Karl Marx; his life and work
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KARL MARX: His Life and Work                                               
BOOKS BY JOHN SPARGO SOCIALIST THEORY The Socialists, Who They Are and What They Stand For Socialism, A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles Capitalist and Laborer The Common Sense of Socialism The Spiritual Significance of Modern Socialism Socialist Readings for Children (illustrated) The Substance of Socialism SOCIAL QUESTIONS The Bitter Cry of the Children (illustrated) The Common Sense of the Milk Question (illustrated) BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES The Socialism of William Morris (illustrated) The Marx He Knew (illustrated) Karl Marx: His Life and Work (illustrated) Karl Marx KARL MARX: HIS LIFE AND WORK
Copyright, 1910, by B. W. HUEBSCH All rights reserved First Printing, May, 1910. Second Printing, September. 1912. PRINTED IN U. S. A. TO MARY ROBINSON SANFORD A GREETING FROM "NESTLEDOWN” TO “ TUCKED-AWAY ”
CHAPTER PAGE Preface 11 I. His Parents 17 II. Boyhood and Youth 28
V. The Birth-cry of Modern Socialism 84 VI. The “ Communist Manifesto ” 107 VII. Crowing of the Gallican Cock 130 VIII. The Mother of Exiles 168
XII. The International Working Men’s Association (Continued) 286
Index 355
Karl Marx Frontispiece OPPOSITE PAGE Karl Marx’s Birthplace 20 Jenny von Westphalen 40 Facsimile Title page, “ Buch der Liebe ” 50 Karl Marx’s Diploma as Doctor of Philosophy 60 Georg Herwegh 66 Claude Henri Saint-Simon 70 Fran50is Marie Charles Fourier 70 Ludwig Feuerbach 76 Heinrich Heine 82 Wilhelm Weitling 96 Wilhelm Wolff 96 Ferdinand Flocon 106 Friedrich Engels 120 Ernest Jones 130 Albert Brisbane 130 Gottfried Kinkel 140 Karl Marx’s Passport 146 Robert Blum 158 Ferdinand Freiligrath 166 Wilhelm Liebknecht 178 John Frost 184
ILLUSTRATIONS OPPOSITE PAGE Joseph Weydemeyer 19° Robert Owen 194 Karl Marx’s London Residences 198 Ferdinand Lassalle 206 Karl Marx 226 Karl Vogt 234 Lothar Bucher 234 L. Kugelmann 238
Guiseppe Mazzini 264 Facsimile of Karl Marx’s Manuscript 276 Michael Bakunin 284 Pierre Joseph Proudhon 284 E. S. Beesly 294 Frederick Lessner 306 Karl Marx’s Grave 320 Karl Marx 330
PREFACE
Professor Veblen, one of the ablest and most brilliant of our American sociologists, has very well said: “ The Socialism that inspires hopes and fears to-day is of the school of Marx. No one is seriously apprehensive of any other so-called Socialistic movement, and no one is seriously concerned to criticise or refute the doctrines set forth by any other school of ‘ Socialists.’ ” It will, I think, be conceded that this is a remarkable tribute to the influence and power of a great thinker. It is not a small thing that an international political movement with many millions of adherents should be dominated so far by the intel lect of one man as commonly to be called by his name; for “ Socialism ” and “ Marxism ” have become interchangeable as practically synonymous terms. In the great European countries where Socialism is a power politically, the move ment is almost wholly dominated and inspired by the thought and deed of Marx. In the United States, where there is a growing Socialist movement which is generally recognized as being much bigger and stronger than its political manifesta tion, Socialism and Marxism are synonyms. In China and Japan the works of Marx are eagerly read and studied by those who challenge the existing order and who dream of change. In Australia Marxian shibboleths are inscribed upon the red ban ners of a discontented proletariat. In Africa there are Karl Marx clubs, from which emanates the spirit of revolution. In view of these facts, one need not be a Socialist in order to feel an interest in the man whose work and personality have contributed so much to the development of modern political and social thought and history. Whether Socialism proves to be, in the long span of centuries, good or evil, a blessing to men 12
