24 THE UTOPIAN COMMUNISTespecially in Switzerland and the German states. According to
Weitling's account, he won the assignment in competition with
another contestant.^20 He received no pay for his literary labors,
and the project had to be carried out in strictest secrecy. An edi
tion of two thousand was financed by the German workers of
Paris at great sacrifice. They worked at night as typesetters, print
ers, and binders; and their confidence in their leading propagandist
was so great that several pawned their watches to help pay for the
printing, and many accepted copies of the book as reimbursement
in full for their financial contributions. The original edition was
printed on a wooden press on poor paper and was so full of errors
that slips of paper had to be pasted over some of the pages to pro
vide the necessary corrections.^21
The publication in question was entitled Die Menschheit, wie
sie ist und wie sie sein sollte ("Mankind as it is and as it should be").
Weitling had written the manuscript while carrying a full load
of work at the tailor shop. Copies were carried in 1839 to Frank
furt by Heinrich Jakobi, a shoemaker's helper, and by other travel
ing journeymen into the towns of France, Switzerland, Germany,
and as far as the Scandinavian countries. In 1840 the little book was
translated into Hungarian, and in 1845 a second edition was pub
lished by the radical printer, Jenni of Bern, Switzerland. Four
years earlier the police had found copies in the baggage of
journeymen in Hamburg, and the chief of Austria's elaborate
police network instructed his subordinates in the provinces to
confiscate all copies of this "highly destructive and dangerous"
publication which preached "hatred and hostility to all higher
authority" and was written so interestingly as to mislead the in
nocent reader.^22
(^20) New York Die Republik der Arbeiter, July 19, 1851. Hereafter cited as
Rep. d. Arb. The Wisconsin Historical Society at Madison has a complete file.
(^21) Karl Glossy, "Literarische Geheimberichte aus dem Vormärz," Jahrbuch
der Grillparzer Gesellschaft (Vienna, 1922), XXI, 98 et seq.
(^22) See Gustav Mayer, Friedrich Engels: Eine Biographie (Haag, 1934), I, 116;
Emil Kaler, Wilhelm Weitling: Seine Agitation und Lehre im geschichtlichen
Zusammenhange dargestellt (Zurich, 1887), passim; Frederick C. Clark, "A Neg
lected Socialist," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sci
ence, V (1894-1895), 718-39; Brügel, Österreichische Sozialdemokratie, I, 42.