194 THE UTOPIAN COMMUNIST
to prevent plans for a co-operative clothing store, for which
Greeley consented to act as treasurer.
Weitling represented the German Central Committee of the
United Trades in the city's Industrial Congress. Occasionally he
acted as secretary of this larger body. He helped frame the resolu
tions of the German group, hailing the tailors' demands as "moral,
moderate and just," and protesting the violence of the police in a
country where "we did not expect to find ... a Russian
police."^6 His proposal to establish an association clothing estab
lishment, where clothes would be exchanged for loans, and wages
would be limited to just enough to meet the cost of living until all
such loans were repaid, was "received with applause"^7 and was
approved by "industrials of all branches." On the occasion of
Weitling's address to the German journeymen bakers at Concert
Hall on Grand Street, the New York Herald was sufficiently im
pressed to refer to the speaker as "a sincere convert and disciple
of the system of Icarian socialism." The account referred to the
agitator's "ardent oration" which opened to "the astonished vision
and imagination of the German journeymen bakers a prospect of
wealth, ease and independence and abundance, without much
work, by merely joining the Socialist Union... ."
Meantime, the thirty-eight German tailors were packed into
twelve small cells. Their bail had been fixed at such an excessive
figure that it proved impossible to effect their release. The men
turned out to be such model prisoners that their lot aroused sym
pathy both in labor and nonlabor circles. Though the New York
Tribune reported that the Industrial Congress of the city had
failed to raise a penny for their defense, other efforts were made
to raise funds in New York and elsewhere for their relief. The
case was described as another example of the law's delay when
ever a minority group engaged in an unpopular agitation was in
volved. By the end of November, 1850, the tailors were still in
(^6) New York Tribune, July 25, 1850; see also New Yorker Staatszeitung, May
11, 7 1850.
New York Tribune, August 8, 1850; and John R. Commons et al. (eds.),
Documentary History of American Industrial Society, VIII, 296-309.