IN AMERICA 157for a social revolution. Weitling personally believed that the na
tional pride of the British was so great, and their infatuation with
freedom of speech and of the press so deep-rooted, that a resort
to revolutionary methods was extremely unlikely. Die Republik
der Arbeiter pledged support to the Hungarian revolutionists,
and Willich and Carl Schurz reported in 1852 and 1853 on French
affairs and on Louis Napoleon's coup d'etat. Weitling's opinion
of Russia was extremely unfavorable, and he pictured the country
of the czars as a colossus that threatened all Europe with strangula
tion and despotism. The paper also carried notable articles on
China, Japan, and Australia, and on the progress of communism
in the Orient. As far as American policy was concerned, it advo
cated the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands and chided President
Fillmore for his timidity and indecision; favored acquiring Mexico
to rescue that country from the intrigues of Europeans and priests;
and referred to Cuba as the "outpost of European absolutism in
the western hemisphere."
The editor also printed an amazing number of miscellaneous
contributions. In 1852, for example, a professor from the Uni
versity of Giessen contributed a series of articles on agriculture.
In 1854, Weitling published a two-act play dedicated to the
Arbeiterbund, Der Sylvesterschmaus by Friedrich Röpenack.
Poems by such liberals and radicals as Freiligrath, August Becker,
Madam Anneke, Leopold Alberti, and H. Lauten appeared fre
quently, with occasional extracts from Weitling's own Kerker
poesien. Harro Harring's "Der Menschheit Auferstehung" was re
printed because it advocated Christian love and a Kingdom of God
on earth. Finally, the paper carried a curious assortment of para
bles and little essays couched in the symbolic language of religion.
Such material was repeatedly used as filler. These items were inter
mingled with articles on inventions, the adulteration of milk, the
mortality rate on immigrant ships, the Mormons in Utah, and the
relative merits of homeopathy and allopathic medicine, a debate
that waxed so violent among his excited readers that the editor had
to refuse to accept further contributions on the subject.