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Special pages :
The Venal Baseness of the Kolnische Zeitung
First published: in Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 297 (second edition), May 13, 1849.
Cologne, May 13. We draw our readers’ attention to the recent issues of the Kölnische Zeitung, in particular to today’s issue, that of Sunday, May 13.
Probably never before has the “most vulgar artlessness” gone so closely hand in hand with venal baseness as in the latest leading articles and reports of our admirable contemporary.
Only a few days ago, at the congress of the Rhenish municipal councils,[1] we saw the owner of the Kölnische Zeitung, Herr Joseph Dumont, hastily rising to support the decisions adopted there. Today we see the same man, through his henchman Brüggemann, expressing in every line the most brutal pleasure at the failure of the revolts which were precisely the consequence of those decisions of the Rhenish municipal councils.
In return, however, the Kölnische Zeitung has also the good fortune to be imposed on the Rhenish towns, together with the state of siege, as their sole newspaper.
Truly, what is being simultaneously imposed on these towns is blood and — dirt!
- ↑ On May 1, 1849 the Cologne municipal council, which consisted mainly of liberal bourgeois representatives, addressed all other municipal councils in the Rhine Province with a proposal to convene a meeting on May 5, 1849 in connection with the new situation that had arisen in Prussia after the dissolution of the Second Chamber. The Prussian Government banned this meeting (the ban was published in the Kölnische Zeitung No. 104, May 2, 1849). Even so, the Cologne municipal council convoked a congress of delegates from the Rhine cities on May 8, 1849 in Cologne. The Congress came out in favour of the imperial Constitution and demanded the convocation of the dissolved Provincial Diet. It was made clear that, if the Prussian Government ignored the Congress’s resolution, the question of the Rhine Province’s secession from Prussia would be raised. This threat, however, was not supported by decisive action and remained merely an empty declaration, because the liberal majority of the Congress rejected the proposal to arm the people and to resist the authorities by force.