KARL MARX or a curse, Karl Marx must always be an object of interest, as one of the great world-figures of immortal memory. In ever-increasing numbers, as the years go by, thoughtful men and women will find the same interest in studying the life and work of Marx that they do in studying the life and work of Cromwell, of Wesley, or of Darwin, to name three immortal world-figures of vastly divergent types. Singularly little is known of Karl Marx, even by his most ardent followers. They know his work, having studied his Das Kapital with the devotion and earnestness with which an older generation of Christians studied the Bible, but they are very generally unacquainted with the man himself. Outside of the Socialist movement, knowledge even of his work is confined to a relatively small number of professed students of such matters. Even they know little of the man as distinct from the philosopher and the economist. The average man knows noth ing very definite concerning either Marx or his theories.Although more than twenty-six years have elapsed since the death of Marx, there is no adequate biography of him in any language. Most of the histories of Socialism have devoted chapters to his life, and most of the standard encyclopaedias have biographical articles devoted to the man and his work. Speaking for the moment only of those published in England and America, it must be said that these chapters and articles in encyclopaedias are, almost without exception, full of the most astonishing errors. The Germans have done much better. There is a little volume of Memoirs of Marx by his friend Liebknecht, which has been translated into English and widely circulated in this country and in England. This book of ten der and affectionate reminiscences, while true in spirit, is sadly inaccurate in details, and almost trivial when considered as an account of the man and his work. Its value to the student and to the biographer is inestimable, but it is not — and was not intended to be — a biography of Marx. PREFACE
i3 Nearly thirteen years have passed since first I felt the need of a trustworthy and comprehensive account of the life and work of Karl Marx, and determined to meet that need unless some worthier and more efficient hand should first undertake the task and fulfil it. I began at once to collect materials for a bi ography, and during the years that have elapsed — years which, owing to my activity in the Socialist movement, have been al most wholly bereft of leisure — that work has been continued with as much persistence and energy as possible under the cir cumstances. And now that I have finished what has been for me a labour of love and joy, it is perhaps prudent for me to say that this volume must not be regarded as being the final, authorized biography of Marx. Doubtless some better-equipped German writer, such as Franz Mehring or Eduard Bernstein, will some day give us the adequate and full biography for which the world waits. My own aim has been to furnish the reader with a sympathetic and interpretative account of the life of a man who was not only a profound and brilliant thinker, but a lovable and interesting personality. Concerning the book itself I venture to add a further word of explanation. Believing that the value of the work to the general reader would be greatly enhanced thereby, I have gone with more or less detail into various matters, an understanding of which seemed to me to be necessary to a comprehension of Marx’s thought and deed. For example: In the chapters on the International Working Men’s Association a rather ex tended account of the Franco-Prussian war and the Paris Com mune seemed to be essential to a correct understanding of the position taken by Marx in formulating the policy of that association, and of the causes of its decline. I have not hesi tated, therefore, to sacrifice literary unity to the larger value of practical utility. My aim has been to give an interpretation of Marx’s life and thought, not a mere chronology of events.
