence against Vogt in an English court of law.

The immediate consequence of this circular (enclosure III), which I sent to Karl Blind as soon as it came off the press, was K. Blind's statement, which appeared in the Allgem. Zeitung of 13 February, in the supplement to No. 44. In this statement, entitled Against Karl Vogt, while reiterating that he was not the 'author' of the anti-Vogt flysheet Zur Warnung, Blind was, nevertheless, forced by my circular to come out with sundry arguments to the effect that Vogt was an agent for Bonapartist propaganda in London. This was the immediate consequence of my first move, namely the publication of the circular (enclosure III).

In the meantime, I had procured the two affidavits of the compositors Vögele and Wiehe (enclosures I and II). These affidavits proved, firstly that my claim that the flysheet Zur Warnung had been printed in Hollinger's printshop and written in Blind's hand, was true. Secondly, that Hollinger's and Wiehe's depositions, published by Blind both in No. 313 of the Allg. Zeit. and in the Kölnische Zeitung, and again cited by him in the Allg. Zeit.'s supplement of 11 December, were false. Thirdly, that Blind and Hollinger (see enclosure II, the compositor Wiehe's affidavit) entered into a CONSPIRACY in order to obtain false evidence against me and disparage me as a liar and slanderer in the eyes of the public. A CONSPIRACY of this nature is a criminal offence under English law. Only one circumstance has restrained me from prosecuting Hollinger and Blind, and that is consideration for Blind's family.

I sent copies of the affidavits of the two compositors Vögele and Wiehe (enclosures I and II) to several refugees who consort with Blind, to whom they showed them. The immediate consequence was Dr Schaible's statement in The Daily Telegraph of 15 February 1860, in which Schaible declares himself to be the author of the flysheet Zur Warnung, and accepts responsibility for the imputations against Vogt contained therein. (See enclosure VI.) Hence, if Vogt wishes to prove his innocence, he will have to begin his lawsuit all over again—in London. Schaible's statement to the effect that he is the author of the flysheet Zur Warnung in no way alters the fact that the flysheet was printed in Hollinger's printshop, that Blind caused it to be printed, that it was written in Blind's hand, that the depositions of Hollinger and Wiehe cited by him were false and, finally, that Hollinger and Blind were trying to extricate themselves from the snare and compromise me by giving false evidence.

I need hardly point out that the two affidavits of Vögele and Wiehe (enclosures I and II) and Dr Schaible's statement in The Daily Telegraph of 15 February (enclosure VI) put you in possession of positive evidence as to the falsity of the National-Zeitung's libel adduced by me under Ia) of this letter.

b) My relations with the 'Allgemeine Zeitung'. The two letters from the Editor of the Allgem. Zeitung to me dated 16 October 1859 (enclosures IV and V), and my reply to the same, dated 19 October 1859, quoted above under Ia), represent my entire correspondence with the Allgem. Zeit. Hence, all this amounted to was my placing at the disposal of the Allgem. Zeit, a written document which could not fail to throw light on the provenance of the flysheet, the publication of which had led to Vogt's prosecution of the Allgem. Zeit.

On 9 May 1859, on the occasion of a public meeting held by David Urquhart, K. Blind informed me of all those allegations against Vogt which were later repeated in Zur Warnung, although that pamphlet did not appear until the following June. He assured me that he was in possession of the evidence. I did not attach much importance to this information, as I had already been convinced by Vogt's pamphlet entitled Studien zur gegenwärtigen Lage Europas, as well as by his association with Fazy, the 'tyrant of Geneva', and Fazy's association with L[ouis] Bonaparte, that Vogt was a Bonapartist agent. It was all the same to me, whether it was with good or evil intent, whether paid or unpaid. Two or three days after Blind had told me this, Mr Biscamp, with whom I had never been connected in any way, either personally or politically, was brought to my house by Liebknecht. Biscamp suggested that my friends and I might care to support Das Volk, the paper he had founded, by making financial and literary contributions to it. Initially, I rejected his proposition, firstly because my time was in fact very much taken up, and secondly because I needed to learn more about Das Volk, of which there had so far been only one issue, before I could invite my friends to contribute to it. In this connection, I stressed that I had so far eschewed on principle any kind of participation in German newspapers published in London. During this talk I repeated to Liebknecht, in the presence of Biscamp, what Blind had told me at Urquhart's meeting. At the same time, I also mentioned the tendency of South Germans to exaggerate out of an inflated sense of their own importance. Subsequently, in No. 2 of the Volk of 14 May, under the heading 'Der Reichsregent als Reichsverräter', Mr Biscamp published, on his own responsibility and with his own interpolations, an article that is quoted in Vogt's piece, Mein Prozess, etc., Documents, pp. 17, 18, 19.

