FAREWELL TO REFORM 289
On February 27, 1861, the New York Tribune reported that
because of an "act of royal grace" by His Majesty, the King of
Prussia, German refugees now could become repatriated. Weitling still was sufficiently well known in New York that his name
appeared among a list of those who might take advantage of this
opportunity to return to their European fatherland. Though he
was not then naturalized, Weitling had no intention of giving up
his residence in the United States.In 1868, desperately in need of help for his publication projects
and his inventions, he carried on a strange correspondence with
a curious individual known as Otto von Rudgisch, a former sup
porter in Hamburg who now lived in Jasper County, Illinois, and
with a Freiherr von Schleunitz, a captain in the German navy, who
was also an acquaintance from the old days in Hamburg. Such
letters indicate Weitling's desperate plight and the extremes to
which he was willing to go to find funds for his inventions. Von
Rudgisch replied with several peculiar letters, reaffirming his faith
in the author of the Garantieen, pleading for his return to the
political arena to lead a new revolution in Germany, and insist
ing that no reform was possible until all the Rothschilds had been
buried. He promised financial aid but never did anything for his
friend in New York except write him long and incoherent letters.
In 1868, a Soziale Partei (Social Party), was founded in New
York as an outgrowth of the German Communist Club of 1857.
The little party has significance in the history of the modern
socialist movement in the United States, though it had little practi
cal success in the arena of American politics. As a labor party, it
appealed to all the organized tradesmen of the city. Weitling was
selected as a member of its executive committee of fifteen, "be
cause his name still had a good reputation among the workers of
New York." The committee included Sorge, who had known
Weitling's Arbeitervereine in Switzerland and had been an em
ployee at the headquarters of his Arbeiterbund in New York, and
other prominent Germans, like Siegfried Meyer, Adolf S. Weyler,
and the brothers Lücke, who were tailors. But the old communist