The Marx He Knew Part 2

"George Herwegh was in Paris, so the letter said, and was trying hard to raise a legion of German workingmen to march into the Fatherland and begin the fight. This, Karl said, was a terrible mistake. It was useless, to begin with, for what could such a legion of tailors and cigarmakers and weavers do against the Prussian army? It was plain that the legion would be annihilated. Besides, it would hurt the cause in another way by taking out of Paris thousands of good revolutionists who were needed there.

"'Tell the comrades,' he wrote, 'that it is not a question of cowardice or fear, but of wisdom. It takes more courage to live for the long struggle than to go out and be shot.' He wanted the comrades to wait patiently and to do all they could to persuade their friends in Paris not to follow Herwegh's advice. Most of the Germans in Paris followed Karl's advice, but a few followed Herwegh and marched 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 pet.i.tion to the King, in the name of the city, demanding freedom and const.i.tutional government.

"And then on the 18th, the same day that saw the people of Berlin fighting behind barricades in the streets--a great mult.i.tude of us Cologne men marched through the streets, led by Professor Gottfried Kinkel, singing the _Ma.r.s.eillaise_ 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 c.o.c.k 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FERDINAND La.s.sALLE.]

"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 La.s.salle.

"They both spoke at the meeting. La.s.salle's speech was full of fire and poetry, but Karl spoke very quietly and slowly. La.s.salle 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 La.s.salle, too?" asked the Young Comrade in awed tones.

"Aye, that night and many times after that. Karl greeted me warmly and introduced me to La.s.salle. Then we went out for a drink of lager beer--just us four--Karl, La.s.salle, 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 a.s.sistant. The new paper was to be called the _Neue Rhenische Zeitung_ and Freiligrath, George Weerth, La.s.salle, 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 cla.s.s 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 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 a.s.sembly. When the insurrection of October, 1848, broke out in Vienna Blum was sent there by the National a.s.sembly, the so-called 'parliament of the people.'

"He a.s.sumed 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 a.s.sembly 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 gla.s.s 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 working people.

"Sitting beside me was an old man, a Professor of Law they told me he was. He sat there with his eyes fastened upon Karl, listening with all his ears to every word. 'Splendid! Splendid! Wonderful logic,' I heard him say to himself. 'What a lawyer that man would make!' I watched the faces of the jury and it was plain to see that Karl was making a deep impression upon them, though they were all middle cla.s.s men. Even the old judge forgot himself and nodded and smiled when Karl's logic made the prosecution look foolish. You could see that the old judge was admiring the wonderful mind of the man before him.

"Well, the three prisoners were acquitted by the jury and Karl was greatly pleased when the jury sent one of their members over to say that they had pa.s.sed a vote of thanks to 'Doctor Marx' for the very interesting and instructive lecture he had given them. I tell you, boy, I was prouder than ever of Karl after that, and went straight home and wrote letters to half a dozen people in Treves that I knew, telling them all about Karl's great speech. You see, I knew that he would never send word back there, and I wanted everybody in the old town to know that Karl was making a great name in the world.

"The government got to be terribly afraid of Karl after that trial, and when revolutionary outbreaks occurred all through the Rhine Province, the following May, they suppressed the paper and expelled Karl from Prussia.

"We had a meeting of the executive committee to consider what was to be done. Karl said that he was going to Paris at once, and that his wife and children would follow next day. Engels was going into the Palatinate of Bavaria to fight in the ranks, with Annecke, Kinkel, and Carl Schurz. All the debts in connection with the paper had been paid, he told us, so that no dishonor could attach to its memory.

"It was not until afterward that we heard how the debts of the paper had been paid. Karl had p.a.w.ned all the silver things belonging to his wife, and sold lots of furniture and things to get the money to pay the debts. They were not his debts at all, and if they were his expulsion would have been a very good reason for leaving the debts unpaid. But he was not one of that kind. Honest as the sun, he was. It was just like him to make the debts his own, and to pinch himself and his family to pay them. More than once Karl and his family had to live on dry bread in Cologne in order to keep the paper going. My Barbara found out once in some way that Karl's wife and baby didn't have enough to eat, and when she came home and told me we both cried ourselves to sleep because of it."

"Could none of the comrades help them, Hans?"

"Ach, that was pretty hard, my boy, for Karl was very proud, and I guess Jenny was prouder still. Barbara and I put our heads together and says she: 'We must put some money in a letter and send it to him somehow, in a way that he will never know where it came from, Hans.'

