The Marx He Knew | Page 8

into Baden later on, to be
scattered by the regular troops as chaff is scattered by the wind.
"The German comrades in Paris sent us a special manifesto, which Karl
wrote, and we were asked to distribute it among the working people.
That would be a good way to educate the workers, Karl wrote to our
committee, but I tell you it seemed a very small thing to do in those
trying times, and it didn't satisfy the comrades who were demanding
more radical revolutionary action. Why, even I seemed to forget Karl's
advice for a little while.
"On the 13th of March--you'll remember that was the day on which
more than a hundred thousand Chartists gathered on Kennington
Common--the revolution broke out in Vienna. Then things began to
move in Cologne, too. As soon as the news came from Vienna, August
von Willich, who had been an artillery officer, led a big mob right into
the Cologne Council Chamber. I was in the mob and shouted as loud as
anybody. We demanded that the authorities should send a petition to
the King, in the name of the city, demanding freedom and
constitutional government.
"And then on the 18th, the same day that saw the people of Berlin
fighting behind barricades in the streets--a great multitude of us
Cologne men marched through the streets, led by Professor Gottfried
Kinkel, singing the Marseillaise and carrying the forbidden flag of
revolution, the black, red and gold tricolor."

"And where was he--Marx--during all this time?" asked the Young
Comrade.
"In Paris with Engels. We thought it strange that he should be holding
aloof from the great struggle, and even I began to lose faith in him. He
had told us that the crowing of the Gallican cock would be the sign for
the revolution to begin, yet he was silent. It was not till later that I
learned from his own lips that he saw from the start that the revolution
would be crushed; that the workers opportunity would not come until
later.
IV
"He told me that when he came to Cologne with Engels. That was
either the last of April or the beginning of May, I forget which. My
wife rushed in one evening and said that she had seen Karl going up the
street. I had heard that he was expected, but thought it would not be for
several days. So when Barbara said that she had seen him on the street,
I put on my things in a big hurry and rushed off to the club. There was
a meeting that night, and I felt pretty sure that Karl would get there.
[Illustration: FERDINAND LASSALLE.]
"When the meeting was more than half through, I heard a noise in the
back of the hall and turned to see Karl and Engels making their way to
the platform. There was another man with them, a young fellow, very
slender and about five feet six in height, handsome as Apollo and
dressed like a regular dandy. I had never seen this young man before,
but from what I had heard and read I knew that it must be Ferdinand
Lassalle.
"They both spoke at the meeting. Lassalle's speech was full of fire and
poetry, but Karl spoke very quietly and slowly. Lassalle was like a
great actor declaiming, Karl was like a teacher explaining the rules of
arithmetic to a lot of schoolboys."
"And did you meet Lassalle, too?" asked the Young Comrade in awed
tones.

"Aye, that night and many times after that. Karl greeted me warmly and
introduced me to Lassalle. Then we went out for a drink of lager
beer--just us four--Karl, Lassalle, Engels and me. They told me that
they had come to start another paper in the place of the one that had
been suppressed five years before. Money had been promised to start it,
Karl was to be the chief editor and Engels his assistant. The new paper
was to be called the Neue Rhenische Zeitung and Freiligrath, George
Weerth, Lassalle, and many others, were to write for it. So we drank a
toast to the health and prosperity of the new paper.
"Well, the paper came out all right, and it was not long before Karl's
attacks upon the government brought trouble upon it. The middle class
stockholders felt that he was too radical, and when he took the part of
the French workers, after the terrible defeat of June, they wanted to get
rid of their chief editor. There was no taming a man like Karl.
"One day I went down to the office with a notice for a committee of
which I was a member, and Karl introduced me to Michael Bakunin,
the great Russian Anarchist leader. Karl never got along very well with
Bakunin