The Marx He Knew
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The Marx He Knew
[Illustration: KARL MARX.]
The Marx He Knew
BY
JOHN SPARGO
Author of "The Bitter Cry of the Children," "Socialism,
A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist
Principles," "The Common Sense of
Socialism," "Karl Marx: His
Life and Work," Etc.,
Etc., Etc.
CHICAGO
CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY
1909
Copyright, 1909
BY CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY
TO
MADAME LAURA LAFARGUE
DAUGHTER OF KARL MARX
List of Illustrations
KARL MARX, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH _Frontispiece_
FACING
PAGE
HIS BIRTHPLACE AT TRIER, FROM AN OLD PRINT 10
JOHANNA BERTHA JULIE VON WESTPHALEN,
FROM A PAINTING FROM LIFE 19
FREDERICK ENGELS, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH 32
FERDINAND LASSALLE, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH 47
THE MARX FAMILY GRAVE, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH 83
THE MARX HE KNEW
I
The pale, yellow light of the waning day streamed through the dusty
window panes of the little cigar shop, and across the bench where old
Hans Fritzsche worked and hummed the melody of _Der Freiheit_ the
while.
The Young Comrade who sat in the corner upon a three-legged stool
seemed not to hear the humming. His eyes were fixed upon a large
photograph of a man which hung in a massive oak frame above the bench
where Old Hans rolled cigars into shape. The photograph was old and
faded, and the written inscription beneath it was scarcely legible.
The gaze of the Young Comrade was wistful and reverent.
"Tell me about _him_, Hans," he said at last.
Old Hans stopped humming and looked at the Young Comrade. Then his
eyes wandered to the portrait and rested upon it in a gaze that was
likewise full of tender reverence.
Neither spoke again for several seconds and only the monotonous
ticking of the clock upon the wall broke the oppressive silence.
"Ach! he was a wonderful man, my comrade," said Old Hans at length.
"Yes, yes, he was a wonderful man--one of the most wonderful men that
ever lived," responded the Young Comrade in a voice that was vibrant
with religious enthusiasm.
Both were silent again for a moment and then the Young Comrade
continued: "Yes, Marx was a wonderful man, Hans. And you knew him--saw
him smile--heard him speak--clasped his hand--called him comrade and
friend!"
"Aye, many times, many times," answered Old Hans, nodding. "Hundreds
of times did we smoke and drink together--me and him."
"Ah, that was a glorious privilege, Hans," said the Young Comrade
fervently. "To hear him speak and touch his hand--the hand that wrote
such great truths for the poor working people--I would have gladly
died, Hans. Why, even when I touch your hand now, and think that it
held _his_ hand so often, I feel big--strong--inspired."
"Ach, but my poor old hand is nothing," answered Old Hans with a
deprecating smile. "Touching the hand of such a man matters nothing at
all, for genius is not contagious like the smallpox," he added.
"But tell me about him, Hans," pleaded the Young Comrade again. "Tell
me how he looked and spoke--tell me everything."
"Well, you see, we played together as boys in the Old Country, in
Treves. Many a time did we fight then! Once he punched my eye and made
it swell up so that I could hardly see at all, but I punched his nose
and made it bleed like--well, like a pig."
"What! you made him _bleed_?"
"Ach! that was not much; all boys fight so."
"Well?"
"My father was a shoemaker, you see, and we lived not far away from
where Karl's people lived. Many a time my father sent me to their
house--on the Bruckergrasse--with mended shoes. Then I would see Karl,
who was just as big as I was, but not so old by a year. Such a fine
boy! Curly-headed he was, and fat--like a little barrel almost.
[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF KARL MARX.]
"So, when I took the shoes sometimes I would stop and play with him a
bit--play with Karl and the girls. He was always playing with
girls--with his sister, Sophie, and little Jenny von Westphalen.
"Sometimes I liked it not so--playing with girls. They were older than
we boys and wanted everything to go their way, and I liked not that
girls should boss boys. So once I teased him about it--told him that
he was a baby to play with girls. Then it was that we fought and he
gave me a black eye and I gave him a bloody nose in return.
"Sometimes the Old Man, Karl's father, would come into my father's
shop and stay a long while chatting. He was a lawyer and father only a
shoemaker; he was quite rich, while father was poor, terribly poor.
But it made no difference to Herr Marx. He would chat with father by
the hour.
