The independent. [volume] (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907, 1903-07-23
THE FATHER OF SOCIALISM
=--=---=BY CHARLES @ DE FRANCE. -------

No follower of Karl Marx, the father
OF socialism, having volunteered to
furnish a sketch of his life for this
edition, I am Obliged to write 1t my
self. Acknowledgement is hereby
made for material drawn from the
biographical memoirs by Wilhelm
Liebknecht translation of Ernest I'm
termann, now one of the editors of
the Appeal to Reason, Girard, Kas. !.
published by Charles H. Kerr & Co..
Chicago; cloth, 1S1 pp., 5Oc).
Karl Marx was born May 5, 1918,
at Treves, of Jewish parentage. sOnly
four years had passed." says Lieb-
kneeht, "since the province of the
Rhine had been occupied by Prussia,
and the new masters hastened, in the
service Of the Holy Alliance to re-
place the heathenish French by a
Christian German spirit. The pagan
Frenchmen had proclaimed the equal
rights of ali human beings in the
German Rhireland, and had removed
from the Jews the curse of thousand
years of persecution and oppression
had made Citizens and human beings
of them. The Christian German spirit
OF the Holy Alliance condemned the
heathenish French spirit of eq;ializa-
titn and demanded the renovation of
the old curse"
So, shortly AFTER Karl Marx was
born an edict was issued leaving to-
ali the Jews no other choice but to be
baptized or to forego all official po-
sition and activity. His father was a.
prominent lawyer and notary public
at the county court, and, submitting 6
t. the unavoidable, adopted the
Christian faith. Liebknecht says that
Karl Marks "whole life was a reply
and was the revenge" for this act of
violence to religious liberty, his first
pamphlet, published twenty years Ia
ter, when he had grown to manhood,
dealing with the question.
The elder Marx, his granddaughter
writes, was man of great talent,
and thoroughly imbued with the
French ideas of the eighteenth, CEN
tury concerning religion, science and
art" Karl's mother was descended
from the hungarian Jews who had
settled in Holland in the seventeenth
century. Among the boys earliest
anu COLu updulOuS were EQSdI
and Jenny Won Westphalen--the lat
ter afterward becoming his wife
Karls first love for the romantic
school," his granddaughter AYERS, was
inspired by the father of his play
mates-a half Scot. The elder Marx
read Voltaire and Racine to Karl,
and Westphalen read Homer and
Shakespeare to him.
After taking the customary school
co e. Karl Marx entered first the
University of Bonn, and afterward
where he studied law for 2
while to please his father, and his
tory and philosophy to please him
self. He had planned, in 1872 to
establish himself at the University of
Bonn as lecturer of philosophy blt
upon friends advice he abandoned
this idea. But that fall he became ed-
tor of the "Rheinische ZaitrnS''
tRheinish Gazette). Here was a field
OF practical action in which he could
display his extraordinary talent
The German censorship was still
in vogue a1d the "Zeitung" was in q
continual fight with the censors. "The
wonderful ability of Marx tc win and
dominate men," says LieDknecht, "a.
ready stood the test here. The .ensors
allowed many passages 70 slip through
that offended in Berlin: they received
rebuke after rebuEe. Finally. wher
censor after censor had been used ND
the dangerous paper was submitted
to double censorship: that of tht
censor and the further censorship O.
the president Of the provincial govern
;nent. BuS even this was Intellectual
Thoughts are not preh ansihjc like but
terflies. And the government arrived
at the end of it's Latin resortad tt
force and. in March. 1913. Suppressed
the Rcinische Zeitung"
Shortly before this Marx had mar
ried Jenny Won Westphsicn. tho plat
mate Of his childhood, a sister OF tn.
future reactionary rrnssiap minister
Won WestDhalen. and sister -in-law o
Florencourt, the Jesuit father ant
Christian social demacoguc. Mar,