The first years of the 1890s were rough for Phillip
Dietzgen, the editor/owner of the Arkansas
Staats Zeitung, a German-language newspaper in Little Rock. Not only did a
new German-language newspaper, the Arkansas
Echo, create competition for his paper, but the editor of the new paper
slugged him during a confrontation in downtown Little Rock and later hit him
with a cane inside a court room. Also, the Echo
editor and co-owners sued him twice for slander, and they provided evidence
that led the United State government to prosecute him for obscenity for a post
card message he mailed to them.
But don’t feel too badly for Dietzgen. He probably deserved
everything that happened to him.
This feisty man repeatedly provoked conflict with the Echo editor and co-owners. For example, he (or employees under
his orders) likely, but not certainly, vandalized the offices of the Echo just before it published its first
issue in December 1891. After that, he sued the Echo editor and owners for libel when the newspaper printed details
of the break-in that implicated him as the culprit. Even worse, he swore a frivolous
perjury complaint against the Echo
owner, Carl Meurer, resulting in his arrest and trial.
Among his other provocative actions, Dietzgen accused Meurer
of stealing jewels from a count and from his sister’s the grave. He claimed in
his paper that one of the Echo
co-owners, Andrew Rust, who taught at the St. Edward’s German Catholic School
in Little Rock, had no experience as a teacher. He wrote postcards to a
Catholic priest who co-owned the Echo,
asserting that the Echo had implied in
a wedding announcement that the couple had engaged in pre-marital sex. Also, he
published a story in which one of the Echo’s
co-owners, Adolph Arnold, was portrayed as a forger and a thief and in which he
implied that Arnold’s wife was the keeper of a “house of ill-repute.”
Beyond the lawsuits and scurrilous accusations, Dietzgen
also stirred the policy pot. According to Kathleen Condray in her recent
article in the Arkansas Historical
Quarterly on the Staats Zeitung -
Echo (SZ-E) newspaper war, he opposed
and undermined the Echo’s position
on the fate of the St. Joseph Society, a social service organization for German
immigrants, and on efforts to stop prohibition laws that interfered with German
farmers selling wine at their farms.[1]
With this record of jawing, slandering, suing, and making
mischief against his opponents – all part of his tactics in the SZ-E newspaper war, it not too surprising
that Dietzgen was detested and roughed by the Echo team.
In Condray’s must-read article, she points out that full
information about the SZ-E newspaper
war is lacking because only a dozen or so issues of the Staats Zeitung, published from 1877 to 1917, still exist while all
of the issues of its enemy newspaper, the Echo,
published from 1891 to 1932, are available for reading. Perhaps the missing
issues of the Staats Zeitung contain
material that would correct an inaccurate, unfair portrayal of Dietzgen and his
actions.
Probably not. The available evidence in English-language
newspapers points directly to Dietzgen as the instigator of and main aggressor in
Little Rock’s German-language newspaper war. That evidence is strengthen by
what happened after Dietzgen left Little Rock to edit, then publish, a
newspaper in Kansas City, Missouri. After he departed the city in late 1895 or
early 1896, the two Little Rock newspapers quickly made peace while in Kansas
City, Dietzgen just as quickly became enmeshed in lawsuits and was convicted in
1898 of disturbing the peace of a rival editor for falsely asserting that the
editor had murdered his wife so he could marry a rich woman.
Phillip Dietzgen and
German-Language Newspapers in Little Rock
According to Fred Allsopp in his 1922 book on the history of
journalism in Arkansas, Philip Dietzgen started the Staats Zeitung in late 1877. Allsopp wrote that Dietzgen was “a man
of considerable ability.”[2]
While Allsopp may have been accurate in his description of
Dietzgen, he may have been wrong about Dietzgen’s role with the Staats Zeitung during its first couple
of years. According to three items in the Fort
Smith New Era, Dietzgen was not the first editor of the paper and perhaps
not its founder. The first item, published in the February 20, 1878 issue of New Era, noted the Ft. Smith visit of “Mr.
Wm Fischer,” who was described as the editor of Little Rock’s Staats Zeitung. The article observed,
“He is a practical printer and does most of the work of the paper himself.”