Later, about the middle of June, at a time when I was away from London and staying in Manchester, Liebknecht received from Hollinger, in the latter's printshop, the proofsheet of the flysheet Zur Warnung, which he instantly [recognised] as being a reproduction of the information transmitted to me verbally by Blind, and the manuscript of which, as he learnt from the compositor Vögele, Blind had entrusted to Hollinger for printing. Liebknecht sent this proofsheet to the Allg. Zeit., which published it, thus laying itself open to Vogt's libel action. Liebknecht was all the more justified in taking this step (about which I knew nothing, since I was not then in London) because he knew that Blind, Vogt's accuser, had been personally invited by Vogt to collaborate in the proposed work of propaganda. Vis-à-vis someone who took it upon himself to pay a premium for all articles in the German press favourable to Bonaparte's plans (see Vogt's admission to that effect in his book, letter to Dr Loening, Documents, p. 36), duty demanded that such widely read newspapers as the Allgem. Zeit, be utilised as 'a warning'.

As soon as Vogt brought his libel action against the A. Z. for reproducing the flysheet Zur Warnung, the Editor of the Allg. Zeit. wrote to Liebknecht urgently requesting that he produce proof. Liebknecht appealed to me. I referred him to Blind and, on his request, went with him to see the latter, as you will perceive from Blind's letter (enclosure VII). We failed to find Blind, who was at the seaside resort of St Leonards. Liebknecht wrote to him twice. His letters remained unanswered for weeks until, perhaps, Blind thought that the Augsburg lawsuit was nearing its end. (His calculations were thrown out by the fact that the Allg. Zeit, had meanwhile succeeded in getting the case adjourned.) Eventually, Blind replied to Liebknecht in a letter dated 8 September (enclosure VII), in which he says with the most barefaced effrontery that, 'as already remarked', he had had no share whatever in the said affair', and that he might, on some future occasion, be willing to discuss verbally... the observations made in the course of private conversation'. Liebknecht brought this letter to me.

I now perceived that, if Blind's tongue was to be loosened, forceful measures were needed. I recalled having read in the London Free Press of 27 May an anonymous article ('The Grand Duke Constantine to be King of Hungary') which contained the substance of the flysheet Zur Warnung and of Blind's verbal communications to me. The style and content of the article never for a moment left me in doubt that Blind was the author of it. To make quite sure, I went with Liebknecht to see Mr Collet, the responsible editor of The Free Press. After some prevarication, he declared Blind to be the author of the article in question. Shortly afterwards, I obtained the written statement of the compositor Vögele to the effect that the flysheet had been composed in Hollinger's printshop and that the manuscript was written in Blind's hand.

Liebknecht now wrote another, even longer letter to Blind, in which he notified him that we now had proof of his connection with the flysheet Zur Warnung, drew his attention, in particular, to the article in The Free Press, and once more requested him to provide such information as might be available to him. K. Blind did not answer, nor indeed did he once break his silence either before or during the legal proceedings in Augsburg. There could thus no longer be any doubt that K. Blind was firmly determined to adhere to a policy of denial and diplomatic impassivity. In these circumstances, I told Liebknecht that I was prepared, should the Allg. Zeit, ask me to do so in writing, to send it Vögele's statement which I had in my possession. And this is in fact what I did, after receipt of the Allg. Zeit.'s two letters of 16 October, in my reply of 19 October.

The reasons which impelled me to take this step were as follows:

Firstly: I owed it to Liebknecht, who had first heard from myself about Blind's remarks concerning Vogt, to provide proof that he was not merely repeating random allegations against third parties.

Secondly: The Allg. Zeitung was, in my view, wholly justified in reprinting the pamphlet Zur Warnung, knowing as it did that its source was one whom Mr Vogt had personally invited to collaborate in his work of propaganda. The circumstance that the Allg. Zeit, belongs to a party hostile to myself and has always treated me personally in a hostile manner, even to the extent of repeatedly publishing the most fatuous gossip about me, in no way alters that view, no more than does the circumstance that, since I, accidentally, do not come within the jurisdiction of the Augsburg Court of Justice, I cannot be subpoenaed as a witness by the Allgem. Zeit.