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KARL MARX No man in modern times has been more grievously misunder stood and misrepresented than Karl Marx — alike by those who hate, and by those who love his name. For Socialists no less than non-Socialists, therefore, it is very likely that these pages will be found to contain many surprises; that the Marx here revealed will be wholly unlike the Marx they have either loved or hated, according to their point of view. Confident that the portrait of the man here drawn is substantially true, it is my hope that the book will make Marx more real to my Socialist comrades and to students of Socialism generally, as well as to that larger public which finds an intelligent un derstanding of Socialism to be a necessary part of its mental equipment in these days when there is so much “ Socialism in the air.” If it measurably succeeds in fulfilling that hope, I shall be more than content. Of course I am largely, indebted to the work of Franz Mehring, the German Socialist historian. Whoever would write of the life of Marx must perforce draw from the rich mines of information contained in Mehring’s Geschichte der Deutschen Sozial-demokratie, and his introduction to and com ments upon the literary remains of Marx, Engels and Lassalle — A us deni literarischen Nachlass von Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels und Ferdinand Lassalle. I have drawn freely, also, from the great wealth of information contained in the files of various German, French and English Socialist journals, of which the Neue Zeit must be specially mentioned. From Edu ard Bernstein’s admirable little biography of Lassalle I have also drawn some very valuable information.It is not so easy to make acknowledgment of the vast amount of personal assistance received' during the past ten years, with out which this work could never have been written. Some of those to whom I am most indebted, who knew Marx more or less intimately, have passed beyond reach of this expression of my thanks and entered upon their hard-earned rest. I can
PREFACE
Only mention here: W. Harrison Riley, friend of Marx and editor of the International Herald, who died a few years ago at Lunenburg, Massachusetts; the late Herman Jung, a native of Switzerland, for many years the friend and confidant of Marx, who was brutally murdered in London by a man whom, with characteristic generosity, he had befriended; Wilhelm Fritz- sche, one of the first Socialists to be elected to the German Reichstag; and M. Maltman Barrie, a London journalist, who was a member of the International Working Men’s Association and an intimate friend of Marx and Engels through that period of Marx’s life which was most troubled —• the period of the decline of the International. To these men I owe more, perhaps, than to any others of the “ silent host,” but there are in that great host many others to whom my thanks are equally due. I am also deeply indebted to Madame Laura Lafargue, the only surviving child of Marx, for generous advice and assist ance at every stage of my work; to Karl Kautsky, editor of Die Neue Zeit; Frederick Lessner, whose name will be fre quently encountered in these pages; Ernest Belfort Bax, the English Socialist writer; Herman Schlueter, of the New Yorker Volkszeitung; Morris Hillquit, author of Socialism in Theory and Practice; L. B. Boudin, author of The Theoretical System of Karl Marx; and W. J. Ghent, of the Rand School of Social Science, for many valuable suggestions and courtesies. To Mr. Simon O. Pollock, author of The Russian Bastile, and Dr. S. A. Ingerman, I am specially indebted for information con cerning Russian affairs and the great Russian Anarchist, MF chael Bakunin. For assistance in translation and research, and in preparing the book for the press, I am indebted to Mrs. Theresa Malkiel, of Yonkers; Miss Bertha Eger, of New York; Mrs. Meta L. Stern, of New York; Mr. Walter Kruesi, of Boston; Mr. Rufus W. Weeks, of New York; Miss Kate Dombronyi, of New
“ Nestledown,” Bennington Center, Vt., October, 1909. NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION The cordial reception accorded to the earlier edition of this book was very gratifying. I have taken advantage of this edition to correct a number of errors which, as was inevitable from its pioneer character, crept into the book. Most of these were of minor importance, but there was one of very great importance indeed. On page 277 occurs a translation of a letter written by Marx. As printed in the first edition, the letter misrepresents Marx’s thought. It is here correctly translated. The blunder in the first edition was due to my taking it for granted that a “translation” of the letter pub lished in the London Social Democrat was an honest and reliable piece of work.J. S. End of July, 1910. KARL MARX I HIS PARENTS Treves, or Trier, as it is now called, is a town in the western part of Germany, in the Province of the Rhine. It is perhaps the