182 THE UTOPIAN COMMUNIST
their meetings, but their ambitious plan to print a labor paper had
ended in failure. Weitling was greatly impressed by this evidence
of workers' solidarity, but bad news also awaited him in New
Orleans. A German from Baden who was the agent of Die Re¬
publik der Arbeiter not only had defaulted on his payments but
had failed to deliver papers to subscribers for as long as three or
four months. Even after 3,000 undistributed copies had been re
trieved, the agent still owed $51 to the New York office. As a
result of this experience, Weitling decided to publish hereafter all
receipts for the paper and the Bund, with membership lists and
individual contributions.
More than sixty persons joined the Arbeiterbund in New
Orleans, but despite such signs of enthusiasm, Weitling concluded
that the German element was far more interested in singing so
cieties and Turnvereine than in the labor movement. The tailors'
association was in financial straits, but the carpenters, more affluent
at the moment, blithely pledged to the Bund three building lots,
on which they had made down payments of $465. By way of con
trast, the Germans of New Orleans had raised $2,000 for Kinkel's
"national loan" and had supported a Deutsche Zeitung with 800
subscribers. Before starting north again, Weitling bought 4,000
cigars and five kegs of wine for $105 in the Crescent City, to fill
orders from workers' co-operative stores in Louisville and Cin
cinnati.
In Baton Rouge, the homeward-bound traveler discovered a
Hungarian society led by a former member of one of his com
munist societies in Switzerland, and learned that the group was
operating a co-operative boardinghouse at a profit. In Natchez,
the German population consisted of a little more than two hun
dred, who supported a society for the payment of sick benefits
but as yet had no German church. Weitling found the location
of the town ideal, and working and living conditions satisfactory.
Vicksburg he considered far less attractive. It contained few Ger
mans and offered little prospect for recruiting for the Arbeiter
bund.
In 1852, Weitling made a special trip into Missouri to visit the