CHAPTER IXIX. A Radical Journalist in America
IN AMERICA
W
RITING in one of the last numbers of the Republik
der Arbeiter, which he published in New York for
five years after he had resolved to have done with
Europe and to propagandize America, Weitling referred to the
Forty-eighters, of whom he was one, in the following terms: "By
the thousands, they migrated to America, the model republic, the
last hope of their dreams. But here they discovered again what
they had left behind in Europe: a general, wide-spread ill-humor,
due to their disturbed dreams of liberty and the crushed flowers
of revolution.... The enthusiasm which the European revo-
lutions had kindled here, had evaporated with the defeat of the
revolutionaries. They were humbled, disappointed and discour-
aged."^1
Weitling was not easily discouraged. With a naïve optimism
that sustained him through five years of heartbreaking defeat he
made a final effort to carry his program of social reconstruction
to fruition. He offered a triple-headed program of action to all
Americans, though he addressed himself particularly to the large
number of German craftsmen whom he found in the United
States on his arrival. His program included the re-establishment
of the Befreiungsbund, for which he had done spadework during
his first visit to the United States, as an Arbeiter bund (Working-
men's League); the publication of a newspaper, to be known as(^1) Rep. d. Arb., July 21, 1855.