Thirdly: In the Biel 'Handels-Courier', No. 150 of 2 June, supplement (cf. p. 31 of the Documents in Vogt's book), Vogt had published a lampoon against me, obviously on the assumption that I was the author of the anti-Vogt article which Biscamp had published in the Volk on 14 May. Similarly, when he took action against the Allg. Zeit., it was on the assumption that I was the author of the flysheet Zur Warnung. Blind was evidently determined to perpetuate this confusion, which suited Vogt so well.

Fourthly: and, so far as I was concerned, this was the chief factor. I wished to bring about a direct encounter between Vogt and his accusers, and on ground, moreover, such as would ensure a conclusive issue to the affair and leave no loopholes for either party. To achieve this, it was essential that I force both the real author and the publisher of the flysheet Zur Warnung to come out of their hiding places. That I had reckoned correctly is shown by Dr Schaible's statement (enclosure VI) and Blind's letter to the Allg. Zeit, of 13 February, Supplement to No. 44, already cited.

My correspondence with the Allg. Zeit, is confined to the two letters (enclosures IV and V) from Dr Orges, and my reply of 19 October, cited above (under Ia). This sufficed for Mr Vogt (and the National-Zeitung) to dub me a contributor to the Allg. Zeit, and to present himself to the German public as the innocent victim of a conspiracy between the reactionaries and the extreme Left.

Liebknecht has been a correspondent of the Allg. Zeit, since 1855, just as Mr Vogt himself was once its correspondent. Liebknecht will, if necessary, testify on oath to the truth, namely that I never made use of him to smuggle so much as a single line into the Allg. Zeit. His connection with the Allg. Zeit, neither has nor has had anything whatever to do with me. Besides, his articles are confined exclusively to English politics, and the views he upholds in the Allg. Zeit, are the same as those he has upheld and upholds in radical German-American papers. There is not a line in any of his articles which does not contain his views and which he could not, therefore, uphold anywhere. As regards England's foreign policy, Liebknecht subscribes to much the same anti-Palmerston views as Bucher in the Berlin National-Zeitung. As regards England's internal policy, he has always supported the most progressive English party. He has never written a line in the Allg. Zeit, about the tittle-tattle of the London refugees.

So much for my alleged relations with the Allgem. Zeitung.

II. In No. 41 of the National-Zeitung, the leader, 'Wie man radikale Flugblätter macht', p. 1, column 2, line 45 from the top et seq., runs:

'In May last year, a newspaper, Das Volk, was founded in London by the same Biscamp mentioned a short while since.... Where the money for this generously distributed paper came from, is known to the gods; men, however, are well aware that Marx and Biscamp have no money to spare.'

Taken in conjunction with the whole of the article in No. 41, and likewise the leader in No. 37 of the National-Zeitung, where I am depicted as the 'confederate of the secret police in France and Germany', and especially with reference to the passage I shall presently cite under III, the lines I have just quoted imply that the money for Das Volk was procured by me dishonestly.

As to this, I would merely observe that Vogt himself, in his pamphlet discussed by the National-Zeitung, quotes, on [p.] 41 of the 'Documents', which comprise the beginning of his book, the following editorial note in No. 6 of the Volk, dated 11 June:

'We are pleased to inform our readers that K. Marx, Fr. Engels, Ferd. Freiligrath, W. Wolff, H. Heise, etc.... are determined to grant their support to Das Volk.

Thus, up till the middle of June, I had not as yet given any support to the Volk, nor up to that point had I had anything to do with its financial affairs. However, I might perhaps mention in passing that at the time Biscamp earned his living in London as a tutor and, throughout, edited the Volk gratis. Similarly all the contributors, from the time the paper first came out until its collapse, wrote for it gratis. Hence the only production costs that had to be met were those of printing and distribution. These, however, always markedly exceeded the paper's returns. Before I collaborated on the paper, losses were met by public collections among Germans in London. Later, I procured between £20-25 (133 to 166 talers) which were contributed exclusively by Dr Borchardt, general practitioner, Dr Gumpert, ditto, Dr. Heckscher, ditto, Wilhelm Wolff, teacher, Friedrich Engels, a businessman (all resident in Manchester), and myself. Although some of these gentlemen were not at all in sympathy with the political opinions held by myself, Engels and W[ilhelm] Wolff, they all thought it high time to come out against Bonapartist machinations amongst the émigrés (and this was the Volk's principal aim).

