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Vol. XV. LINCOLN NEB., JULY 23,1903. No. 9.
" " " 1 , - t "' ' - "' "" "' " "" " ' " '
I
J
v
THE FATHER OF,SOC;
' " By Charles Q. De Feastce ';
ALU
l No follower of Karl Marx, the father j
of , socialism, having volunteered to
furnish a sketch of bis life for this
edition, I am obliged to write it my
self. Acknowledgement is hereby,
made for material drawn from the
biographical memoirs ' by Wilhelm
Liebknecht (translation of Ernest Un
termann, now one of the editors of
the Appeal to Reason, Girard, Kas.;,
published by Charles H. Kerr & Co.,
Chicago; cloth, 181 pp., 50c).
""Karl Marx was born May 3, 1818,
at Treves, of Jewish parentage. "Only
four years had passed," says Lieb
knecht, "since the province of the
Rhine had been occupied by Prussia,'
i and tae fiew masters hastened, in the
'service cf the Holy Alliance, to re
: place the heathenish French - by a
' Christian German spirit. The pagan
; FrenchnKn had proclaimed the equal
right3 of all human beings in the
German Rhir.eland, and had removed
from the Jews the curse of a thousand
years of persecution and oppression,
had made citizens and human beings
of them. . The Christian German spirit
of the Holy Alliance condemned the
heathenish French spirit of equaliza
' (kn and demanded -the renovation of
the old curse." .
' So, shortly, after Karl Marx was
born, an" edict was issued leaving to
; all the Jews no other choice but to. be
baptized or to forego all official po
sitiou and activity. His father Wft3 a
prominent lawyer and notary public
at the county court, and, 1 subniijttjcs.
to the unavoidable, adopted the
Christian faith. Liebknecht says that
Karl Marx's "whole life was a reply 4
and was the-revenge" for, this 'act-of
violence to religious liberty, his first
pamphlet, published ; twenty years' la-
. ter, when he had grown to manhood,
dealing with ' the ' question. " ' '
The elder Marx, his granddaughter
writes, "was a man of great talent,
and thoroughly . imbued with the
French ideas of the eighteenth cen
tury concerning religion, science and
'art.". Karl's mother was descended
from the Hungarian Jews who had
settled in Holland in the seventeenth
century. Among the boy's earliest
friends and companions were Edgai
and Jenny von Westphalen the lat
ter' afterward becoming his wife
Karl's "first love . for ; the rornantir
school," his granddaughter avers, was
inspired by the father of his play
matesa half-Scot. The elder M?.rx
read Voltaire and Racine to Karl,
and Westphalen . ' read Homer an1
Shakespeare td him.
.Vftertaking the customary school
co 19." Karl Marx entered first thp
University of Bonn, and afterward
Berlin "where he studied law for n
while to please his father, am his
tory, and philosophy to please himself."-
He had planned, in 1S4?. to
establish himself at the University of
Bonn as a lecturer of philosopr.v hi:'
upon a friend's advice he ; abandoned
Urn idea. But that fall he became edi
tor s of-" the "Rheinische Zdtuns"
(Rheinish Gazette). Here was a field
of practical action in which he. could
display his extraordinary talent-
" The German censorship was .. still
in vogue r.nd the "Zeitung" was in a
continual fight with the, censors. "The
wonderful ability of Marx to win and
dominate men," says Liebknecht, "al
ready stood the test here. The censors
allowed many passages to slip through
that offended in Berlin; they received
rebuke after rebuke. Finally, when
censor after censor had been u?ed up,
the dangerous paper was submitted
, to double censorship"; that of the
censor and the further censorship of
the president of tbo provincial govcrn
nient. Bu even this was ineffectual..
Thoughts are not preh?n3ih. like but
terflies. And the government, arrived
at the end of its Latin , resorted to
force and. in March, JSlj, suppressed
the Rciniache Zeitung." . ,
Shortly before fhla Mnrx had mar
ried Jenny von Westphalen. the pht
mato of his oMldhoo.1, a shter of the
future reactionary -Prussian minister,
von Westnlialen.. and sister -In-law of
Floreneourt, the Jesuit father md
' Christian social demagogue. Marx
now removed to Paris and united with
Arnold Ruge in the publication of
the "Deutsch-Franzoeslschen Jahr
buecher" ' (German-French Annals),
lu these he published "a lengthy k es
say on Hegel's philosophy and an
other one on the Hebrew question."
