IN AMERICA 165
university and finance many desirable reforms. Yet, when "Puri
tanical fanatics" tried to legislate on the personal habits of the
people and interfered with the German's desire to observe the
Sunday holiday in his own Continental way, Weitling became a
rabid defender of "personal liberty"; and when the New York
legislature seemed about to pass a prohibition statute, he wrote de
fiantly: "We will keep on drinking, come what may!"
Die Republik der Arbeiter, like other papers which were the
mouthpiece for immigrant groups, was deeply concerned with the
problem of protecting the newcomers to America, both on the
overcrowded immigrant ships and from the swindlers and "im
migrant runners" who infested the port towns and swindled and
robbed their innocent prey as soon as they docked in the promised
land. Weitling proposed using funds of the Arbeiterbund for the
erection of a home for immigrants. Occasionally, during periods of
disillusionment, Weitling reminded prospective emigrants in Ger
many that "all was not gold that glitters [sic]" in these United
States, and that materialism and egotism were as powerful here as
elsewhere in crushing "the buds of hope for reform." In such
articles he described the dirty streets of America's crowded cities,
predicting that soon men would be building skyscrapers and "will
be born and die without having seen a cornfield." The sectarian
spirit which he found rampant in the United States irritated him
also, and he regarded puritanism as a blight which hung over the
land and unnecessarily restricted individual liberty. He believed
that Germans had a special mission in America, to initiate a labor
movement and nurture it to power and influence. However, like
many other leaders of immigrants, he quickly discovered that they
were becoming Americanized, and that the more they prospered,
the more they lost interest in anything save what Engels once
called the beau ideal of the bourgeoisie.
barré
(Barré)
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