164 THE UTOPIAN COMMUNISTinterest in the bar where good beer was served than in the bar on
which they were supposed to practice their giant swings. Weitling
regarded Father Jahn, the founder of the Turner movement, as "a
man who may have been unable to comprehend a sound social idea
because he was so preoccupied with physical exercises." He ap
proved of physical exercise, but he could not comprehend the need
for special societies for that purpose in a land where there was still
so much to be done with ax, spade, and hammer. Though the
Turnvereine provided an outlet for man's desire for recreation and
exercise, they did not produce either more or better socialists than
might be recruited among "nightwatchmen, ropewalkers, musi
cians and trick riders." Weitling could discover no logical rela
tionship between radical politics and somersaults.
Always a friend of the theater, Weitling urged his readers to
support German theater companies wherever they existed. He
pleaded with parents to teach their children the German language,
but he made it clear that his purpose was to develop a bilingual
second generation and that he did not intend to use the language
as a means of isolating the German group from their fellow Ameri
cans.
Weitling enjoyed his social glass of beer or wine as much as any
one. But his paper frequently discoursed on the "national vice"
of the German people, too much beer drinking. He seriously
maintained that this national weakness had proved a real handi
cap to the political progress of the German people, who regarded
a drunkard almost "as something of a saint," and he pointed out
that Germany had produced few, if any, statesmen comparable in
stature with those of other nations. More specifically, he attributed
the failure of 1848-49 in large measure to too much wine and beer.
Occasionally he printed material to illustrate the evil effects of
alcohol and tobacco on the nervous system. He ridiculed his fel
low countrymen for their failure to unite on any American issue
save the beer glass, their "holy of holies." According to his esti
mate, the German-American group alone spent $20,000,000 an
nually for beer, an amount sufficient to build a great national