Karl Marx: A biography by David McLellan

LONDON (^255)
sophy from Kant onwards. The articles were to be 'sarcastic and amusing'
and yet to contain 'nothing which would hurt the religious feelings of
the country'.^201 Marx wrote to Engels that if they were together it might
be possible but 'alone I would not wish it',^202 and the matter was not
pursued. In the same year, relations between Marx and the Tribune became
strained: Dana often altered Marx's articles and sometimes took the first
paragraphs of an article to serve as an editorial, printing the rest as a
separate and anonymous article. In all, 165 of the Tribune's editorials were
taken from Marx's articles, though in fact Dana preferred the articles that
(unknown to him) had been written by Engels. Marx insisted that either
all or none of the articles should be signed and after 1855 they were all
printed anonymously. During 1853 the Tribune printed eighty of Marx's
articles and about the same number in 1854 , but only forty in 1855 and
twenty-four in 1856. At the beginning of 1857 , Marx threatened to write
for another paper since the Tribune, whose panslavist tendencies were
becoming more pronounced, was printing so few of his articles: Dana
thereupon agreed to pay him for one article a week, whether printed or
not.
In April 1857 Dana invited Marx to contribute to the New American
Cyclopaedia. The Cyclopaedia was the idea of George Ripley, a friend of
Dana's since Brook Farm and literary editor of the Tribune. It eventually
comprised sixteen volumes, had more than 300 contributors and was a
tremendous success. A strict objectivity was aimed at, and Dana wrote to
Marx that his articles should not give evidence of any partiality, either on
political, religious or philosophical questions. Although Engels saw in
I )ana's proposition 'the opportunity we have been waiting for for so long
to get your head above water'^203 and constructed schemes for getting a
number of collaborators together, this proved impossible. Marx was asked
to do articles mainly on military history and was severely handicapped
when Engels fell ill with glandular trouble. He could give no plausible
explanation for the embarrassing delays and was reduced to pretending
that the articles had been lost in the post. Most of his contributions were
written in 1857-58, but he continued to send a few until the end of i860.
At two dollars a page it was a useful source of income. The reason for
the end of Marx's collaboration is not known. In all, sixty-seven Marx-
Engels articles were published in the Cyclopaedia, fifty-one of them written
by Engels, though Marx did a certain amount of research for them in the
liritish Museum.
By the end of 1857 the commercial crisis had compelled the Tribune
to dismiss all its foreign correspondents apart from Marx and one other;
and in 1861 Greeley, disturbed by Marx's views, asked Dana to sack him
also. Dana refused, but the publication of further articles by him was