Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1896-07-10
LONDON, ENGLAND.
VIM. Liebknecht's Agitation In Eng
land and His Bio2 raphy.

VIM. Liebknecht's Agitation In Eng
land and His Bloc raphy.
Herr Liebknecht has warm friends in
England; many who are strongly opposed
to him in views, sympathize with him
keenly as man. He is younger by some
years than Prince Bismarck, his great an
tagonist-the fetes in honor of his seven
tieth birthday are hardly ended-and,
whereas the Iron Chancellor has already
thrown aside his arms, he is still in the
midst of the fight, dealing out hard blows
and receiving them. He is as full of life
and vigorous as man in his prime; his
brain has lost neither in subtlety nor in
power; and when he speaks he still, as in
the days of old, carries all before him by
the sheer force of his eloquence.
Wilhelm Liebnechts career has been one
of singular interest. BY birth he belongs
to the middle classes, his father, who died
while still young man, being a State
official, and many of his relations university
professors. He started life we'll equipped
with this worlds goods, and with far more
than his fair share both Of ability and good
looks. Although he was only sixteen when
he went to the Giessen University, he took
high place there from the first; and he
was equally successful later in Berlin. He
was educated with view to his entering
the service Of the State, but by the time he
was twenty he had made up his mind that the
social atmosphere ofGermany was too sitting
for his taste The had been reading st. Simon,
and his head was full Of new ideas. He
determined, therefore, to emigrate to
America; but while on his way to Ham,
burg, where he was to embark, he made
the acquaintance of a professor who told
him roundly that there was work better
worth doing to be done in Europe than in
America. Under the influence of his new
friend he turned his steps to Zurich, and
began to study for the bar, What leisure
he had he devoted to going about among
the working classes and trying to get in
touch with them in the hope Of being able
thus to help them.
He was only 90 when that year Of high
hopes and wild dreams, As, came around.
On the 23d of February the news reached
Zurich that Paris was in revolt, and within
two hours he was on his way there; but
although he travelled night and day he ar
rived too late; as he entered the city the
barricades were being removed This was
disappointment, of course, but before
many days had passed he was working
heart and soul with the poet Herwegh, who
had scheme ON foot for carrying the revo-
luton across the Rhine. Neither Herwegh
nor Liebknecht doubted in those days but
furled in the empire, Germans would rally
around 1t in their thousands. They found
out their mistake, however, before long,
and would have paid for it with their heads
II the Wurtemberg soldiers had caught
them. Liebknecht does not seem to have
profited much by his experience; for when,
only few months later, Strive tried to
raise rebellion in Baden, he joined him,
and after the defeat of the rebel force was
taken prisoner. He was kept in the Fret
burg fortress for some months; then, for
tunately for him, when the day of his trial
came, all Baden was in an uproar, for the
soldiers had mutinied, and the Grand
Duke was on the point Of fleeing.
The Public Prosecutor was evil
IDENTIFY one of the wise Of his generation,
for, knowing full well that Liebknecht, if
convicted, would be rescued, he asked for
verdict of ''Not guilty. And this, of
course, was given at once, to the regret of
the young rebel, who desired nothing bet
ter than the chance Of defending what he
had done. He had, however, one consola-
ton; for the populace, hailing his acquittal
as a victory, led him off in triumph. Dur
ing the days that followed he played quite
leading part in Karlsruhe, where, after
the fight of the Grand Duke, provisional
government was proclaimed, with Bren-
tano at its head. But Brentano's desultory
opportunist ways were maddening to a man
who knew it was no time for dallying, and
the result proved that he was right. Be-
fore anything was done the Emperor, Will
lam L., then Prince Of Prussia, marched
into Baden with a large army and made
short work of the rebels.
Liebknecht was fortunate enough to
escape to Geneva, where he at once began
o regular propaganda among the German
workmen; for he had lost all faith in the
classes, and was firmly convinced that if the
vaterland were to be freed, it was the
masses who would free it, BY this time
he had developed strong Socialist views,
and was as much bent on securing
econ,mic freedom as political; the one,
indeed, seeming to him 30 be impossible
without the other. His influence among
the people increased so rapidly that,
In 1870 the Pruasian and Austrian