|
Sunday, October 11, 2009 - 10:27 AM
have just received the prospectus [H. Bürgers, ‘Prospectus for the Founding of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung'] along with your letter. There’s damned little prospect for the shares here. [Wilhelm] Blank, to whom I had already written about it[221]
and who is still the best of the lot, has become practically a
bourgeois; the others even more so since they became established and
came into conflict with the workers. All these folk shun the discussion
of social questions like the plague, calling it seditious talk. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire I have
lavished on them the finest rhetoric, and resorted to every imaginable
diplomatic ploy, but always hesitant answers. I am now going to make
one final effort; if it fails, that will be the end of everything. In
2-3 days you'll have definite news about how things have gone. The fact
is, after all that even these radical bourgeois here see us as their
future main enemies and have no intention of putting into our hands
weapons which we would very shortly turn against themselves.
Nothing whatever is to be got out of my old man. To him even the Kölner Zeitung is a hotbed of agitation and, sooner than present us with 1,000 talers, he would pepper us with a thousand balls of grape.
The most advanced of the bourgeois here find their party represented pretty much to their satisfaction by the Köln Zeitung. So what do you want us to do? ‘
Moses’ agent, Schnaake, who was here last week, would seem to have been calumniating us too.[222]
I have no address for Dronke except: Adolf Dominicus, merchant,
Coblenz (his uncle). His old man is living in Fulda, a grammar school
headmaster, I think. It’s a little backwater: Dr E. Dronke junior,
Fulda, would probably reach him if he’s there. But it’s foolish of him
not to write, if only to let us know his whereabouts.
I have had a letter from Ewerbeck asking whether we have received a
supposedly important letter which he sent to the agreed address in
Mainz. If you haven’t had it, write and inform Mainz (Philipp Neubeck,
teacher candidate, Rentengasse (Heiliger Geist), Mainz).
Ewerbeck is having the Manifesto translated into Italian
and Spanish in Paris and to that end wants us to send him 60 fr. which
he has undertaken to pay. Yet another of those schemes of his. They
will be splendid translations. [223]
I am working on the English translation, which presents more
difficulties than I thought. However, I'm over half way through, and
before long the whole thing will be finished. [224]
If even a single copy of our 17 points [Demands of the Communist Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire Party in Germany]
were to circulate here, all would be lost for us. The mood of the
bourgeoisie is really ugly. The workers are beginning to bestir
themselves a little, still in a very crude way, but as a mass. They at
once formed coalitions. But to us that can only be a hindrance. The
Elberfeld political club [225]
issues addresses to the Italians, advocates direct election but
resolutely eschews any discussion of social questions, although in
private these gentlemen admit that such questions are now coming to be the order of the day, always with the proviso that we should not take precipitate action!
Adios. Write soon in greater detail. Has the letter been sent to Paris, and did it have any results? [22
|