On December 11, 1878, the Ft Smith New Era observed that the Staats Zeitung in Little Rock had just entered its second year of
publishing. This item said that Mr. Fischer, the proprietor of the paper, was
“a hardworking man who relies upon no one but himself.”[3] Another story in the Ft.
Smith New Era, this one published on January 22, 1879, reported that Mr.
Fischer of the Staats Zeitung had
visited the newspaper’s offices. The story said “Mr. Fischer is a live wire.”
While these stories raise questions about exactly when
Dietzgen began work with the Staats
Zeitung, there is no doubt that he was in Little Rock in 1880 working as a newspaper
editor. The 1880 census shows that “Phillip Dutzgen,” born in Germany in 1838,
was living in Little Rock employed as an editor. Living with him was his wife Elizabeth,
also born about 1838.
Dietzgen was first mentioned in the Arkansas Gazette in April, 1882 in a column on “local matters”: “The Arkansas Staats-Zeitung published here
by Ph. Dietzgen, and the only German newspaper in Arkansas, Mississippi, an
Alabama, has increased its circulation since 1881 from 1,500 to 2,300.” (Likely
both of these circulation figures were exaggerated. Its certified circulation
in 1891 was 1,500.)
When the Staats
Zeitung first appeared in late 1877, with or without Dietzgen’s
involvement, its chances for survival were not very good. In the years that followed
the end of the Civil War, four other German-language newspapers had been started
in Little Rock; all had failed financially.
The first effort had been undertaken in 1866 by A.
Deutelmoster and Mr. Fischer [not William Fischer mentioned later by the Ft. Smith New Era], who briefly published a newspaper called the Staats Zeitung. The second came in October,
1868 when Kelian Bach of Indiana tried again to start a weekly German language
newspaper in Little Rock, also called the Staats
Zeitung. It lasted two-and-a-half years, folding in March 1871.[4]
These two early efforts to maintain a German-language
newspaper had been supported by Republicans who held power during the
Reconstruction era from 1866 to 1874. They believed that such a newspaper could
help attract German immigrants, whom they viewed as vital in developing the
state. Also, they wanted to support the German-speaking
citizens of the state, especially those in Little Rock, who were active
Republicans. Many German immigrants were part of the Black-Unionist-Carpetbagger
coalition that ruled the state until 1874 and continued thereafter for many
years to play a big role in Little Rock politics.[5]
The third post-war effort to publish a German language
newspaper in Little Rock came in 1874, initiated by group of prominent German-speakers
in the city. Its publisher was Oscar Halberlein. He put out the first issue of
the Arkansas Freie Presse on October
1, 1874. The last issue was published on January 14, 1875. The fourth attempt came when the Arkansas Freie Presse was revived by
the Erb brothers (Newman and Jacob), lawyers in Little Rock, with issues starting on
March 20, 1875 and ending in March 1876.[6]
The failure of the previous German-language newspapers was
evidence that at its start the third newspaper named Staats Zeitung faced an uphill battle for survival. In fact, as
Allsopp wrote in 1922, about nine-tenths of the 150 newspaper started in Little
Rock before that year were “financial failures.”[7]
Nevertheless, despite the great
odds against it, the third Staats
Zeitung found enough subscribers to survive its early years and, as the
years passed, to thrive. The survival and success of the newspaper attests to
Dietzgen’s abilities as a newspaper man.
Philip Dietzgen and
His Famous Relatives
The man who would wage a newspaper war in Little Rock,
Philip Dietzgen, was born in 1838 in Uckerath, Germany, a small town near
Cologne.[8] His parents were Johann
Gottfried Anno Dietzgen (1794 – 1887) and Anna Margaretha Lückerath Dietzgen
(1808 – 1881). Johann was a tanner who was prosperous enough to send his three
sons and two daughters to school; Anna Margaretha was, according to one of her
grandsons, the brains and beauty of the family.[9]
Johann and Anna’s first son was Peter Joseph Dietzgen, born
in 1827 when the family lived in Blankenberg. In 1838, the family moved to
Uckerath, a village of about 400 residents, where Philip, his brother Cornell,
and two sisters were born.[10] The city
was a relay station on the postal route between Frankfurt and Cologne.
