Highly respected Herr Oberprasident! 
Your Excellency! 

Through Regierungsprasident Herr von Gerlach in Cologne, on 
the 12th of this month, Your Excellency has put before me a 
rescript of the censorship ministry and, in addition, two decrees, 
and called for my observations on them to be minuted. Consider- 
ing the importance of the explanations demanded of me, rather 
than making a statement to be minuted, I have preferred to 
address myself today to Your Excellency in writing. 

1. As regards the rescript of the censorship ministry and in 
particular the demand that the Rheinische Zeitung should alter its 
tendency and adopt one agreeable to the government, I am able to 
interpret this demand only in relation to the form, a moderation of 
which, insofar as the content allows, can be conceded. Judging by 
the recently issued censorship instruction, and also by His Majes- 
ty’s views frequently expressed elsewhere, it seems to us that the 
tendency of a newspaper which, like the Rheinische, is not a mere 
unprincipled amalgam of dry reports and fulsome praise, but 
throws light on state conditions and institutions through consci- 
ous * criticism inspired by a noble purpose, can only be a tendency 
acceptable to the government. Moreover, until now the responsible 
editor has never been informed of any disapproval of this 
tendency. Furthermore, since the Rh. Ztg. is subjected to the 
strictest censorship, how could its suppression be justified as a first 
warning? 

I can assure Your Excellency that in the future, too, the Rh. Zig. 
will continue to the best of its ability to help in paving the path 
of progress, along which Prussia leads the rest of Germany. For 
that very reason, however, I must reject the reproach levelled at me 
in the rescript that the Rh. Zig. has sought to spread French 
sympathies and ideas in the Rhineland. The Rh. Ztg. has, on the 
contrary,” made its main task to direct towards Germany the 
glances which so many people still fastened on France, and to 
evoke a German instead of a French liberalism, which can surely 
not be disagreeable to the government of Frederick William IV. 
In this connection, the Rh. Ztg. has always pointed to Prussia, on 
whose development that of the rest of Germany depends. Proof 
of this tendency is provided by the articles on “Prussian 
hegemony”, aimed polemically against the anti-Prussian° striv- 
ings of the Augsburg newspaper. Proof is provided by all the 
articles on the Prussian Customs Union aimed against the articles 
of the Hamburg Correspondent and other newspapers, in which the 
Rh. Ztg. depicted in the greatest detail the accession of Hanover, 
Mecklenburg and the Hanseatic towns as the only beneficial 
course. Proof is provided above all by the continual reference to 
North-German science in contrast to the superficiality not only of 
French, but also of South-German theories. The Rh. Zeitung was 
the first Rhenish, and in general the first South-German, news- 
paper to introduce the North-German spirit‘ in the Rhine Prov- 
ince and in South Germany, and how could the divided races 
be more inseparably linked than by spiritual unity, which is the 
soul of political unity and its only guarantee against all external 
storms? 

As to the alleged irreligious tendency of the Rh. Zig., it cannot 
be unknown to the supreme authorities that in regard to the con- 
tent of a certain positive creed—and it is a question only of this 
and not of religion, which we have never attacked and never 
will attack—the whole of Germany, and especially Prussia, is 
divided into two camps, both of which include among their 
champions men occupying high positions in science and the 
state. In an unresolved controversy, should a newspaper take 
neither side or only one that has been officially prescribed to 

it?* Moreover, we have never gone outside the terrain proper 
to a newspaper, but have touched on dogmas such as church 
doctrines and conditions in general only insofar as» other newspa- 
pers make religion into constitutional law and transfer it from its 
own sphere into that of politics. It will even be easy to cover each 
of our utterances with the similar and stronger utterances of a 
Prussian king, Frederick the Great, and we consider this authority 
to be one which Prussian publicists may very well invoke. 

The Rheinische Zeitung is therefore entitled to believe that it has 
pre-eminently carried out the wish for an independent free- 
minded press which His Majesty formulated in the censorship 
instruction, and that it has thereby contributed not a little towards 
the benedictions which at the present time the whole of Germany 
conveys to His Majesty our King in his ascendant career. 

The Rh. Zig., Your Excellency, was not founded as a commercial 
speculation or in expectation of any profit. A large number of the 
most esteemed men of Cologne and the Rhine Province, justly 
displeased with the pitiful state of the German press, believed that 
they could not better honour the will of His Majesty the King than by 
founding the Rh. Ztg. as a monument of the nation, a 
newspaper which voices the speech of free men in a principled 
and fearless way and, what is at all events a rare phenomenon, 
enables the King to hear the true voice of the people. The 
unprecedentedly rapid growth of this newspaper’s circulation 
proves how well it has understood the wishes of the people. This 
was the aim for which those men contributed their capital, and for 
which they shrank from no sacrifice. Let Your Excellency now 
decide for yourself whether it is possible or permissible for me, as 
the spokesman of these men, to declare that the Rheinische Zeitung 
will alter its tendency, and whether its suppression would be not so 
much an act of violence against a private individual, but rather an 
act of violence against the Rhine Province and the German spirit 
in general. 

In order, however, to prove to the government how very ready 
I am to comply with its wishes, insofar as they are compatible with 

the function of an independent newspaper, I am willing, as has 
been the case for some time past, as far as possible to set aside all 
ecclesiastical or religious subjects, so long as other newspapers or 
political conditions themselves do not necessitate reference to 
them.? 

2. Secondly, as regards Your Excellency’s demand for the 
immediate dismissal of Dr. Rutenberg, I already told Re- 
gierungsprasident von Gerlach on February 14 that Dr. Rutenberg 
was in no way an editor of the Rheinische Zeitung, but only did the 
work of a translator. In response to the threat, conveyed to me 
through Regierungsprasident von Gerlach, of the immediate 
suppression of the newspaper if Rutenberg were not at once 
dismissed, I have yielded to force and have for the time being 
removed him from any participation in the newspaper. Since, 
however, I am not aware of any legal provision which would 
justify this point of the rescript, I request Your Excellency to 
specify any such provision, and, if necessary, to give a speedy 
ruling whether the decision reached is to remain in force or not, 
so that I can claim my legal rights through the appropriate 
channels. 

3. As regards the third point, the submission of an editor for 
approval, according to the censorship law of October 18, 1819, 
§ [IX], only the supreme censorship authorities are entitled to 
demand the submission of an editor for approval. I know of no 
provision which transfers this entitlement to the Oberprasidents. 
Therefore I request specification of any such provision or, if 
necessary, of a censorship ministry decree which orders this. Very 
willingly, but only in that case, will I submit an editor for 
approval.