Lastly, the Volk left debts amounting, I think, to £8 (53 talers), for which Biscamp is liable, and in respect of which Hollinger possesses a promissory note of his.

That is the whole of the Volk's financial history. As far as Mr Biscamp is concerned, he has himself declared in the supplement to No. 46 of the 'Allg. Zeit.' of 15 February 1860:

'My entire political association with Mr Marx is confined to the few journalistic contributions he made to the weekly paper I founded,... the Volk'

As regards my own sources of income, all I need say here is that, since 1851, I have been a regular contributor to the New-York Tribune, the foremost English American paper, for which I have written not just articles, but leaders, too. The paper has some 200,000 subscribers and pays accordingly. In addition, I have for several years contributed to the Cyclopaedia Americana published by Mr Dana, one of the editors of the New-York Tribune. I hope to obtain from Mr Dana in New York a letter relating to these circumstances in time for the court proceedings. However, should this letter fail to arrive soon enough, I need only refer you to Mr Ferdinand Freiligrath, MANAGER of the General Bank of Switzerland, 2 Royal Exchange Buildings, London, who has for many years been good enough to cash my bills on America.

The effrontery of Vogt and his ally the National-Zeitung in casting aspersions on me because of my participation in a newspaper which did not pay a penny, is all the greater for the fact that, on p. 226 of his book discussed in the National-Zeitung, this same Vogt openly admits that 'furthermore', too, 'he would obtain the money required for his purposes wherever he could lay hands on it'.

III. In No. 37 of the National-Zeitung, leader entitled 'Karl Vogt und die "Allgemeine Zeitung"', page 1, column 2, line 22 from top, et seq., the National-Zeitung says — and this passage, which I now quote, I consider to be the most incriminating of all from the point of view of the libel action:

'Vogt reports on p. 136 et seq.: Among the refugees of 1849 the term Brimstone Gang, or the name of the Bristlers, referred to a number of people who, originally scattered throughout Switzerland, France and England, gradually congregated in London, where they revered Herr Marx as their visible leader.... One of the chief occupations of the Brimstone Gang was to compromise people at home in Germany in such a way that they were forced to pay money so that the gang should keep secret the fact of their being compromised. Not just one, but hundreds of letters were written to people in Germany, threatening to denounce them for complicity in this or that act of revolution unless a certain sum of money had been received at a specified address by a given date.... The "proletarians"' (as whose chief I am portrayed) filled the columns of the reactionary press in Germany with their denunciations of those democrats who did not subscribe to their views. They became the confederates of the secret police in Germany and France.

As regards this infamous passage, which the National-Zeitung takes over lock, stock and barrel from Mr Vogt, thus ensuring its circulation among its 9,000 subscribers, I would remark:

Firstly: As I have already mentioned in my first letter to you, it will now be incumbent upon the National-Zeitung to produce from amongst these 'hundreds' of threatening letters, one solitary letter or one solitary line of which I or any person known to be connected with me was the author.

Secondly: I repeat what I have already said in my first letter, namely that, since July 1849, I have never written for any German paper except the Neue Oder-Zeitung of Breslau (1855), at a time when it was under the editorship of Dr Eisner and Dr Stein. As the issues of the paper will themselves reveal, and as Messers Eisner and Stein will assuredly be willing to testify, I never thought it worth my while to devote so much as a single word to the emigration.

As for the columns in the 'reactionary press' which I and my friends filled with 'denunciations', it will be incumbent on the National-Zeitung to produce just one such column. On the other hand, it is both true and demonstrable that a large proportion of the German émigrés in London systematically filled German newspapers of all complexions with their hostile gossip about me for years on end. I have never made use of my connections, either with the New-York Tribune, or with the Chartist papers, or with The Free Press, for the purpose of retaliation.

As for my 'alliance with the secret police in France and Germany', Hörfei, a notorious French police spy, was the chief agent in Paris for Kinkel's émigré association. He in turn was connected with Beckmann, who was both a Prussian police spy and a correspondent of the Kölnische Zeitung. Again, one Engländer, likewise a notorious French police spy, was for a considerable time the Paris correspondent of Ruge's clique. This was how 'the democratic émigrés in London' succeeded in setting up, all unwittingly, of course, an 'alliance with the secret police in France and Germany'.