Because Joseph Dietzgen became an internationally known
Marxist philosopher, many details of his life are known and they provide some facts about and insights into the life of his brother Philip. Joseph lived most of his
life in Germany, but immigrated to the United States three times. He first came
in 1849 after getting in trouble for a speech during the 1848 revolution. In
his first stay in the United States, he traveled extensively, getting temporary
jobs as a tanner, painter, and teacher. He returned to Germany in 1852.
 |
| East German Postage Stamp Honoring Josef Dietzgen, 1988 From: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/ 5/5f/Stamps_of_Germany_(DDR)_1978,_MiNr_2337.jpg |
After working as a tanner and store owner in his home town
for several years, he again immigrated to the U.S. in 1859 to set up a tanning
business in Montgomery, Alabama. However, as an abolition supporter, he felt
the need to leave Alabama as the civil war neared, and he went back to Germany in
1861 to resume work in his trade. In 1865, he was hired to manage a large
tanning business in St. Petersburg, Russia. Returning to Germany in 1869, he
ran the tanning business he inherited from his uncle in Siegburg and was active
in politics as a socialist.
In June 1884, Joseph moved to the United States for a third
time, bringing with him two daughters and a son. He found a job in New York
City editing Der Sozialist, the “central
organ” of the Socialist Labor Party of North America. In 1886, he moved to
Chicago to live with his son Eugene. While there, he temporarily took over
editorship of the Chicagoer
Arbeiter-Zeitung after its two editors, anarchists, had been arrested. He
died there in 1888.[11]
While still young, Joseph Dietzgen did an apprenticeship as
a tanner, but as he was doing that, he read widely and taught himself
languages. He turned himself into a home-made intellectual and embraced
communist philosophy. Over time, he became a famous Marxist philosopher,
publishing a book titled The Nature of
Human Brain Work: An Introduction to Dialectics in 1869. He was the first
philosopher to use the phrase “dialectical materialism.” Impressed by Dietzgen
book, Marx visited him at his home in Siegburg and praised his work, calling
him in 1871 “the philosopher of the Socialist movement” and writing positive
things about him in the 2nd edition of the first volume on Das Kapital.
In 1880, Joseph was facing financial difficulties because of
some failed attempts to help friends in business and a declining income. He was
supporting three daughters (one of whom was severely disabled) and two sons. He
decided to immigrate again to the United States and take his children, except
the disabled one, with him. Toward that end, he asked his oldest son, Eugene
(born May 6, 1862), to go to the United States to prepare the way for the
family.
 |
| Photograph of Sign on Building Occupied by Eugene Dietzgen Co. in Chicago (From: http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/chicagoland_signs/media/Chicago%20-%20Lincoln%20Park/EugeneDietzgenConowDePaulUniversityLibrary990WFullertonAve3.jpg.html) |
Eugene arrived in June 1880. His struggles during his first
three years in the United States are documented in a set of remarkable letters
that he received from his father who provided advice, encouragement, and news
from home. Although his first year was very difficult, Eugene, who was also a
socialist, later achieved great success in business. Living in Chicago, he founded
a company selling engineering, architectural, and artist equipment, supplies,
and services that became nation-wide business with offices in many major cities.
(The company was especially famous for its state-of-the-art slide rules; see http://tinas-sliderules.me.uk/Slide%20Rules/Dietzgen.html
) The company, now named the Eugene Dietzgen Corporation, still exists as a
division of Nashua Paper.[12]
In Joseph’s letters to his son, he often mentioned his
brother Phillip, with whom he corresponded. For example, two months after
Eugene arrived and was having difficulties with his job and life in America,
Phillip offered to help him. Joseph wrote the following in a letter dated
August 15, 1880:
Uncle Philipp also wrote today. He
said that you are free to come to his place at any time. Food and drink would
be free for you and as soon as you are somewhat finished with English he can
easily find you a job; also it would be easy for him to get you a free ticket
for the bulk of the trip.[13]
Through a few of Joseph Dietzgen letters to his son,
discussed later, we learn some things about Phillip and his personality, as
viewed by his brother, who discouraged his son from taking up Phillip’s offer
of employment.