oldest of all German towns, among the objects of its civic pride being some ancient ruins which remain as monuments of the days when it was a not unimportant centre of Roman civilization. Here, in a dwelling of modest com fort—■ Bruckergasse, 664 — there dwelt, in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Heinrich Marx and his wife, and here, on Tuesday, May the fifth, 1818, their second child, J Karl Heinrich Marx, the future Socialist philosopher and economist, was born. Of all their many children Karl alone achieved the distinction of fame. At the time of the birth of this child Trier had been under Prussian rule barely four years, having been taken from France as a result of the crushing defeat of Napoleon I in the long struggle which culminated in his abdication at Fontaine bleau and the restoration of Louis XVII. Under the French regime the whole Rhineland had benefited in no slight degree from the generous liberalizing ideas of France. The French Revolution had done much to break down oppressive mediaeval laws and customs. In particular, it had relieved the Jews from a great deal of persecution and oppression. It was due to the liberal spirit of France that in the cities and towns of the prov- a 17 i8 KARL MARX ince the Jews were enabled to enjoy equal opportunities for education and culture with their Christian neighbours. With the establishment of Prussian rule a new spirit was bound to arise, a spirit of Prussian patriotism, carefully and cunningly fostered by the Prussian officials. The consumma tion of the “ Holy Alliance,” devised by Alexander I of Russia, naturally had the effect of intensifying that spirit, for was not the Alliance the creation of a triple, unconquerable power? Had not William III of Prussia entered into an alliance for mutual support and protection with Alexander I of Russia and Francis of Austria — an alliance which secured Prussia against assault? The fierce denunciation of the Holy Alliance in England and upon the Continent was, naturally, as fuel to the fire of the new patriotism. I , Heinrich Marx was a Jewish lawyer of good social standing I in Trier, a man of great talent and learning. The life of his famous son was dominated by a strong love for his father, long after the latter’s death, and judging by what is known of him, especially by some letters to Karl, the love was well merited. Heinrich Marx, the lawyer who afterward became a justice of the peace, was a man of rare gifts of mind and heart. His mentality presents a curiously complex picture of liberalism and conservatism, of romantic idealism and cold practicality. Upon the one hand, he was a Liberal of the Liberals, a typical intellectual product of eighteenth century | French liberalism. He was a disciple of Voltaire and Leibnitz, ] and knew by heart the writings of Rousseau, Locke and Les- I sing. Upon the other hand, liberal as he was in his philosophy, s Heinrich Marx was conservative — even a reactionary — in politics. A certain prudent regard for his economic inter ests may have tended to increase his Prussian patriotism some what, it certainly grew more ardent after he attained official position. Nevertheless, it is very evident from some remark able letters to Karl, during the latter’s university days, that his patriotism was real and sincere, and not merely a matter of HIS PARENTS 19 prudence and convenience to the practical and thrifty lawyer. Thus we find him writing to Karl, importuning him to think | above all else of the monarchy, and of Prussia’s honor, and | arguing at great length that an absolute monarchy was neces- f sary to the maintenance of the state. In short, the Jewish \ lawyer and official was a loyalist patriot of the type beloved by | the Prussian government. He was greatly distressed when young Karl manifested his radical tendencies and showed him- ,f self to be possessed of the “ demon ” of revolt. This strange mixture of Voltairean philosopher and Prussian patriot in the Jewish lawyer may help us to understand an event in his career which has been the theme of much discus sion and speculation. In 1824, when Karl was six years old, S the disciple of Voltaire embraced Christianity, and, with his | wife and children, was baptized. There is a popular legend to the effect that this acceptance of the Christian religion was purely nominal and compulsory, that it was due to an official edict by the Prussian government compelling all Jews holding official positions or engaged in the learned professions to forego these or formally renounce Judaism and adopt the Christian religion. The story appears in many works relating to Marx, and in most of the encyclopaedias. Liebknecht, long the intimate as sociate of Karl Marx, tells it in his charmingly tender, but often inaccurate, Memoirs,1 and is supported by the testimony of Marx’s youngest daughter, Eleanor Marx-Aveling.2 Lieb knecht, with the freedom of a true literary artist, adds a roman tic touch to the story by making it appear that the boy Karl felt keenly this insult to his race of which he was so proud, that he made reply to it in his youthful pamphlet on the Hebrew question, and that “ his whole life was a reply and was the revenge.” The mental process by which Liebknecht concluded
