CO-OPERATIVE VENTURES 233bank of exchange would amount to $50,000 a week, he proposed
a plan to have the Arbeiterbund build the Pacific railroad. Lud¬
vigh's Fackel sarcastically pointed out that "the raw materials
necessary to lay the rails were still buried in the mountains of the
Cape of Good Hope" and that such "socialistic fanaticism" failed
to take cognizance of all the practical difficulties involved, but
Die Republik der Arbeiter published the details for the plan in
May, 1850.
Weitling called upon the workers to act as a unit and to demand
of Congress the same Federal aid which that body was ready to
grant to capitalists to build the road as a private enterprise for
private profit. He proposed that 3 8,400,000 acres from the public
domain be given to "the Republic of the Workers," with a finan
cial subsidy of $50,000,000; and he urged the workers, irrespec
tive of language or nationality, to bombard their Congressmen
with petitions for this unique chance to build "a reform road" by
a "union of workers." He thought the undertaking could be com
pleted in two years at a total cost of $27,000,000, provided the
government furnished the necessary engineers, allowed free use
of the raw materials that lay along the proposed route, appropri
ated $10,000 a day to feed the workers, and donated a thirty-mile
strip for a distance of 2,000 miles through the public domain.
Weitling proposed that the actual construction of the road be
supervised by a board of directors, to be chosen by delegates
selected by an English and a German workers' congress. He
stipulated that the directors must be able to speak English, Ger
man, and French, a requirement which he, for one, could meet.
The road would be built by a work force of from 20,000 to
100,000 men and upon completion would belong to the nation.
The land grants would be preserved intact and undivided, as the
common property of the "workers' republic," to be developed
into farms by the men who built the railroad. Co-operative stores
would spring into existence along the route, and they would do
business with a paper money that would produce the profits ex
pected of the Tauschbank system. Thus, finally, all who had par-