London, 11 January 1889 

Dear Sir, 

I am in receipt of your two letters of 5 November and 28/31 
December and have followed with much interest the progress of your 
experimentation with German universities.’ The domination of the 
Junkers in alliance with the bourgeois differs from the pre-’48 domina- 
tion of the Junkers in alliance with the bureaucrats only in having a 
broader basis. In those days their treatment of Bruno Bauer?” stirred up 
indignation throughout Philistia; today, when similar treatment is being 
meted out to Dühring,*° and the doors of all the universities are being 
slammed in your face, that self-same Philistia considers it perfectly right 
and proper. 

You will, in fact, have no other recourse than to take up writing, and 
for that purpose there is, of course, no better place in the Empire than 
Berlin. I am glad that you say no more (in your second letter) about your 
American plans, for you would have experienced a bitter disappointment 
over there. I can see that anyone subject to the Anti-Socialist Law>? might 
think highly of the American-German socialist press, particularly from 
the viewpoint of a journalist. In actual fact it isn’t up to much, either from 
the theoretical or from the local, American standpoint. The best paper is 
the Philadelphia Tageblatt; the St Louis Tageblatt is well-meaning but 
feeble; the New Yorker Volkszeitung is managed in a proper, businesslike 
way, but is first and foremost a business; the Sozialist (New York), the 
official organ of the German party, is very poor. Just now there is little 
place in America for theoretical thinkers. The Germans—at any rate in 
their official organisation—insist upon remaining a branch of the 
German metropolitan party, look down with a truly Lassallean arrogance 
upon the ‘ignorant’ Americans and expect them to join their German 
party, i.e. place themselves under German tutelage—in short, they behave 
with sectarian pettiness and bigotry. Further inland things are better, but 
the New Yorkers still retain the upper hand. I seldom see the Chicagoer 
Arbeiter-Zeitung (now edited by Christensen). In America, in short, the 
only possible openings are in the daily press, and you would have to be 

over there for at least a year in order to gain the necessary confidence and 
personal insights; in addition you would have to adapt yourself to the 
prevailing opinions, which are often all the more parochial for the persis- 
tence amongst the Germans there of that loutish mentality which, in 
Germany, has been eradicated by large-scale industry (one of the curious 
things about America is that what is most antiquated and out of date 
continues to vegetate happily alongside what is newest and most revolu- 
tionary). Things can and will, no doubt, improve within a year or two, 
but anyone who wishes to promote the scientific side will find a far 
better prepared public here in Europe. 

Incidentally, you will also find that a career as a writer offers ample 
scope for worthwhile work. You will presumably have access to Braun’s 
Archiv,* Conrad’s Jahrbiicher etc., and to Schmoller’s collection of 
papers.**! For instance, a work on the system of exploitation by middle- 
men (sweating system)—at least as prevalent in the Berlin garment trade 
as in that of London, etc.—would be very useful as providing a parallel 
to the English Report by the Select Committee of the House of Lords*— 
which I will gladly send you if you’d care to have it. Many other types 
of economic conditions would similarly reward investigation and 
description, quite aside from actual theoretical works, which might now 
and then provide relief from the common run of writing. We can discuss 
this further once you are in Berlin and have started work. 

If your experiences (which might well be worth publishing) recall the 
time of Frederick William IV, those of Hoch hark back directly to the 
worst period of demagogue-hunting.>** It must surely be the first time 
since 1835 that anyone has been refused matriculation because of his 
political views. 

As regards Volume III,¢ Section I (of seven) is ready for the press, and 
I am busy with II and HI, which I hope to finish shortly. The work is 
more time-consuming that I had thought, and I have to take great care 
of my eyes. The stupendous fogs in December caused a temporary 
setback, but now they are better again. On New Year’s night we went to 
Pumps’—we being Schorlemmer, Sam Moore, Tussy and a few of the 
Sozialdemokrat people. She lives 2 miles away and, because of the fog, 
it took us over an hour to get there. Then it got so bad that no one could 

2 Archiv für soziale Gesetzgebung und Statistik -— » Jahrbiicher für 
Nationalékonomie und Statistik ~° First Report from the Select Committee of 
the House of Lords on the Sweating System ...— 4 of Capital — © Hermann and 
Anna Schliiter and Leonard Tauscher 

leave. So nolens volens,* the whole party of us had to go on tippling until 

day (or rather a pitch black morning) dawned, which we did with much 

merriment. Towards five o’clock some of us were able to leave for town 

by the first train; the rest lay down at seven on hastily improvised beds 

and slept until the first noon of the New Year. Voila la vie de Londres.» 
With kindest regards, 

Yours sincerely, 
FE. Engels