Finally Vogt, and with him the National-Zeitung, mentions

'a number of people who, among the refugees of 1849, went by the name of the Brimstone Gang or Bristlers and who, originally scattered throughout Switzerland, France and England, gradually congregated in London, where they revered Herr Marx as their visible leader'.

This passage I regard as of secondary importance. Nevertheless, with a view to elucidating and unmasking the libellous intentions of Vogt and the National-Zeitung, I would make the following observations:

The Brimstone Gang was the name given to a society of young German refugees who lived in Geneva in 1849/50 and set up their headquarters in the Café de l'Europe in that city. This was neither a political nor a socialist society but, in the true sense of the term, a society of young blades who were seeking to overcome the first pangs of exile by indulging in mad escapades. It consisted of Eduard Rosenblum, medical student; Max Cohnheim, shop assistant; Korn, chemist and pharmacist; Becker, engineer, and L. S. Borkheim, student and artilleryman. I had never seen any of these gentlemen save Mr Becker, and him only once, at the Democratic Congress in Cologne in 1848. In mid-1850 all the members of the society except for Korn were expelled from Geneva. The group scattered to the four winds.

I am obliged to Mr Borkheim, now manager of a big commercial enterprise in the City (44 Mark Lane), for the above notes concerning a society of which I had been hitherto entirely ignorant. I first made Mr Borkheim's acquaintance only about a fortnight since, after I had written to him asking for information.

So much for the Brimstone Gang. Now, as regards the Bristlers, this was a term of abuse which one Abt, at present secretary to the Bishop of Freiburg, applied to the Workers' Educational Association in Geneva. For Abt had been declared dishonourable by a general refugee society which comprised members (refugees) of the Workers' Educational Association as well as former members of the Frankfurt Parliament. To avenge himself, he wrote a pamphlet, in which he christened the Workers' Educational Association Bürstenheimers [roughly: 'Bristlers'] because the Association's President at the time was a brush maker [Bürstenmacher] by the name of Sauernheimer. There was never any kind of connection between this Workers' Educational Association in Geneva and myself or the communist society in London to which I belonged. In the summer of 1851, two of its members, Schily, a lawyer now in Paris, and P. Imandt, now professor at the training college in Dundee, were expelled by the Swiss authorities and made their way to London where they joined the Workers' Society then headed by Willich and Schapper; this, however, they left a few months later. Their relationship to me was that of compatriots and old personal friends. The only person in Geneva with whom I ever had anything to do since my expulsion from Prussia (1849) was Dronke, now a businessman in Liverpool.

Thus, the names Brimstone Gang and Bristlers, like the two quite distinct societies they denoted, were exclusive to Geneva. There was never any connection between the two societies and myself. They first became known in London through the leaders in the National-Zeitung excerpts from which were reprinted by a London paper, The Daily Telegraph.

Thus, my connection with the 'Brimstone Gang' and the 'Bristlers' is a deliberate fabrication on the part of Vogt, the National-Zeitung having made itself his mouthpiece.

IV. The National-Zeitung, No. 41, leader 'Wie man radikale Flugblätter macht', page 1, column 1, line 49 from the top, says:

'To begin with, Vogt simply alludes to the party of the proletarians 'under Marx'.'

In this way I am identified with the party of the proletarians and hence everything the paper says about that party also applies to myself personally.

Now, further on in the same article, column 2, line 19 from the top et seq., we read:

'In this way a conspiracy of the most infamous sort was devised in 1852, which aimed at damaging the Swiss workers' associations by manufacturing counterfeit paper money on a massive scale. (See Vogt for further details.) This conspiracy would have caused the greatest difficulties for the Swiss authorities if it had not been uncovered in time.'

And, further on in the same column, line 33 from top:

'The party of the "proletarians" nourishes a particular hatred for Switzerland', etc.

