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Protests in the United States against Bismarck's Anti-Socialist Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

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During the summer of 1880, John Swinton, the American journalist and social reformer, made a forty-day tour of France and England. The most memorable event of the tour was the interview he had with Karl Marx during his visit to England, at the seashore resort of Ramsgate. Swinton was tremendously impressed by Marx and, in an account of the interview which he published in the New York Sun of September 6, 1880, he referred to him as “one of the most remarkable men of the day”. One passage from Swinton's article, in particular, clearly illustrates the profound impact Marx had on him.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1976

References

page 30 note 1 In John Swinton's Paper of November 29, 1885, Swinton wrote that during his interview with Marx at Ramsgate in 1880, Marx had told him that if Capital were to be translated into English, the best procedure would be to translate it from the French edition. The text of Swinton's interview with Marx and his article on the translation of Capital are reprinted in Foner, Philip S., ed., When Karl Marx Died: Comments in 1883 (New York, 1973), pp. 240–44.Google Scholar

page 31 note 1 Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick, Letters to Americans, 1848–1895 (New York, 1953), pp. 121–26.Google Scholar Marx's letter to Swinton was written in English.

page 31 note 2 Sorge to Marx, February 10, 1881, Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Amsterdam, copy in Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus, Berlin.

page 31 note 3 In his biography of Swinton, Marc Ross writes that Swinton never participated in any “rally specifically for the purpose of demonstrating against Bismarck”.

page 32 note 1 Pinson, Koppel S., Modern Germany: Its History and Civilization (New York, 1954), pp 207–09.Google Scholar

page 32 note 2 Christian Union, December 1, 1878.

page 32 note 3 New York Tribune, December 4, 1878.

page 33 note 1 Busch, Moritz, “Prince Bismarck as a Friend of America and as a Statesman”, in: North American Review, CXXXI (1880), pp. 313, 156–76.Google Scholar

page 33 note 2 Irish World (New York), 10 21, 1878.Google Scholar

page 33 note 3 “Shutting the Safety-Valve”, in: New York Times, 09 27, 1878.Google Scholar

page 33 note 4 “Bismarck and German Socialism”, in: Press (Philadelphia), 09 5, 1878Google Scholar; “Insatiate Bismarck”, in: Sun (New York), 02 6, 1881.Google Scholar

page 33 note 5 The Tribune interview is reprinted in: Foner, Philip S., “Two Neglected Interviews with Karl Marx”, in: Science & Society, XXXVI (1972), pp. 328.Google Scholar For the section dealing with Bismarck's Anti-Socialist Law, see pp. 27–28.

page 34 note 1 Foner, Philips S., History of the Labor Movement in the United States, I (New York, 1947), pp. 448–53, 493–96, 497500.Google Scholar

page 35 note 1 New York Times, July 10, 1878; Sun, July 10, 1878.

page 35 note 2 The Socialist (Chicago), 01 4 and 11, 1879.Google Scholar

page 35 note 3 New York Times, December 30, 1878; March 12, 1879.

page 35 note 4 The Socialist, January 11, 1879.

page 36 note 1 “Comrade Schlesinger, one of the exiled German Socialists”, spoke at the Newark meeting; “Comrade A. Gerber of Berlin” addressed the Philadelphia meeting, “Comrade Ludwig Ecks, the exiled Berlin Socialist”, closed the Baltimore meeting, and Comrade Florian Bell from Germany performed the same function at the New York meeting. The Socialist, February 1, 1879.

page 36 note 2 A frequent theme was that these plans had increased in number and intensity since the great railroad strike of 1877 was suppressed by the use of federal troops and state militias. Foner, op. cit., pp. 464–74.

page 37 note 1 The SLP National Executive Committee frowned upon these armed clubs and in 1878 all members were ordered to leave, but this order was resented by many Socialists in Chicago and intensified the schism in the Party.

page 38 note 1 The Socialist, January 25, 1879.

page 38 note 2 Sun, January 23, 1879.

page 39 note 1 Ibid.; New York Herald and New York Tribune, January 23, 1879.

page 39 note 2 Gutman, Herbert G., “The Tompkins Square ‘Riot’ in New York City of January 13, 1874: A Re-examination of Its Causes and Its Aftermath”, in: Labor History, VI (1965), pp. 4470CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Foner, op. cit., pp. 447–48.

page 39 note 3 Sun, January 31, 1874.

page 41 note 1 This account of the meeting is based primarily on the New York Herald, which carried the fullest details in its issue of January 23, 1879. Other accounts appeared in the Sun, World (New York), New York Tribune, New Yorker Volkszeitung and New York Times of the same date. Of the leading New York papers, only the Evening Post (New York) carried no report of the meeting.

page 41 note 2 The Socialist, February 15, 1879.

page 41 note 3 New York Herald, January 23, 1879.

page 41 note 4 Sun, January 23, 1879.

page 41 note 5 New York Times, January 23, 1879.

page 42 note 1 The Socialist, February 8, 1879.

page 42 note 2 “Against Bismarck and His Supporters”, in: New Yorker Volkszeitung, 01 23, 1879.Google Scholar

page 43 note 1 Graphic (New York), 04 12, 1879.Google Scholar

page 44 note 1 New York Times, January 3, 5, 9 and 10, March 12, 1880.

