150 THE UTOPIAN COMMUNIST
Weitling's conflict with Heinzen, champion of materialism and
radical democracy, began as soon as the two refugees reached the
safe shores of America, and Weitling with his usual naivete asked
Heinzen to join his communist movement. The latter found it
almost impossible to co-operate with anyone, and least of all with
a communist. Though he always respected Weitling far more
than most of the intellectuals in the communist group who ac
cepted Marx as their high priest, Heinzen, in a curt reply to a
courteous invitation, refused to join forces with the promoter of
the Arbeiterbund.^18 The result was a long verbal battle in their
respective papers, Weitling deploring the division in the forces
of radical reform which deprived him of control of them, and
Heinzen becoming more violent and personal in his attacks on the
simple-minded tailor. The deep-seated distrust of the craftsman
for a university man is apparent in Weitling's rejoinders. He
finally finished with Heinzen by calling him a megalomaniac with
out "an original idea" or a "social system" in his head, utterly
ignorant of the workers' problems, and lost in confused notions
about parliamentary government, God, and women's rights.
Heinzen, in turn, rejected Weitling's attacks on property and
his theories about money and exchange in toto; sarcastically ad
vised the tailor to stick to his trade, and shed "the mask of the
Messiah"; accused him of reprinting libelous matter from other
papers; and ridiculed his role in the Revolution of 1848-49. The
controversy between Heinzen's Schnellpost and Die Republik
der Arbeiter reached a new low, even for that era of violent per
sonal journalism.^19
Though the course of the radical journalist was neither smooth
nor easy, Weitling claimed to have won 4,500 subscribers by
November, 1850, and he listed assets of $450, liabilities of $190,
and a cash profit of $260 which he thought would rise to $800 if
all papers still on hand could be sold as propaganda leaflets. By(^18) Karl Heinzen, Erlebtes (Boston, 1874), II, 164-67.
(^19) See Rep. d. Arb., October 4, 1851; also, Wittke, Against the Current: The
Life of Karl Heinzen, for references to Weitling, and chap, x, on "Social Reform
Without Communism."