"You see, he was born a Jew, but--before Karl was born--he turned
Christian. Father had done the same thing, years before I was born.
Why he did it father would never tell me, but once I heard him and
Heinrich Marx--that was the name of Karl's father--talking about it,
so I got a pretty good idea of the reason.
"'Of course, I am not a believer in the Christian doctrines, friend
Wilhelm.' he said to my father. 'I don't believe that Jesus was God,
nor that he was a Messiah from God. But I do believe in a God--in one
God and no more.
"'And I'm not so dishonorable as to have become a Christian, and to
have had my children baptized as Christians, simply to help me in my
profession,' he said. 'Some of our Hebrew friends have said that, but
it is not true at all. As I see it, friend Wilhelm, Judaism is too
narrow, too conservative. Christianity makes for breadth, for culture,
for freedom. And it is keeping to ourselves, a people set apart, which
makes us Jews hated and despised, strangers in the land. To become one
with all our fellow citizens, to break down the walls of separation,
is what we need to aim at. That is why I forsook Judaism, Wilhelm.'
"From the way that father nodded his head and smiled I could tell,
though he said little, that he was the same sort of a Christian."
"But it was about _him_, the son, that you were speaking, Hans."
"Ach, be patient. Time is more plentiful than money, boy," responded
Hans, somewhat testily.
"Well, of course, we went to the same school, and though Karl was
younger than me we were in the same class. Such a bright, clever
fellow he was! Always through with his lessons before any of the rest
of us, he was, and always at the top of the class. And the stories he
could tell, lad! Never did I hear such stories. In the playground
before school opened we used to get around him and make him tell
stories till our hair stood on end."
"And was his temper cheerful and good--was he well liked?" asked the
Young Comrade.
"Liked? He was the favorite of the whole school, teachers and all, my
boy. Never was he bad tempered or mean. Nobody ever knew Karl to do a
bad thing. But he was full of mischief and good-hearted fun. He loved
to play tricks upon other boys, and sometimes upon the teachers, too.
"He could write the funniest verses about people you ever heard in
your life, and sometimes all the boys and girls in the school would be
shouting his rhymes as they went through the streets. If another boy
did anything to him, Karl would write some verses that made the fellow
look like a fool, and we would all recite them just to see the poor
fellow get mad. Such fun we had then. But, I tell you, we were awfully
afraid of Karl's pin-pricking verses!
"Once, I remember well, we had a bad-tempered old teacher. He was a
crabbed old fellow, and all the boys got to hate him. Always using the
rod, he was. Karl said to me one day as we were going home from
school: 'The crooked old sinner! I'll make him wince with some verses
before long, Hans,' and then we both laughed till we were sore."
"And did he write the verses?" asked the Young Comrade.
"Write them? I should say he did! You didn't know Karl, or you would
never ask such a question as that. Next morning, when we got in
school, Karl handed around a few copies of his poem about old Herr von
Holst, and pretty soon we were all tittering. The whole room was in a
commotion.
"Of course, the teacher soon found out what was wrong and Karl was
called outside and asked to explain about them. 'I'm a poet, Herr
teacher,' he said, 'and have a poet's license. You must not ask a poet
to explain.' Of course, we all laughed at that, and the poor Herr von
Holst was like a great mad bull."
"And was he disciplined?"
"To be sure he was! His father was very angry, too. But what did we
care about that? We sang the verses on the streets, and wrote them on
the walls or anywhere else that we could. We made it so hot for the
poor teacher that he had to give up and leave the town. I wish I could
remember the verses, but I never was any good for remembering poetry,
and it was a long, long time ago--more than three score years ago now.
"We thought it was funny that Karl never gave over playing with the
girls--his sister and Jenny von Westphalen. When we were all big boys
and ashamed to be seen playing with girls, he would play with them
just the same, and sometimes when we asked him to play with us he
would say, 'No, boys, I'm going to play with Jenny and Sophie this
afternoon.' We'd be mad enough at this, for he was a good fellow to
have in a game, and sometimes we would try to tease him out of it.
But he could call names better than we could, and then we were all
afraid of his terrible verses. So we let him alone lest he make us
look silly with his poetry.
"Well, I left school long before Karl did. My father was poor, you
see, and there were nine of us children to feed and clothe, so I had
to go to work. But I always used to be hearing of Karl's cleverness.
