THE GERMAN REVOLUTION 135
ism which such receptions seemed to condone. He reminded his
readers that Kossuth had carefully refrained from committing
himself on issues close to the heart of the workers, who do not
need "your political frontiers."^13 Immediately, Weitling was at
tacked by papers such as the Baltimore Wecker and the Baltimore
Deutscher Correspondent and represented as the enemy of Kos
suth and Hungarian liberty. Samuel Ludvigh, a German-
Hungarian who started so many German papers in the United
States that he was known as "Fackel [Torch]-Ludvigh," charged
that men of the type of Weitling were by nature "despots," de
spising everyone "who is not a crazy communist."
Presently, Gottfried Kinkel, the professor and poet who had
turned revolutionary in 1848 and who had been liberated from
prison with the help of Carl Schurz, arrived in the United States
to float a national loan for a new German revolution. Mass meet
ings were held in many cities in response to Kinkel's appeal for
funds, and many workers donated a day's wages to the cause.
Weitling and Brisbane spoke at a large gathering in New York to
commemorate the February revolution of 1848.^14 As late as 1852,
as many as a thousand little revolutionary societies were engaged
in raising money among the Germans of the United States in
preparation for the new uprising in Europe which they were sure
would come.^15
Actually, the results of Kinkel's campaign were extremely
meager, and as usual the German element in the United States
divided sharply on the question, resorting to disgraceful recrimina
tions. Weitling had little interest in this "foggy German Republic
of the professors" or in their fine phrases about liberty and repub
licanism, and he did not hesitate to express his resentment against
German republican intellectuals because of their bad treatment
of the German working class and their indifference to its demands.
With stubborn consistency, he would settle for nothing less than
(^13) Rep. d. Arb., February 14, May 1, 1852.
(^11) New Yorker Staatszeitung, March 2, 1850.
(^15) Der deutsche Pionier (Cincinnati), VIII (1876), 90-97, 155-59.