Karl knew my writing, but not Barbara's, so she wrote a little letter and put in all the money she had saved up. 'This is from a loyal comrade who knows that Doctor Marx and his family are in need of it,'

she wrote. Then we got a young comrade who was unknown to Karl and Engels to deliver the letter to Karl just as he was leaving for his office one morning.

"Barbara and I were very happy that day when we knew that Karl had received the money, but bless your life I don't believe it did him any good at all. He just gave it away."

"Gave away the money--that was giving away his children's bread--almost. Did he do _that_?"

"Well, all I know is that I heard next day that Karl had visited that same evening, a comrade who was sick and poor and in deep distress, and that when he was leaving he had pressed money into the hand of the comrade's wife, telling her to get some good food and wine for her sick husband. And the amount of the money he gave her was exactly the same as that we had sent to him in the morning.

"Karl was always so. He was the gentlest, kindest-hearted man I ever knew in my life. He could suffer in silence himself, never complaining, but he could not stand the sight of another's misery.

He'd stop anything he was doing and go out into the street to comfort a crying child. Many and many a time have I seen him stop on the street to watch the children at play, or to pick up some crying little one in his great strong arms and comfort it against his breast. Never could he keep pennies in his pocket; they all went to comfort the children he met on the streets. Why, when he went to his office in the mornings he would very often have from two to half a dozen children clinging around him, strange children who had taken a fancy to him because he smiled kindly at them and patted their heads.

"I heard nothing from Karl for quite a while after he went to Paris.

We wondered, Barbara and I, why he did not write. Then, one day, about three months after he had gone to Paris, came a letter from London and we saw at once that it was in his handwriting. He'd been expelled from Paris again and compelled to leave the city within twenty-four hours, and he and his family were staying in cheap lodgings in Camberwell. He said that everything was going splendidly, but never a word did he say about the terrible poverty and hardship from which they were suffering.

V

"Well, a few months after that, I managed to get into trouble with the authorities at Cologne, along with a few other comrades. We heard that we were to be arrested and knew that we could expect no mercy. So Barbara and I talked things over and we decided to clear out at once, and go to London. We sold our few things to a good comrade, and with the money made our way at once to join Barbara's sister in Dean street. I never dreamed that we should find Karl living next door to us.

"But we did. n.o.body told me about him--I suppose that n.o.body in our house knew who he was--but a few days after we arrived I saw him pa.s.s and ran out and called to him. My, he looked so thin and worn out that my heart ached! But he was glad to see me and grasped my hand with both of his. Karl could shake hands in a way that made you feel he loved you more than anybody else in all the world.

"In a little while he had told me enough for me to understand why he was so pale and thin. If it were not for hurting his feelings, I could have cried at the things he told me. He and the beautiful Jenny without food sometimes, and no bed to lie upon! And it seemed all the worse to me because I knew how well they had been reared, how they had been used to solid comfort and even luxury.

"But it was not from Karl that I learned the worst. He was always trying to hide the worst. Never did I hear of such a man as he was for turning things bright side upwards. But Conrad Schramm, who was related to Barbara--a sort of second cousin, I think--lodged in the same house with us. Schramm was the closest friend Karl and Jenny had in London then, and he told me things that made my heart bleed. Why, when a little baby was born to them, soon after they came to London, there was no money for a doctor, nor even to buy a cheap cradle for the little thing.

"For years that poverty continued. I used to see Karl pretty near every day until I fell and hurt my head and broke my leg in two places and was kept in the hospital many months. Barbara had to go out to work then, washing clothes for richer folks, and we couldn't offer to help dear old Karl as we would. So we just pretended that we didn't know anything about the poverty that was making him look so haggard and old. Karl would have died from the worry, I believe, if it had not been for the children. They kept him young and cheered him up. He might not have had anything but dry bread to eat for days, but he would come down the street laughing like a great big boy, a crowd of children tugging at his coat and crying 'Daddy Marx! Daddy Marx!

Daddy Marx!' at the top of their little voices.

"He used to come and see me at the hospital sometimes. No matter how tired and worried he might be--and I could tell that pretty well by looking at his face when he didn't know that I was looking--he always was cheerful with me. He wanted to cheer me up, you see, so he told me all the encouraging news about the movement--though there wasn't very much that was encouraging--and then he would crack jokes and tell stories that made me laugh so loud that all the other patients in the room would get to laughing too.