As evidence that the pompous vanity of Herr Karl Blind occasionally propels Herr Karl Blind beyond the bounds of pure comedy, you make mention of my work against Vogt. From Blind's reply you and your readers must draw the conclusion that the accusations made in that work against Herr Karl Blind have been settled by "statements from all concerned". In actual fact since the appearance of my work, that is for four years, the otherwise so prolific Herr Karl Blind has never once dared to "return to the old dispute" with so much as a word, much less with "statements from all concerned". On the contrary, Herr Karl Blind has been content to remain branded an "infamous liar" (see pp. 66, 67 of my work). Herr Karl Blind has repeatedly declared in public that he did not know by whom the leaflet against Vogt had been cast into the world, that "he had absolutely no part in the affair", etc. In addition, Herr Karl Blind published a statement by the printer Fidelio Hollinger, flanked by another statement by the compositor Wiehe, to the effect that the leaflet had neither been printed in Hollinger's printing-shop nor had it emanated from Herr Karl Blind. In my work against Vogt may be found the affidavits (statements made under oath) of the compositor V gele and of Wiehe himself made before the Bow Street Magistrates Court, London, proving that the same Herr Karl Blind wrote the manuscript of the leaflet, had it printed by Hollinger, personally corrected the proofs, fabricated a false certificate to refute these facts, and deviously obtained the signature of the compositor Wiehe for this false certificate by proffering promises of money from Hollinger, and future gratitude on his own part, and finally sent this false document fabricated by himself, along with the signature he himself had dishonestly obtained, to the Augsburg Allgemeine and other German newspapers as morally outraged evidence of my "malicious invention". Thus publicly pilloried, Herr Karl Blind kept silent. Why? Because (see p. 69 of my work) he could only refute the affidavits by me by means of counter-affidavits, but he found himself "under the grave jurisdiction of England", where "felony is no joining matter". In the aforementioned letter to your newspaper there are also some strange statements about Herr Karl Blind's American industriousness. In order to clear up this point allow me to cite an extract from a letter from J. Weydemeyer that arrived here a few days ago. You will recall that J. Weydemeyer used to edit the Neue Deutsche Zeitung in Frankfurt along with O. Luning, and was always one of the most stalwart champions of the German workers' party. Shortly after the outbreak of the American Civil War he entered the ranks of the Federals. Summoned by Fremont to St. Louis, he served initially as a captain in the Engineer Corps there, then as lieutenant-colonel in an artillery regiment, and when Missouri was again recently threatened with enemy invasion, he was suddenly given the task of organising the 41st Missouri Volunteer Regiment, which he now commands with the rank of colonel. Weydemeyer writes from St. Louis, the capital of Missouri, where his regiment is stationed, as follows: A comparison of the two versions of Blind's clumsy handiwork would show how the same Herr Karl Blind, while protesting in Frankfurt and London with a respectable, republican, Cato-like woeful countenance, simultaneously gives free rein in far-off St. Louis to the most malicious idiocy and the vilest impudence. A comparison of the two versions of the "Protest", for which there is no space here, would also result in a new amusing contribution to the method of fabricating letters, circulars, leaflets, protests, provisos, defences, proclamations, appeals, and other similar head-shakingly solemn Blindian political recipes, from which there is as little chance of escaping as from Mr. Holloway's pills or Mr. Hoff's malt extract. Nothing could be further from my mind than to seek to explain a man such as Lassalle and the real tendency of his agitation to a grotesque Mazzini-Scapin with nothing behind him but his own shadow. On the contrary, I am convinced that Herr Karl Blind is only fulfilling the calling imposed on him by nature and by Aesop in stepping behind the dead lion. Karl Marx 1, Modena Villas Maitland Park November 28, 1864 1, Modena Villas, Maitland Park, Haverstock Hill, London I have sent the same statement in the same form as a letter to the Stuttgart Beobachter to some Prussian newspapers for publication, and will also arrange for it to be reproduced in a German newspaper here so that responsibility for it rests solely with me.
The International Workingmen's Association, Letter to the Beobachter