Declaration to the Editor of the “Morning Advertiser”

Karl Marx

[Declaration to the

Editor of the “Morning Advertiser”]

From the English.

[“The Morning Advertiser,” 2 November 1852]

To the Editor of the “Morning Advertiser”

Sir,

I take the liberty of expressing to you my best thanks for the generous support you have lent to the cause of my friends, the prisoners at Cologne. While the defence will expose the chain of unscrupulous acts committed by the agents of the Prussian police, even in the course of the trial, I wish to inform you of the latest trick resorted to in order to prove a criminal correspondence between myself and the Cologne prisoners. As the Kölnische Zeitung of 29 October reports, Police Councillor Stieber has once more produced one of his documents—a ridiculous letter, purportedly written by my hand, in which I am said to have recommended to one of my alleged agents to “thrust 50 copies of the ‘Red Catechism’ under the doors of well-known democrats in Krefeld, and to choose the midnight hour of 5 June 1852 for the execution of this mission.”

In the interest of my accused friends, I hereby declare:

1. that the letter in question was not written by me;
2. that I first learned of its existence through the Kölnische Zeitung of the 29th inst.;
3. that I have never seen the so-called “Red Catechism”;
4. that I have never, in any way, caused the distribution of any copies of the “Red.”

This declaration, which has also been made before the police magistrate in Marlborough Street and which consequently has the character of an affidavit, I have sent by post to Cologne. You would oblige me all the more by publishing it in your columns, as this would be the most effective means of preventing the document from being intercepted by the Prussian police.

I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,

Dr. Charles Marx

London, 30 Oct. 1852

28, Dean Street, Soho