The Marx He Knew | Page 9

and there was generally war going on between them.
"Did you ever hear of Robert Blum, my lad? Ever read the wonderful
verses Freiligrath wrote about him? I suppose not. Well, Blum was a
moderate Democrat, a sort of Liberal who belonged to the Frankfort
National Assembly. When the insurrection of October, 1848, broke out
in Vienna Blum was sent there by the National Assembly, the so-called
'parliament of the people.'
"He assumed command of the revolutionary forces and was captured
and taken prisoner by the Austrian army and ordered to be shot. I
remember well the night of the ninth of February when the atrocious
deed was committed. We had a great public meeting. The hall was
crowded to suffocation. I looked for Karl, but he was nowhere to be
seen. He was a very busy man, you see, and had to write a great deal
for his paper at night.
"It was getting on for ten o'clock when Karl appeared in the hall and
made his way in silence to the platform. Some of the comrades

applauded him, but he raised his hand to silence them. We saw then
that he held a telegram in his hand, and that his face was as pale as
death itself. We knew that something terrible had happened, and a great
hush fell over the meeting. Not a sound could be heard until Karl began
to read.
"The telegram was very brief and very terrible. Robert Blum had been
shot to death in Vienna, according to martial law, it said. Karl read it
with solemn voice, and I thought that I could see the murder taking
place right there in the hall before my eyes. I suppose everybody felt
just like that, for there was perfect silence--the kind of silence that is
painful--for a few seconds. Then we all broke out in a perfect roar of
fury and cheers for the Revolution.
"I tried to speak to Karl after the meeting, but he brushed me aside and
hurried away. His face was terrible to behold. He was the Revolution
itself in human shape. As I looked at him I knew that he would live to
avenge poor Blum.
"Blum's death was followed by the coup de' etat. The King appointed a
new ministry and the National Assembly was dissolved. The Neue
Rhenische Zeitung came out then with a notice calling upon all citizens
to forcibly resist all attempts to collect taxes from them. That meant
war, of course, war to the knife, and we all knew it.
"Karl was arrested upon a charge of treason, inciting people to armed
resistance to the King's authority. We all feared that it would go badly
with him. There was another trial, too, Karl and Engels and a comrade
named Korff, manager of the paper, were placed on trial for criminal
libel. I went to this trial and heard Karl make the speech for the defence.
The galleries were crowded and when he got through they applauded
till the rafters shook. 'If Marx can make a speech like that at the
'treason' trial, no jury will convict,' was what everybody in the galleries
said.
"When we got outside--oh, I forgot to say that the three defendants
were acquitted, didn't I? Well, when we got outside, I told Karl what all
the comrades, and many who were not comrades at all, were saying

about his defence. He was pleased to hear it, I believe, but all that he
would say was, 'I shall do much better than that, Hans, much better than
that. Unless I'm mistaken, I can make the public prosecutor look like an
idiot, Hans.'
"You can bet that I was at the 'treason' trial two days later. I pressed
Karl's hand as he went in, and he looked back and winked at me as
mischievously as possible, but said not a word. The lawyers for the
government bitterly attacked Karl and the two other members of the
executive of the Democratic Club who were arrested with him. But
their abuse was mostly for Karl. He was the one they were trying to
strike down, any fool could see that.
"Well, when the case for the prosecution was all in, Karl began to talk
to the jury. He didn't make a speech exactly, but just talked as he
always did when he sat with a few friends over a glass of lager. In a
chatty sort of way, he explained the law to the jury, showed where the
clever lawyers for the government had made big mistakes, and proved
that he knew the law better than they did. After that he gave them a
little political lecture, you might say. He explained to them just how he
looked at the political questions--always from the standpoint of the