THE WORKINGMEN'S LEAGUE 215
form, child-labor laws, quicker naturalization, cheaper judicial
remedies, mechanics lien, and similar proposals. The new organiza
tion enlisted the support of men like Dr. G. Kellner, former editor
of a paper in Kassel who was then in charge of the New York Die
Reform, and of Dr. Abraham Jacobi, a prominent young Forty-
eighter who is best known today as America's first great pedia
trician. Weydemeyer organized the workers by wards and con
stantly stressed "working class reform" by political action. He
rejected Weitling's "one big union" idea, with his religious Utopi¬
anism, bank reforms, colonization plans and other panaceas. Thus
the battle of Brussels between Marx and Weitling was renewed on
American soil.
Many of Weitling's followers joined the new Bund, and noth
ing he could say in denunciation of the plagiarism and competition
of the recently arrived "Marxian Sophists" could hold them in
line. One reason for the success of the new organization was that its
methods were more in accord with conditions in America, where
political change was frequent but social revolution impossible.^18
Papers like the Cleveland Wächter am Erie published Weyde¬
meyer's platform and urged their readers to join the new organiza
tion to escape from the "fog of fantasy."^19 The Louisville
Anzeiger accused Weitling of sabotaging this genuine workers'
movement. The Columbus Westbote, consistently conservative,
continued to thunder against all reformers who "hang out the
red rag and blow full blast into their trumpets" and pointed out
that the world was full of uplifters "who sought to make all man
kind happy from behind their beer glass."^20 Actually neither
Weydemeyer nor Weitling's organizations could possibly have
survived the panic of 1857, the slavery crisis, and the Civil War,
when issues far greater than theirs divided the nation. Years later
other Arbeiterbunde, such as Gustav Struve's Soziale Republik,
(^18) See Obermann, Weydemeyer, 65-70; and F. A. Sorge, "Joseph Weyde
meyer," Pionier-Illustrierter Volks-Kalendar für 1897 (New York), 54-60.
(^19) Cleveland Wächter am Erie, April 13, September 29, 1853.
(^20) Columbus Westbote, April 22, 1853.