The National-Zeitung must have known from the Cologne communist trial of October 1852 (just as Vogt knew from my Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial) that I never had anything to do with Cherval, who is said to have been responsible for the machinations in Switzerland in 1852 (Mr Schapper of 5 Percy Street, Bedford Square, London, with whom Cherval had connections before the Cologne trial, is prepared to provide all the necessary information on the subject); that during the communist trial in Cologne I denounced Cherval, through the medium of counsel, as an ally of Stieber's; that, according to the depositions wrested from Stieber, when Cherval was in Paris in 1851, hatching the complot franco-allemand under Stieber's direction, he [Cherval] belonged to a society hostile to myself. The National-Zeitung knew from Vogt's book, which it made the subject of two leading articles, that, after the Cologne trial was over, I had also denounced Cherval as a mouchard in the work, Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne, which I sent to Switzerland for printing. During the Cologne trial, when Cherval arrived in London, ostensibly after escaping from prison in Paris, but in fact as a mouchard, [he] was welcomed with open arms by the Workers' Society, then run by Willich and Schapper, only to be expelled in consequence of the cross-examination to which, at my instigation, counsel (notably Schneider II) subjected Stieber re Cherval during the proceedings in Cologne.

Hence it was the most barefaced and deliberate libel on the part of Vogt and his associate, the National-Zeitung, to make me responsible for the alleged activities in Switzerland of an individual notoriously my enemy, whom I had exposed and persecuted. Vogt speaks of Marx's associates in Geneva with whom Cherval consorted. At the present time, as in 1852, I have no connections with anyone whomsoever in Switzerland.

Let me repeat what I told you in an earlier letter: On 15 September 1850 my friends and I disassociated ourselves from one section of the London Central Authority of the then extant German communist society (called 'Communist League'), namely from that section which, under Willich's leadership, took part in the (come to that, highly innocuous and puerile) revolution- and conspiracy-mongering of the 'Democratic Emigration'. We removed the Central Authority to Cologne and entirely suspended all correspondence with any part of the Continent except for Cologne. As the Cologne trial was to show, that correspondence contained nothing of a criminal nature. From the spring of 1851 onwards, immediately after the arrest of individual members of the society in Cologne, we (the London section of the society) broke off every single connection with the Continent. The only man—not personally known to me, by the by—with whom I continued to correspond about ways and means of defending the arrested men, was a friend of theirs, Mr Bermbach, former deputy of the Frankfurt National Assembly. My friends in London met once a week for the purpose of frustrating the police machinations unblushingly resorted to and daily renewed by Stieber. In mid-November (1852), after the conclusion of the Cologne trial, I, with the consensus of my friends, declared the 'Communist League' disbanded, nor, since that time, have I belonged either to a secret or to a public society. Ferdinand Freiligrath, who belonged to the communist society, was in Cologne from the autumn of 1848 until the spring of 1851, and has lived in London from the spring of 1851 until the present, can testify to the absolute truth of the foregoing account. For that matter, sufficient proof is provided by the enclosed letter of 19 November 1852, postmarked London and Manchester, which my friend F. Engels has discovered amongst his old papers.

I arranged for the enclosed pamphlet, quoted by Vogt and the National-Zeitung, to be printed in Boston (in America) after the original edition of 2,000 copies published by Schabelitz in Basle had been confiscated on the Baden border. From this, no less than from the Stieber-Eichhoff case, when it eventually comes up in Berlin, you will see that the communist society, to which I belonged until mid-November 1852, committed no offence whatsoever on which to base an indictment; also that, on the other hand, in spite of the very restricted means at our disposal, my London friends and I so effectively demolished the web of intrigue spun by the police that in the end they actually proposed to secure the prisoners' conviction—as Hirsch, once Stieber's agent and now in gaol in Hamburg, relates in his confessions in the New-Yorker Criminal-Zeitung of 22 April 1853—by getting Hirsch to travel to Cologne under the name of Haupt, and perjure himself in the name of the Haupt he was impersonating. This coup was on the point of being perpetrated when, Hirsch says, Mr von Hinckeldey wrote saying that,

'The State Prosecutor hopes that thanks to the happy constitution of the jury it will be possible to get a verdict of guilty even without extraordinary measures, and he' (Hinckeldey) 'therefore asks you not to trouble yourselves further.'

It goes without saying that the only value the enclosed pamphlet would have in a court of law would lie in the light it throws on my struggle with Stieber, Hinckeldey and the then Prussian police system. The societies therein alluded to have belonged to the realm of history for years now.

V. Finally, in order to leave you in no doubt as to the significance to me of the libel suit against the National-Zeitung, I will allude very briefly to the repercussions here in London of the leaders in the National-Zeitung. The Daily Telegraph (a newspaper appearing in London) of 6 February 1860 published an article of two and a half columns under the heading The Journalistic Auxiliaries of Austria.