The story has been repeated in various forms by many writers, including Adler 1 in Germany, Dawson 2 and Kirkup 3 in England, and by the present writer.4 The story is a good one, and it is rather a pity to discredit it. In the interests of historical accuracy, however, it is necessary to proclaim that it is without foundation in fact. Mehring and other German authorities have completely exposed its mythical nature. That Heinrich Marx and his gentle wife renounced Judaism and adopted the Christian religion was due to no official edict, or other compulsion, but to their own free will. Strange and incomprehensible as this may at first appear, there was in fact every reason why the disciple of Voltaire, just because he was such, should have taken that course. The legal emancipation of the Jews which was effected by the French Revolution did not carry with it the emancipation of the Jew from himself, that is, it did not result in the moral emancipation of the Jews. They kept their manners, customs and prejudices. Bernard Lazare5 has very justly observed
21 that the repeal of the oppressive legislative restrictions of many centuries could not immediately erase the moral effects of such legislation from the character of its victims. Just as their fellow citizens of Christian belief kept many of their prejudices, so did the Jews. Happy in their emancipation, they kept to themselves much as before, continuing to be strangers in the land where they were citizens. Doubtless, there was some tendency to arrogance; certainly there was much suspicion and distrust among them. The efforts of the leaders of Judaism — excepting, of course, the small minority of reformers — were to preserve the race from contamination and possible as similation, much as in the United States to-day. This, naturally, retarded the moral emancipation of the Jews and, at the same time, gave to Judaism that narrow, reactionary character which later cost it so many of its brightest and noblest sons. Economically, the Jews, for the most part, remained what they were, a race of money lenders and usurers. For centuries they had been practically debarred from other occupations until these had become an almost inseparable feature of their racial character. The Jew to-day, in all lands, suffers more or less from the same limitation; at that period, in Germany, the limitation was more strongly marked. The rule of the Jew over the small landowners developed into an economic tyranny of the most odious and oppressive type, constantly provoking wild outbursts of anti-Semitism. Wonderful indeed was the wisdom of the young Karl Marx when, in his study of the He brew question, he declared that the emancipation of the Jew, and of society from the Jew, required the emancipation of the Jew from himself, from this “ practical Judaism ”— from money and business. So oppressive had this practical Judaism become that in 1806, Napoleon, who could not be suspected of anti-Semitism, had to step in and interfere on behalf of the protesting debtor class of the Rhine Province. In the Decree of Suspension, issued on May 30 of that year, he suspended the execution
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KARL MARX of a large number of judicial decisions against debtors who had fallen into the clutches of the money lenders, and in a preamble of great seriousness pointed out the urgency of re viving “ among those subjects of our country who profess the Jewish religion, the sentiments of civic morals, which have unfortunately been deadened with a great number of them through the state of humiliation in which they have languished too long, and which it is not our intention to maintain and renew.” Nothing could well be more sympathetic than this fine appeal to the leaders of the Jewish people. Napoleon went further, and called to his aid many prominent Jews, for the purpose of “ considering the means of improving the con dition of the Jewish nation and spreading a taste for the useful arts and professions among its members.” This Assembly of Notable Jews led to the appointment, by Napoleon, of a Great Sanhedrin for the purpose of giving religious authority to the results of the deliberations of the Assembly. This august body, composed of the most intelligent leaders of the minority, recognized the evils, and issued a declaration to the effect that while the religious provisions of the Mosaic law were not sub ject to change, the political provisions were for the Jews when they were an autonomous nation, and were not binding upon Jews scattered among the nations of the earth. It forbade discrimination between Jews and Christians in the matter of loans and prohibited usury. If edict or