People would talk about him in father's shop and say, 'That boy Marx
will be a Minister of State some day.'
"By and by we heard that he had gone to Bonn, to the University, and
everybody thought that he would soon become a great man. Father was
puzzled when Heinrich Marx came in one day and talked very sadly about
Karl. He said that Karl had wasted all his time at Bonn and learned
nothing, only getting into a bad scrape and spending a lot of money.
Father tried to cheer him up, but he was not to be comforted. 'My
Karl--the child in whom all my hopes were centered--the brightest boy
in Treves--is a failure,' he said over and over again.
[Illustration: JOHANNA BERTHA JULIE JENNY VON WESTPHALEN.]
"Soon after that Karl came home and I saw him nearly every day upon
the streets. He was most always with Jenny von Westphalen, and people
smiled and nodded their heads when the two passed down the street. My!
What a handsome couple they made! Jenny was the beauty of the town,
and all the young men were crazy about her. They wrote poems about her
and called her all the names of the goddesses, but she had no use for
any of the fellows except Karl. And he was as handsome a fellow as
ever laughed into a girl's eyes. He was tall and straight as a line,
and had the most wonderful eyes I ever saw in my life. They seemed to
dance whenever he smiled, but sometimes they flashed fire--when he was
vexed, I mean. But I suppose that what the girls liked best was his
great mass of coal black curls.
"The girls raved about Karl, and he could have had them all at his
feet if he would. I know, for I had two sisters older than myself, and
I heard how they and their friends used to talk about him. But Karl
had no eyes for any girl but Jenny, except it was his sister.
"Folks all said that Karl and Jenny would marry. Rachel--that's my
oldest sister--said so one night at the supper table, but our good
mother laughed at her. 'No, Rachel, they'll never marry,' she said.
'Jenny might be willing enough, but the old Baron will never let her
do it. Karl's father is rich alongside of poor people like us, but
poor enough compared with Jenny's father. Karl is no match for the
beautiful Jenny.'
"Then father spoke up. 'You forget, mother, that Heinrich Marx is the
best friend that old Baron von Westphalen has, and that the Baron is
as fond of Karl as of Jenny. And anyway he loves Jenny so much that
he'd be sure to let her marry whoever she loved, even if the man had
not a thaler to his name.'
"Soon Karl went away again to the University at Berlin, not back to
Bonn. Thought he'd get on better at Berlin, I suppose. He might have
been gone a year or more when his father came into father's little
shop one day while I was there. He said that Karl wasn't doing as well
at Berlin as he had expected. He tried to laugh it off, saying that
the boy was in love and would probably settle down to work soon and
come out all right, upon top as usual.
"It was then that we learned for the first time that Karl and Jenny
were betrothed, and that the old Baron had given his blessing to his
daughter and her lover. Very soon all the gossips of the town were
talking about it. Some said that there had been quite a romance about
it; that the young folks had been secretly engaged for nearly a year,
being afraid that the Baron would object. 'Twas even said that Karl
had been made ill by the strain of keeping the secret. Then, when at
last Karl wrote to old Westphalen about it, and asked for Jenny in a
manly fashion, the old fellow laughed and said that he had always
hoped it would turn out that way. So the silly young couple had
suffered a lot of pain which they could have avoided.
"Of course, lots of folks said that it wasn't a 'good match,' that
Jenny von Westphalen could have married somebody a lot richer than
Karl; but they all had to admit that she couldn't get a handsomer or
cleverer man than Karl in all the Rhine Province.
"But things seemed to be going badly enough with Karl at the
University. Herr Heinrich Marx cried in our little shop one evening
when my father asked him how Karl was doing. He said that, instead of
studying hard to be a Doctor of Laws, as he ought to do, Karl was
wasting his time. 'He writes such foolish letters that I am ashamed of
him,' said the old man. 'Wastes his time writing silly verses and
romances and then destroying most of them; talks about becoming a
second Goethe, and says he will write the great Prussian drama that
will revive dramatic art. He spends more money than the sons of the
very rich, and I fear that he has got into bad company and formed evil
habits.'
"Then father spoke up. 'Don't be afraid,' he said. 'I'll wager that
Karl is all right, and that he will do credit to the old town yet.