This article, dated Frankfurt am Main, but in fact written in Berlin, is, as the most fleeting comparison will reveal, a mere paraphrase if not, in part, a word for word translation of the two leaders in Nos. 37 and 41 of the Nat. Zeit, on account of which I am suing it. I shall be sending you the said issue of the Daily Telegraph within the next few days. In this Telegraph article, as in the National-Zeitung, firstly, my friends and I are portrayed as 'confederates of the secret police'; and, secondly, there is a word for word translation of the whole of the passage from the National-Zeitung, to which I refer under IV, concerning the Brimstone Gang, the blackmailing letters, my complicity in Cherval's money forgery in Switzerland, etc.

No sooner had this article appeared than I at once wrote to the editor of the Daily Telegraph, demanding an amende honorable, in default of which I would bring an ACTION FOR LIBEL against him. He replied, saying that he had sent my letter to his correspondent in Germany and would await the latter's reply. That reply was published in the Daily Telegraph of 13 February 1860. The following is a literal translation (I shall let you have the original in a few days' time):

' Frankfort-on-the-Maine, Feb. 8.

I shall not be long in disposing of the remarks addressed to you by Dr Marx in reply to a communication of mine. The letter addressed to you by him has been simply misdirected. If the learned gentleman had offered his observations to Dr Vogt himself, or to one of the hundred German editors who quoted the book of Dr Vogt, his behaviour would only have been what the case seems to demand. As it is, however, Dr Marx, leaving unrefuted the numerous accusations raised against him in his own country, prefers cooling his anger by attacking the only English paper that has received into its columns a statement printed and reprinted before in almost every German city of any magnitude. The learned gentleman seems to be utterly oblivious of the fact that he has not the slightest right to complain of the publication of a certain piece of unpleasant intelligence by an English paper, so long as he does not deem it convenient to call to account the originators and propagators of the mischief in his fatherland. I conclude these lines by declaring my readiness to acknowledge the untruthfulness of the statements put forth in the communication alluded to the moment Dr Marx will have satisfied the world of their falsity. If he is in possession of the evidence required for such a purpose, nothing would be easier for him than to accomplish so desirable an object. There are at least fifty German cities at his disposal where he will have to institute lawsuits, and bring the editors to condign punishment. Unless he chooses to pursue this course, it is not the duty of the correspondent of an English paper to retract what he did not assert, but merely repeated on the uncontradicted authority of the most respectable sources.'

Merely en passant I would draw attention to the exaggerations with which the Daily Telegraph's Berlin correspondent (a Jew by the name of Meier, I believe) endeavours to cloak his plagiarisms from the National-Zeitung. First there are a hundred German editors, then many thousands (in other words, as many editors as there are towns of any importance in Germany) and, finally, at least fifty editors whom I would have to sue. Incidentally, by the most respectable sources, he means his only source, the Berlin National-Zeitung.

Again merely in passing, I should mention that in my letter of 6 February to the Editor of the Daily Telegraph, a letter which, as he wrote and told me himself, he forwarded to his German correspondent, I had disclosed to the Editor of the Telegraph, and hence also to his correspondent, that I intended to bring a libel action against the Berlin 'National-Zeitung'. What seems to me the one point of crucial importance here is that the Daily Telegraph, skulking behind its correspondent, is refusing me any kind of satisfaction until I have taken action against a German paper. It invokes the 'respectable' authority of the National-Zeitung, which was alone in printing, in this context, the very assertions made by it.

You can imagine what a scandal the Telegraph article created in London. For that scandal I have the National-Zeitung to thank. If only for my family's sake, I shall have to bring an ACTION FOR LIBEL against the Telegraph, for which the necessary retaining fees will amount in this country to at least £200—before the case has been decided. The depths of depravity to which Vogt is capable of descending will have been apparent to you from the dastardly insinuation that I owed my alleged connections with the Neue Preussische Zeitung to the fact of my wife's being the sister of the former Prussian minister, von Westphalen.

I now await by return of post (unless a letter has been despatched to me previously) notification that you have received the following letters:

1. Letter from London of 13 February, together with a retaining fee of 15 talers.

2. Letter from Manchester of 21 February, together with power of attorney and seven enclosures.

3. This letter from Manchester of 24 February, enclosing the pamphlet Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne and a letter which I wrote Engels on 19 November 1852, postmarked in London and Manchester.

I am, Sir,

Your obedient Servant,

Dr Karl Marx