A Remembrance of Karl Marx
Henry George
[20 March, 1883]
Those of us who know of no other
remark by Henry George about Karl Marx than his description of him
as "the Prince of Muddleheads," will be surpised to learn
that an earlier commentary by George has come to our attention in
the form of a letter that was read at a memorial service for Marx at
New York's Cooper Union on March 20, 1883. The historian Phillip S.
Foner reports: "The meeting brought together for the first time
members of socialist and anarchist groups, members of the Knights of
Labor and the American Federation of Labor, single-taxers and
socialists, and workers of different nationalities and languages."
I was led to the letter by a chance conversation with Liz Mestres,
the director of the Brecht Forum in New York. She remembered having
read George's tribute to Marx years before. After some digging, she
found it in a compendium of comments at the time of Marx' death,
Karl Marx Remembered, P.S. Foner, editor, published in 1983
by Synthesis Publications, San Francisco. The editor found the
letter in the March 25, 1883 issue of a labor newspaper, Voice
of the People, an organ of the group that sponsored the meeting.
The New York Times set the scene in its article on March
21, 1883:
A very large mass-meeting of Socialists,
Communists, and working men, to do honor to the memory of Karl Marx,
was held last evening at the Cooper Institute. A large portrait of
the German Socialist was hung over the stage, and above it was the
inscription, "Vive l'Internationale," while round both
were placed the blood-red banners of the Communists and Socialistic
labor clubs. P.J. McGuire called the meeting to order. Victor Drury,
the first speaker, said that Karl Marx was upbraided and derided, as
were all the others who founded and supported the International. The
capitalists and powers that be in Europe dreaded the International
because it advocated the abolition of standing armies and the
effacement of State boundaries. The speaker then made a general
attack on all capitalists, aristocrats, the bourgeoisie,
Professsors, scholars, and all other classes who do not to manual
labor in the workshop....
[Bruce Oatman - 2007]
I am unable to accept the invitation of our committee to address the
meeting at Cooper Institute, but I desire to express my deep respect
for a man whose life was devoted to efforts for the improvement of
social conditions.
I never had the good fortune to meet Karl Marx, nor have I been able
to read his works, which are untranslated into English. I am
consequently incompetent to speak with precision of his views. As I
understand them, there are several important points on which I differ
from them. But no difference of opinion can lessen the esteem which I
feel for the man who so steadfastly, so patiently, and so
self-sacrificingly labored for the freedom of the oppressed and the
elevation of the downtrodden.
In the life and in the teachings of Karl Marx there were the
recognition of two profound truths, for which his memory deserves to
be held in special honor.
He was the founder of the International - the first attempt to unite
in a "holy alliance of the people" the workingmen of all
countries; he taught the solidarity of labor, the brotherhood of man,
and wherever his influence has reached it has tended to destroy those
prejudices of nation and race which have been in all ages the most
efficient means by which tyranny has been established and maintained.
For this I honor Karl Marx.
And I honor Karl Marx because he saw and taught that the road to
social regeneration lies not through destruction and anarchy, but
through the promulgation of ideas and the education of the people. He
realized that the enslavement of the masses is everywhere due to their
ignorance, and realizing this, he set himself to work to master and to
point out the social economic laws without the recognition of which
all effort for social improvement is but a blind and fruitless
struggle.
Karl Marx has gone, but the work he has done remains; whatever may
have been in it of that error inseparable from all human endeavor will
in turn be eliminated, but the good will perpetuate itself. And his
memory will be cherished as one who saw and struggled for that reign
of justice in which armies shall be disbanded and poverty shall be
unknown and government shall become co-operation, that golden age of
peace and plenty, the possibility of which is beginning even now to be
recognized among the masses all over the civilized world.
I join with you in paying to such a man the tribute of brotherly
regard.
Sincerely Yours, Henry George
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