From No. 68 of the Reform and No. 37 of the Social-Demokrat* forwarded to me here, I see that Herr v. Schweitzer is making embarrassed and mendacious attempts to extricate himself from the "fair impediments" b he has prepared for himself. Habeat sibi!c
However, I will not permit him to distort my statement of March 15,d in which I simply let him describe himself, into a statement on Lassalle. The correspondence between myself and Lassalle in my possession, spanning about fifteen years, totally deprives the Schweitzers and company of the power to misrepresent our personal relationship or to cast suspicion on the motives for my neutral attitude to Lassalle's agitation. The relationship of Lassalle's theoretical works to mine, on the other hand, is a matter for scientific criticism. An occasion may perhaps arise later for discussing individual points. But under any circumstances, rever-ence prohibits me from making such matters the object of a polemic in the press with sycophants.
Zalt-Bommel, March 28, 1865
Endnotes
[74] This statement was prompted by Schweitzer's new attacks on Marx; in particular, he tried in the columns of Der Social-Demokrat (No. 37) and the Berliner Reform (No. 37) to represent Marx's explanation of his break with Der Social-Demokrat as motivated by his personal hostility to Lassalle. Apart from the Berliner Reform Marx may have sent this statement to the Hamburg Nordstern. The original of this statement and the covering note to the editor of that newspaper have survived. The note reads: "Herr K. Bruhn, Editor of the Nordstern. Sir, you would much oblige me by publishing the following lines. Yours truly, K. Marx." The Nordstern did not publish this statement. It appeared in the Berliner Reform, No. 78, April 1, 1865 and was reprinted in the Allgemeine deutsche i> 9I Arbeiter-Zeitung, No. 119, April 9, 1865.