72 THE CLASS STRUGGLE KARL MARX 73 And of course, no difficulty was raised as to the question whether the fee received by Marx from the American paper corresponded to the literary and scientific value of his contributions. capitalist newspaper calculates on market prices, and in bourgeois society it has every right to do so. Marx never required more than this, but he might reasonably have asked, even in bourgeois society, a fulfilment of the terms of the contract once made, and perhaps also some degree of deference for his work. But the Tribune and its publisher showed not a trace of these qualities. Theoretically, to be sure, Dana was a Fourierist, but practically he was a hardheaded Yankee; his socialism, according to an angry declaration of Engels, amounted simply to the lousiest petty bourgeois cheating. Al though Dana knew very well how valuable a contributor Marx was and made liberal use of Marx name to his subscribers, whenever he did not print Marx letters as the products of his own editorial activity and this occurred rather often and never failed to arouse Marx righteous indignation he made use of every manner of brutality to which a capitalist can resort in his relations with a source of labor power that he is exploiting.
He not only reduced Marx to half pay whenever business was low, but actually only paid for those articles which he really printed, and had the effrontery to throw into his wastepaper basket everything that did not suit his momentary purpose. For three weeks, for six weeks, in succession, Marx compositions would take this course. To be sure, the few German newspapers in whose columns Marx contributions found temporary asylum, such as the Wiener Presse, did not treat him better. He was therefore absolutely correct in his statement that in newspaper work he fared worse than any space writer.
Already in 1853 he longed for a few months of solitude, to devote to learned investigation. It seems as if cannot have it. All this newspaper scribbling bores me. It takes away much of my time, distracts me, and what does it amount to, after all? Be as independent as you like: you are bound to your paper and to its readers, especially if you are paid in cash, as am. Purely scientific studies are quite a different matter. And how much more savage were Marx exclamations after he had worked for several additional years under Dana gentle sway: It is in truth disgusting to be condemned to regard it as a piece of good fortune to be printed in such a rotten sheet. Breaking bones, grinding them, and making soup of them, like the paupers in the workhouse, that is all that your political work, of which you get more than you want in such a business, amounts to. Not only in his scanty sustenance, but particularly in the absolute insecurity of his entire existence, Marx fully shared the lot of the modern proletariat.
Things of which we formerly had only the most general notions are shown with the most heartrending clearness in his letters to Engels; he once had to remain indoors because he had neither shoes nor a coat suitable for street wear; another time, he lacked the few pence necessary to buy writing paper or a newspaper to read; on a third occasion he describes his hunt for a few postage stamps to mail a manuscript to a publisher. And then, the eternal quarrels with the tradesmen, whom he could not pay for the most necessary foodstuffs, not to mention the landlord, who was threatening at any moment to send the sheriff into his quarters, and his constant recourse to the pawnshops, whose usurious interest rates would destroy the last remnants of cash that might have banished the phantom of care from his threshhold.
Dame Care not only sat on his threshhold, but had even come in to share his board. His highminded wife, who had been accustomed from early childhood to a life that was free from care, could not but waver under the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and wish that she and her children might be in their graves. In his letters there is no lack of traces of domestic scenes, and occasionally he says that there is no greater folly possible for people of social tendencies than to get married and thus hand themselves over to the petty cares of private life. But whenever her complaints would make him impatient, he had words of excuse and justification for