Letter to the Editors of the New Yorker Volkszeitung, March 16, 1887

Author(s) Frederick Engels
Written 16 March 1887


First published in the New Yorker Volkszeitung, No. 76, March 30, 1887
Printed according to the manuscrpit collated with the newspaper text
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 26
Collection(s): New Yorker Volkszeitung

The letter to the New Yorker Volkszeitung printed on March 30, 1887 and signed by Edward Aveling was written by Engels, as is seen from the rough copy. It was prompted by the conflict between Aveling and the Executive of the Socialist Labor Party of North America (see Note 295).

In your article concerning me[1] in the Volkszeitung of March 2 [2] you maintain

"that Aveling is said to have submitted a bill which contained items that a labour agitator, who must know that the donations[3] raised to finance agitation come almost entirely out of the pockets of hard-working labourers, really should not present".

Passing over all the minor points and restricting my reply to the one main point, I wish to state:

The weekly bills submitted by me to the Executive contained all my expenses, that is to say both those chargeable to the Party and others to be met by me personally. I had made it clear to the Executive in advance and in the most unambiguous way—first in a verbal agreement with the treasurer, R. Meyer, and then in several letters—that all the purely personal expenses were to be defrayed by me in return for the $366.00 ($3 per day) guaranteed to me by the Executive, and that I left it entirely up to the Executive to decide which items of expenditure should be passed on to the party, and which items should be charged to me personally.

I never expected—even less demanded—that any of these personal items of expenditure should be paid for "out of the pockets of hard-working labourers", and indeed none of them have been. For further information about this I refer you to my enclosed circular of February 26 to the sections,[4] to the publication of which I can no longer object after what has occurred.

In addition I would point out that a printing error has crept into your article. My reply to your article of January 12[5] was dated not "Feb. 1887" but January 26, 1887, and was sent off to you on the same day that article came to my notice.

With social-democratic greetings.[6]

Edward Aveling

London, March 16, 1887

  1. ↑ a Edward Aveling, on behalf of whom this letter was written.— Ed.
  2. ↑ "Affaire Aveling noch einmal", New Yorker Volkszeitung, No. 52, March 2, 1887.— Ed.
  3. ↑ The New Yorker Volkszeitung has "money".— Ed.
  4. ↑ The reference is to Aveling's letter of February 26, 1887 printed at the press and sent out to the sections of the Socialist Labor Party of North America and other socialist organisations. It was a detailed reply to the charges advanced against Aveling.
  5. ↑ "Aveling und die Sozialisten", New Yorker Volkszeitung, No. 10, January 12, 1887.— Ed.
  6. ↑ This phrase is omitted in the text published in the newspaper.— Ed.