Some of our greatest men have failed to pass their examinations in the
universities you know, Herr Marx, while some of the most brilliant
students have done nothing worthy of note after leaving the
universities crowned with laurels. There is nothing bad about Karl, of
that you may be sure.'
"The old man could hardly speak. He took father's hand and shook it
heartily: 'May it be so, friend Wilhelm, may it be so,' he said. I
never saw the old man again, for soon after that he died.
"Karl came home that Easter, looking pale and worn and thin. I was
shocked when he came to see me, so grave and sad was he. We went over
to the old Roman ruins, and he talked about his plans. He had given up
all hopes of being a great poet then and wanted to get a Doctor's
degree and become a Professor at the University. I reminded him of the
verses he wrote about some of the boys at school, and about the old
teacher, Herr von Holst, and we laughed like two careless boys. He
stood upon a little mound and recited the verses all over as though
they had been written only the week before. Ach, he looked grand that
night in the beautiful moonlight!
"Then came his father's death, and I did not see him again, except as
the funeral passed by. He went back to Berlin to the University, and I
went soon after that away from home for my wanderjahre, and for a
long time heard nothing about Karl.
II
"Two or three years after that I was working in Cologne, where I had a
sweetheart, when I read in a paper, the _Rhenische Zeitung_, that
there would be a democratic meeting. I liked the democratic ideas
which I found in the paper, for they were all in the interest of poor
toilers like myself. So I made up my mind to go to the meeting.
"So that night I went to the meeting and listened to the speeches.
Presently _he_ came in. I didn't see him at first, but heard a slight
noise back of me and heard someone near me say 'Here comes Doctor
Marx.' Then I turned and saw Karl making his way to the front, all
eyes fastened upon him. I could see in a moment that he was much
beloved.
"Then Karl made a speech. He was not a great orator, but spoke clearly
and right to the point in very simple language. The speaker who spoke
before him was very eloquent and fiery, and stirred the audience to a
frenzy. But never a sound of applause greeted Karl's speech; he was
listened to in perfect silence.
"This made me feel that Karl's speech was a great failure, but next
day I found that the only words I remembered of all that were spoken
that evening were the words Karl spoke. It was the same way with the
other men in the shop where I worked. As they discussed the meeting
next day, it was Karl's speech they remembered and discussed. That was
like Karl: he had a way somehow of saying things you couldn't forget.
"When the meeting was over I was slinking away without speaking to
him. I suppose that I was bashful and a bit afraid of the grave
'Doctor Marx,' the great man. But he saw me going out and shouted my
name. 'Wait a minute, Hans Fritzsche,' he cried, and came running to
me with outstretched hands. Then he insisted upon introducing me to
all the leaders. 'This is my good friend, Herr Fritzsche, with whom I
went to school,' he said to them.
"Nothing would satisfy him but that I should go with the other leaders
and himself for a little wine, and though I was almost afraid lest in
such company I seem foolish, I went. You should have heard Karl talk
to those leaders, my boy! It was wonderful, and I sat and drank in
every word. One of the great men was urging that the time had come
for some desperate action. 'Nothing but a bloody revolution can help
the working people, Herr Marx,' he said. But Karl smiled quietly, and
I thought I could see the old scornful curl of his lip as he said:
'Revolution? Yes, but not yet, Herr, not yet, and perhaps not a bloody
one at all.' Ach, what quiet power seemed to go with his words!
"After the little crowd broke up Karl took me with him to his office.
Then I learned that he was the editor of the _Rhenische Zeitung_, and
that the articles I had read in the paper pleading for the poor and
oppressed and denouncing the government were written by him. I felt
almost afraid of him then, so wonderful it seemed that he should have
become so great and wise. But Karl soon put all my fears to rest, and
made me forget everything except that we were boys from home enjoying
the memories of old times.
"Well, I saw him often after that, for I joined the Democratic Club.
Then the government suppressed the paper, and Karl went away to Paris.
Before he went he came to say good bye and told me that he was to
marry Jenny von Westphalen before going to Paris, and I told him that
I was going to marry, too.
"But we never thought that we should meet each other upon our
honeymoons, as we did. I was at Bingen with my Barbara the day after
our wedding when I heard someone calling my name, and when I turned to
see who it was that called me there stood Karl and his Jenny laughing
at me and my Barbara, and all of us were blushing like idiots. Such
happy days those were that we spent at old Bingen!
