tion of these
monads moving independently of one another.--TRANSLATOR.]

[Footnote 51: Permission to teach.]

[Footnote 52: I have fought not without glory.]

[Footnote 53: Don't disturb my circles.]

[Footnote 54: A new and unheard-of-crime.]

[Footnote 55: In case it becomes necessary.]

[Footnote 56: Confusion of one thing with another.]

[Footnote 57: Honor to whom honor belongs!]

[Footnote 58: Hear also the other side.]

[Footnote 59: That is, for high treason.]

[Footnote 60: Calumniate boldly, some of it will always stick.]

* * * * *

OPEN LETTER TO THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE (1863)

FOR THE SUMMONING OF A GENERAL GERMAN WORKINGMEN'S CONGRESS AT LEIPZIG

BY FERDINAND LASSALLE

TRANSLATED BY E.H. BABBITT, A.B.

Assistant Professor of German, Tufts College

Gentlemen:--You have asked me in your letter to express my opinion,
in any way that seems suitable to me, on the workingmen's movement
and the means which it should use to attain an improvement of the
condition of the working class in political, material, and intellectual
matters--especially on the value of associations for the class of
people who have no property.

I have no hesitation in following your wishes, and I choose the form
which is simplest and most suitable to the nature of the matter--the
form of a public letter of reply to your communication.

Last October in Berlin, at a time when I was absent from here, during
your first preliminary discussion concerning the German Workingmen's
Congress--a discussion which I followed in the newspapers with
interest--two opposing views were brought forward in the meeting.

One was to the effect that you have no concern whatever with political
agitation and that it has no interest for you.

The other, in distinction from this, was that you were to consider
yourselves an appendix to the Prussian Progressive party, and to
furnish a sort of characterless chorus or sounding-board for it.

If I had attended that meeting, I should have expressed myself against
both views. It is utterly narrow-minded to believe that political
agitation and political progress do not concern the workingman. On the
contrary, the workingman can expect the realization of his legitimate
ambitions only from political liberty.

Even the question to what extent you are allowed to meet, discuss your
interests, form general and local unions for their consideration,
etc., is a question