This publication lived only a short
time and copies are almost unobtain
able : now. But during his relations
with the Annals he became acqcainteJ
with Engels an acquaintanceship
fruitful of great things, for," says Lieb
knecht, "both supplemented each
ether admirably; ; this : they under
stood and, equal in spite of their dif
ference, they formed that union: a
union of friendship and union of work
---of political and scientific work un
paralleled in its kind and never for a
moment loosened or disturbed a un
ion into which both of them carried
their enormous power and in which
Loth of them developed, strengthened
and fully applied it." - .
After the "Jahrbuecher" was dis
continued, Marx and Engels ' worked
together with Heine, Ewerbeck and
others on the Paris "Vorwaerts-' (Ad-
that the revolution could only emanate
trom.the workingmen." ' He .had: al
leady proclaimed (in his essay son
"The Critique, of Hegel's Legal Phil
osophy") that the proletariat alone
was capable, of breaking , the class
rule, because; it contained no class 'and
in consequence nothing that could be
suppressed, i ' ' "; '
This alliance had been foun'ded in
1S3S br German fugitives , in Paris,
frays Engels: "Up to the entrance of
Marx a more or less conspiratory so
ciety, the alliance now transformed
itself into a' simple organisation' for
the communist propaganda, secret
only by. force of , circumstances, the
Prst organization of the German Social
Democratic party. ' The alliarice; "ex
isted wherever there were : German
workingmen's clubs;- In. nearly all. the
Germa:j -clubs "of Engjand, Belgium,
France, and Switzerland,' an in very
many "clubs in Germany, the leading
inembers- belonged to this alliance,
and the part played by the alliance in
the growing movement ; of ' German
w orkingmen wa3 very Important. ( At
the same time our alliance .was, th2
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KARL MARX.
vai)re). Marx meanwhile . occupied ,
himself with the study of . political
economy and of the French revolution,
keeotng up at lhe,sae time a.coti-
tinuous war of the xj?u against the
Prussian government.. And the lalta?
g-,t rtvenge by securing hi3 expulsion
from France through Cuizot, the all
powerful minister of tho "cii-izen
ting." , ,
From Paris Marx wont ta Bivs2els,
vhcre he helped to establiaU a wcrk
ingmen's club, bcs:dJ coatinuing hlf
etudies and tontributiug. orxal'.inly
to the Deutsche Braes?elr Zpituug"
(German Brussels News). . He waTte'a
speech on free trade at the freclnJ
crs congress in 120, afterward pub-,
lished as a raniphlet in French; and
he wrote -Poverty of .Philosophy" in
answer to Froadhoa'a .book, ,"1he
Philosophy o! llisciy" "howir?g .al
ready," saya Liebknecht. "the com
Uete M.-rx and 'belonging, altho-jgh
uig'aally written in French, to our
party literature" (socialism).
Whila 'n Brurela Marx and bis
friouuS r eatered tho . CommunJst, Al-liav-fc
"it had beccrao cioar to him
lirst ono to emphasizo the, interna
tional character of the , entire labor
movement and to put it into -practice
ty admitting Englishmen,' Belgians,
Hungarians, Poles,-to membership and
l.y. calling international workingmen's
meetings, especially in Loudon."
In 1317 two congresses of working
mea wjre held, and at the second one
(London, November) Jt waa decided
ihat iVLirx and Eixgeis should edit a
roaipliation of the party principles.
Thus "yTigir.atcd Ihs "Manlfetdo of the
Coumunlt't Party," co.mmonly known
a3 the "CcDimunirit Manifesto," the
cornerstone of ir.oJra socialism. The
"program" cf CTlalism, as Liebknecht
puts it, just ai5 Uter on Marx's "Capi
tal" became its text book. ;
Thia manifesto is tho work of Marx
and Engels. "What," inquires Lieb
knecht, "was supplied by the one,
what by the other? An idle question!