page 44 note 2 Hillquit, Morris, History of Socialism in the United States (New York, 1910), p. 208.Google Scholar

page 44 note 3 Geschichte der Deutschen Arbeiterbewegung (Berlin, 1966), I, pp. 208, 234, 267.Google Scholar

page 44 note 4 Marx, to Swinton, , 06 2, 1881, Letters to Americans, p. 127.Google Scholar

page 44 note 5 Sun, February 6, 1881; New York Herald, New York Times and New York Tribune, February 14, 1881.

page 45 note 1 Accounts of the meetings in Paterson and Newark appeared in the New Yorker Volkszeitung, February 12 and 24, 1881; brief accounts of the meetings in Philadelphia, Chicago and Detroit appeared in issues of February 28, March 24 and April 6, 1881. The Volkszeitung published the full proceedings of the meetings in New York and a partial account of the gathering in Boston in its issues of February 14, 19 and 21, March 8 and 9, 1881. It carried the reports of all meetings under the heading “Für die Freiheit Deutschlands”.

page 45 note 2 Boston Advertiser, March 8, 1881.

page 45 note 3 The General Council of the First International, Minutes, 1870–1871 (Moscow, n.d.), pp. 52, 258.Google Scholar There is some doubt as to whether Phillips actually became a member of the International. Samuel Bernstein is not certain that this actually happened, The First International in America (New York, 1965), p. 26.Google Scholar Actually, Phillips's espousal of currency reform as the solution for labor's problems, a program the Marxists in the International vehemently opposed, makes it unlikely that he would have remained in the Association long even if he did join.

page 46 note 1 Turners were originally German-American singing associations. Under the influence of the Socialists, the Turners became the most effective opponents of slavery in the labor movement. See Herman Schlüter, Lincoln, Labor and Slavery (New York, 1913), pp. 7576Google Scholar, and Foner, op. cit., pp. 278–96.

page 46 note 2 Although a slave state, Missouri did not secede and join the Southern Confederacy during the Civil War. As Phillips noted, the German-Americans played an important role in keeping Missouri in the Union.

page 46 note 3 Joseph Warren (1741–75) was a Massachusetts physician, leader of the revolutionary struggle against England, who was killed while serving as major general at Breed's Hill during the Battle of Bunker Hill.

page 47 note 1 Boston Globe and Boston Herald, March 8, 1881.

page 47 note 2 Boston Post and Boston Traveller, March 8, 1881.

page 47 note 3 Boston Advertiser, March 8, 1881.

page 47 note 4 Labor Standard (Fall River, Mass.), 03 12, 1881.Google Scholar

page 47 note 5 Der Sozialdemokrat (Zurich), 03 27 and 04 17, 1881.Google Scholar

page 47 note 6 Harney, G. Julian to Frederick Engels, Cambridge, near Boston, 03 11, 1881, in The Harney Papers, ed. by Black, F. G. and Black, R. M. (Assen, 1969), p. 239.Google Scholar

page 48 note 1 In his letter to Sorge, November 5, 1880, Marx characterized Swinton as a friend of, but not one of the Socialist movement; essentially he was a “well-meaning bourgeois”. Letters to Americans, pp. 123–26. Swinton may have been a member of the SLP, for in a letter to the Party's Executive Committee he signed himself as “Your Comrade”, and The Socialist of Chicago referred to Comrade John Swinton” in its issues of April 5 and December 21, 1879.

page 48 note 2 The reference, of course, was to the assassination of Tsar Alexander II on March 18, 1881.

page 48 note 3 *Engels to Bebel, March 30, 1881, in Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Werke, Vol. 35 (Berlin, 1967), pp. 174–75.

page 48 note 4 The General Council of the First International, Minutes, 1871–1872 (Moscow, n.d.), p. 400.Google Scholar

page 49 note 1 Protokoll über den Kongress der Deutschen Sozialdemokratie in Kopenhagen abgehalten vom 29 März bis 2 April 1883 (Zurich, 1883), pp. 1112.Google Scholar

page 49 note 2 Hillquit, op. cit., pp. 208–09. Hillquit is referring only to the 1881 meetings. He makes no mention of the meetings sponsored by the SLP in 1879 to protest the Anti-Socialist Laws.

page 49 note 3 Engels to Bebel, January 18, 1884, in Werke, op. cit., Vol. 36, p. 86. Although plans were made in the spring of 1884 for Bebel and Liebknecht to go to the United States, they fell through. Liebknecht, however, did go to the United States in the spring of 1886. He was invited by the SLP National Executive Committee, and arrived in the United States on September 13, 1886. His visit coincided with that of Eleanor Marx-Aveling and Edward Aveling, Marx's daughter and son-in-law.

page 49 note 4 New York Tribune, February 6, 1881; Sun, February 14, 1881; and Boston Globe, March 8,1881. The Boston Globe carried both an interview with Fritzsche and the full text of his speech in Faneuil Hall, and Engels obtained copies of the papers from Harney. The Harney Papers, op. cit., p. 293.

page 50 note 1 Wittke, Carl, Refugees of Revolution: The German Forty-Eighters in America (Philadelphia, 1952), p. 364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 50 note 2 New Yorker Volkszeitung, February 14, 1881.