legislation could have accomplished such a result, the Jewish question as an economic problem would have been solved. Of course, that could not be while the social conditions which underlay the whole problem remained untouched. This long digression seems to be necessary in order that we may understand the provisions of the Code Napoleon of March 17, 1808, which, issued provisionally for a period of ten years, fixed the status of the Jews in the Rhine Province, without which understanding the “ apostasy ” of Heinrich Marx and many others of his race must be unintelligible. This HIS PARENTS 23 code did not in any manner curtail tht religious liberties of the Jews. It established a system of licenses for those Jews who desired to engage in commerce — personal licenses to be issued by the magistrates; it forbade Alsatian Jews to enter other departments without permission, which was granted only upon condition that they would engage in agriculture; it de creed that no mortgages could be taken without special authori zation— this to break up, if possible, the usury which was oppressing the small landowners. It was in no sense oppres sive to the Jews as a race, though it did impose serious and absolutely necessary restrictions upon a certain class of Jews. It was an economic question, pure and simple. At the time Heinrich Marx “ went over ” to the Christian religion the Jews in Trier and the rest of the Rhine Province were subject to some mild extortion at the hands of petty grafters among the Prussian officials, but they had not much in the way of persecu tion to complain of—'at least, not on the part of the govern ment. Of course, through the position which he held, Hein rich Marx was himself placed beyond even that wrong. His intense patriotism is itself the best assurance that he did not feel himself persecuted, as he would have done had he been driven to change his religious faith by official edict. The fact is that, as he told his son Karl, Heinrich Marx forsook Judaism and became a Christian as a matter of con viction. He believed in God, he told his son, as Newton, Locke, Leibnitz, and others, had done before him. At the same time, there is no evidence that his “ conversion ” to Chris tianity implied an acceptance of the historic and distinctive beliefs of Christendom, the Deity of Jesus and the doctrine of the Atonement, nor are we justified in assuming such accept ance. It is far more likely that he embraced Christianity from sociological rather than theological convictions. Like that other great Jew whose “ apostasy ” has been the subject of almost endless discussion, Heinrich Heine, he seems to have looked upon Protestantism as being something more than the 24
KARL MARX intellectual and spiritual protest of religious enthusiasts against dogma and ecclesiastical authority; as being in fact a move ment for intellectual freedom and general progress. This view of Protestantism, it will be remembered by those familiar with his life, inspired Heine’s superb tribute to Luther, “ to whom we owe the preservation of our noblest good, and by whose merits we live to-day,” and caused him to describe Luther’s magnificent hymn, Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, as “ the Marseillaise of the Reformation.” Torn as we know he was by the fierce struggle he had to undergo before he could make up his mind to give a nominal allegiance to Christianity, Heine could not hide from himself the fact that Judaism was narrow, reactionary and sordid, and that when his coreligionists turned to Christianity, in its Protestant form, they were taking “ a step toward European culture.”Protestantism, then, having outgrown its fanatical phase, , was tolerant and progressive, whereas Judaism had become in- j tolerant and reactionary. Reflecting upon this, and remember ing that Christianity had thus been able to tolerate a Leibnitz, I while Judaism had been unable to tolerate a Spinoza, the ( disciple of Voltaire and Leibnitz took the step away from Juda ism in consequence of a deep-seated conviction that the interests i of his race, and of the nation in general, could be best served by the breaking down of an intolerant ecclesiastical system which was a reactionary force in the life of the nation and of his race. Above all, we must remember that Heinrich Marx had far outgrown Judaism in his culture, so that its distinctive features no longer possessed any meaning for him. In such matters, he was much more nearly a typical Frenchman than a typical Jew. While these were probably the decisive reasons which led him to take the step, it may well be, as Mehring suggests, that there were other factors which exercised some influence, per haps hastening the step. In the same year, 1824, some hun dreds of his coreligionists turned from Judaism to Christianity, HIS PARENTS 25 and it is little likely that they were all actuated by the ideas set forth above. There was a financial crisis in the early twenties which brought many