It is of ono'ttculj, ami Marx and En
gels are ono 6oul-as-Inseparable In
tho Corar2un?3t Manifesto as. they ro
malned to . thefi death In all their
working and pruning, and n3 they
will be to humanity la thfilr vorka
and creations while- human beings are
living on earth." .: : ';
The ; Manifesto was published early
in February, 1848, . and "on February
22 the old crater of revolution reop
ened after eighteen years of rest; on
February ,24 the July-throne was ,
turned in front of the July-column on
the Bastile square and the July-column
was once again for a short time
a 'Column of Liberty.
Previously the Belgian ' govern
ment had refused several requests of
th Prussian government to forbid a
longer stay of "that disagreeable
Marx," but now it had him arrested
and transported across the frontier.
He 'hastened to France, but did not
l?ke it in Paris. From there he went
to Cologne In March with a plan to
revive the "Rheinischr Zeitung." The
first' number of the "Neue Rheinische
Zeitung" appeared on June 1, 1848,
with Marx assisted by such men as
Engels, Wilhelm Wolf,' Ferdinand
Wolf, Ernst Dronke, Ferdinand Frel
llgrath, and Georg Weerth. "No other
paper ! in Germany has ever had such
an editorial staff," says , Liebknecht
It did not live quite a year, but was
suppressed; the last number appear
ing May 19, 1849.
Marx then went 0 Tendon. Here it
Was that he found "the bricks and
mprtar 'for his work. 'Capital could
he created in London only. ' Here
was written his "Eighteenth Brumalre
of Iuis Bonaparte' commemorating
the coup of December 2, 1852; which
destroyed; the; f last" prospects for a -revolutionary;
revival then; and con
sequently the . Communist Alliance
went. down.""?v' a .
During the years 1851 and 1852
Marx contributed to the New York
Tribune . a long series of brilliant ar
ticles, which rfhave since been pub
lished in booK-form under the title
of 'Revolution and : Counter-Revolu-;
tion" (Kerr & Co-., Chicago; t cloth;
148 pp., $1). In 1859 his "Critique of
Political Economy" was published, de
monstrating for the first time his the
ory of value. ,
A series of meetings held in London
sympathizing with Poland led to the
organization of the International
Workingmen's association, culmlnat-'
ing, on the 28th of September, 1864,'
in the memorable meeting at St.
James' Hall, London; Marx edited the
inaugural address.
. .In 1867 the first volume of hi3 "Cap
ital" appeared; the later volumes wero
vot finished when he died. v ,
"Sickness," , . says Liebknecht,
"brought on by cxgesslvely hard work,
undermined Marx's originally very
strong -.constitution and forced him in
the seventies to go to Karlsbad and
the south of France. Family mlsfor- .
tunes overwhelmed him. Death
reaped his harvest On the 2nd of
December, 18S1, his Jenny died -the
playmate of his youth, his comrade
for life, his friend, his adviser, his
fellow-fighter. This blow striKk him
through the heart. With her he him
self died. Her death was his death.
We who knew him felt this wtll.
"Af voyage to Algiers and the south
of France -did not bring him more
strength. I was appalled when I saw
him again in the summer of 1882. He
did not complain tho deadliest blows
kill the nerve, they do not cause, any
pain only death. He did not recctor.
And then came the finishing stroke
Little Jenny, his favorite daughter,
the image of himself, Longuet'p w:fo,
died suddenly after a short illness. IIo
remained apprehensively calm en1 re
ceiving the news. In the wln'cr of
1882-3 he was attacked by pneumonia
which, however, seemed to take a fav
orable course. It was even bfllcvcd
that he was convalescent Vain hope,
. "On the l ith of March (1883) ;ie dkl
quietly In his armchair, with hiirdly a
struggle."
Tt Is not for me to attempt, a e u'osy
of Karl Marx. Jle needs none. Lleh
knecht's memoirs gives gUrtvres of
Karl Marx, the wan. as distinguished
from Karl Marx, tho scientist, and
show him to be a nan with a big,
(Contir.tfu4. on Pugj 8j
it