"I went back to Cologne, to work in the shop belonging to my Barbara's
father, and Karl went to Paris. That was in forty-three. We heard from
him sometimes, and later on we used to get copies of a paper,
_Vorwarts_, which published articles by Karl and other great men.
Bakunin wrote for it, I remember, and so did Heine and Herwegh, our
sweet singers.
"That paper was stopped, too. We heard that Guizot had suppressed the
paper and ordered Karl and some of the other writers to be expelled
from France. It was Alexander von Humboldt who persuaded Guizot, so it
was said. I got a letter from Karl to say that he had settled in
Brussels with his wife and that there was a baby, a little Jenny,
eight months old. Our little Barbara was just the same age.
"Not long after that letters came to the club asking for Karl's
address. They were from Engels, of whom I had never heard before. I
would not give the address until we found out that Engels was a true
friend and comrade. We were all afraid, you see, lest some enemy
wanted to hurt Karl. It was good, though, that I could send the
address to Engels, for I believe that he sent some money to help Karl
out of a very hard struggle. If we had known that he was in trouble
we, his friends in Cologne, would have sent money to help, but Karl
was too proud I suppose to let his trouble be known to us.
III
"It was in the winter of 1847 that I saw him again, in London. For
months all the workingmen's societies had been agitated over the
question of forming an international association with a regular
programme, which Karl had been invited to draw up. A congress was to
be held in London for the purpose of considering Karl's programme and
I was sent by the Cologne comrades as a delegate. All the members
'chipped in' to pay my expenses, and I was very happy to go--happy
because I should see him again.
[Illustration: FREDERICK ENGELS.]
"So I was present at the rooms of the Arbeiterbildungsverein, in Great
Windmill Street, when Karl read the declaration of principles and
programme he had prepared. That was the _Communist Manifesto_, you
know."
"What! were you really present when that immortal declaration of the
independence of our class was read, Hans?"
"Aye, lad, I was present during all the ten days the congress lasted.
Never, never shall I forget how our Karl read that declaration. Like a
man inspired he was. I, who have heard Bernstein and Niemann and many
another great actor declaim the lines of famous classics, never heard
such wonderful declamation as his. We all sat spellbound and still as
death while he read. Tears of joy trickled down my cheeks, and not
mine alone. When he finished reading there was the wildest cheering. I
lost control of myself and kissed him on both cheeks, again and again.
He liked not that, for he was always ashamed to have a fuss made over
him.
"But Karl--he always insisted that I should call him 'Karl,' as in
boyhood days--had shown us that day his inner self; bared the secret
of his heart, you might say. The workers of all countries must
unite--only just that, unite! And that night, after the long session
of the congress, when he took me away with Engels and a few other
friends--I remember that Karl Pfander was one--he could speak of
little else: the workers must be united somehow, and whoever proposed
further divisions instead of unity must be treated as a traitor.
"Some there were who had not his patience. Few men have, my lad, for
his was the patience of a god. They wanted 'action,' 'action,'
'action,' and some of them pretended that Karl was just a plain
coward, afraid of action. There was one little delegate, a Frenchman,
who tried to get me to vote against the 'coward Marx'--me that had
known Karl since we were little shavers together, and that knew him to
be fearless and lion-hearted. I just picked the creature up and shook
him like a terrier shakes a rat and he squealed bitterly. I don't
think he called Karl a coward again during the congress.
"Of course, Karl had courage enough for anything. But he was too wise
to imagine that any good could come from a few thousand untrained
workingmen, armed with all sorts of implements, dangerous most to
themselves, challenging the trained hosts of capitalist troops. That
was the old idea of 'Revolution,' you know, and it took more courage
to advocate the long road of patience than it would take to join in a
silly riot. And Karl showed them that, too, by his calm look and
scornful treatment of their cry for 'action.' The way he silenced the
noisy followers of Wilhelm Weitling--who was not a bad fellow,
mind--was simply wonderful to see. Oh, he was a born leader of men,
was Karl.
"When the congress was all over, I meant to stay a few days in London
to see the great city. Barbara had a sister living over in Dean street
and so it would cost me nothing to stay. But Karl came to me and
begged me to go back by way of Brussels. He and Engels were returning
there at once, and would like to have me go with them. I didn't want
to go at first, but when Karl said that there were some messages he
wanted me to take back to Cologne, why, of course, I went.