Gentiles, especially among the landowning class, to grief and compelled them to endure the oppressive rule of Jewish money lenders. This ancient cause of anti-Semitism gave rise to a great deal of bitter feeling against the money lenders. Provoked by the usurious extortion of these, it naturally and inevitably extended to many of the race who were not money lenders at all and had nothing in common with them. In the Provinciallandtagen, the Land As sembly of the Rhine Province, for instance, there was a vigorous agitation in 1826 to exclude the Jews from citizenship alto gether. To this cause of anti-Semitism must be added another, the growing and assiduously cultivated Prussian patriotism. As Bernard Lazare very clearly shows,1 the exaltation of patriot ism necessarily involved a return to anti-Judaism. It was the march of Napoleon which brought hope and liberation to the f Jews and broke the barriers of the Ghetto. Napoleon became /; the hero and idol of Israel, extolled by the Jews in I every city to which he came, and greeted by acclamations of great throngs who felt that the cause of their race and of the Napoleonic eagle was one. France had declared the emancipation of the Jews: what more natural, therefore, than that when the reaction against Napoleon and against France set in it should carry with it a reaction against the idea of justice to the Jew which was a product of the French Revolu tion? Under Prussian rule, as an offshoot of the reawakened patriotic fires, the ancient religious conception of the State was revived, and prejudice against Judaism was inevitable. Hein rich Marx was, as we have noted, a true Prussian patriot. He was in revolt against a form of economic Judaism, represented by unscrupulous usurers, citizens without civic ties.The true patronymic of the family seems to have been Mor-
2 6 KARL MARX dechal. That name was abandoned by the father of Heinrich, and the name “ Marx ” adopted in its stead. This Mordechai, grandfather of Karl Marx, was a rabbi, one of a long line of rabbis, unbroken from the sixteenth century until his son, Hein rich, father of Karl Marx, adopted law instead of religion for a career. On his mother’s side, also, Karl Marx had a long line of rabbinical ancestors, and it may be, as often sug- i gested, that he owed to this rabbinical ancestry something of that wonderful exegetical power which he displayed in his work. The mother of Karl Marx, nee Henriette Pressburg, was f born in Holland, the descendant of a family of Hungarian | Jews who settled in that country in the early part of the six teenth century, where the men of the family served as rabbis, generation after generation, for centuries. Like her husband, she was a Christian by conviction. When teased on account of her belief in God, by some of her skeptical friends, she would reply that she “ believed in God, not for God’s sake, but for her own.” 1 j She was a simple, good-natured soul of the domestic type, swith no particular intellectual gifts. A careful and affectionate wife, and a patient and wise mother to her large family, Hen riette Marx was a good type of the Jewish woman of her class. J Being a native of Holland, Dutch was her mother tongue, antj, | she never spoke any other, except a broken German.Of all her children, Karl alone manifested any special intel ligence. While he was a very young child his great intellectual ity began to manifest itself, and became a great joy and pride to the fond parents. Like her husband, Mrs. Marx was pained by the radical and revolutionary tendencies which her . son early displayed, but whereas the father died when Karl was about twenty years of age, and was thus spared the pain of witnessing the revolutionary activities of his stormy life, and the poverty and martyrdom which these brought upon him,
HIS PARENTS 27 she lived until 1863, all through the worst period of her son’s struggle. Thus she lived to know that the name of her child, her bright and happy Karl, was a terror to the governments of Europe; that he had kindled fires of revolt which could not be extinguished by force; that he was hounded from land to land, an exile from his Fatherland, persecuted and feared, but often hungry to the verge of starvation. Even the knowledge that he was a great scholar, acknowledged to be one of the most powerful and original thinkers of his time, could not compensate her for the pain and suffering she was thus obliged to endure. • It was the irony of life that the son who kindled a mighty hope in the hearts of unnumbered thousands of his fellow human beings, a hope that is to-day inspiring millions of those who speak his name with reverence and love, should be able to do that only by destroying his mother’s hope and happiness in Eer son, that every step he took should fill her heart with a great agony. Henriette Marx was a victim of Nature’s harsh, immutable ■decree: It is a mother’s part to weep!
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