Dietzgen’s Life in
Little Rock
The details of Phillip Deitzgen life before his arrival in
Little Rock are largely undocumented. I have found no information about his
education or his work before that time.[14] In response to a 1920 census question,
answered shortly before his death, Dietzgen said he arrived in the United
States in 1875. His arrival is not documented in available ship arrival or
immigration records. Also, I have found no documentation that he was ever
became a United States citizen.
Likely Dietzgen came to Little Rock from St. Louis or from
Davenport, Iowa. “Philip Dietzgen” was
listed in the 1876 St. Louis city directory as living there at 1503 S. 7th
Street. Also, a “Philip Dietzgen” was listed in the 1876 Davenport city
directory, where he was a grocer.[15] His
obituary, published in 1920, says he came to the United States in 1880 and
began editing the Staats Zeitung in
1881.[Kansas City Star, March 8,
1920, p. 2]
 |
| Grave of Philip Dietzgen in Kansas City, Mo. |
We can get a few snippets from Dietzgen’s life in Little
Rock through stories in the Arkansas
Gazette. In July, 1884, the Arkansas
Gazette noted that Dietzgen had departed the city to spend a few weeks in
New York, leaving Louis G. Fritz to manage the paper.[16] Only a month later,
the paper had a story about the death of his wife:
The funeral of Mrs. Phil Dietzgen
took place yesterday afternoon at 4 o’clock from the residence, No. 1120
Cumberland Street. Bishop Fitzgerald officiated. The sympathy of many friends
extended to the family in their bereavement. [Arkansas Gazette, August 10, 1884, p. 8]
This story does not mention the maiden name of Elizabeth, his
wife. However, it does note that the head of the Little Rock Catholic Church,
Bishop Edward Fitzgerald, conducted the funeral ceremony. That suggests that Elizabeth
may have been a Catholic. Also, there is some evidence that Dietzgen had been a
Catholic but had left the church.[17]
Dietzgen spent several months in New York in both 1884 and
1885. During this time, his brother Joseph was living in there, arriving in June
1884, about the time Dietzgen was departing to visit the city. Likely the
opportunity to spend time with his older brother was one of the attractions of
the city.
A sentence in the Arkansas
Gazette on April 19, 1885 indicated that Dietzgen re-married while he was in
New York: “Col. Phillip Dietzgen, editor
of the Staats Zeitung, is in New York and will in a few days return with a fair
and charming bride.” The identity and fate of his second wife (if, indeed, he
did marry while in New York City) are not known. However, in 1877 a story in
the Daily Arkansas Gazette told of
the marriage of Dietzgen to the sister-in-law of one of Little Rock’s most prominent
Republican politicians:
At 8 p.m. yesterday Mr. Philip
Dietzgen, editor of the Arkansas Staats
Zeitung, and Miss Sophia Reigler were married at the resident of Mr. John
Reigler, Fourth and Louisiana streets, Rev. C. F. Obermayer officiating. Mr.
Dietzgen is well known in the city, having successfully managed for several
years the only German paper published in the city.
After a wedding supper was enjoyed,
the groom and bride went to their home, corner of Twelfth and Cumberland. [Arkansas Gazette, February 18, 1887, p
5.]
The wedding ceremony was conducted by the minister of Little
Rock’s German Lutheran Church at the home of John Reigler (April 5, 1833 – July
11, 1892). John Reigler was married to Katherine Barbara Reigler (Sept 16, 1850
– April 29,1930) the sister of the Dietgzen’s bride, Sophia (Sophie) Louise
Reigler (June 19, 1861 – January 26, 1948).
(Note that both the family name and married name of Katherine Barbara
was Reigler.)[18]
During the latter years of the 1880s, Dietzgen was active in
community affairs. He was a member of the local Turnverein and served on the
planning committee for its 1889 Turnfest, which brought Turners to the city
from throughout the region.[Arkansas
Gazette, March 8, 1888] He was
active in the Little Rock Press Association. Also, he also served as a
commissioner of Street Grading District #7. He ran for county assessor in 1890,
but lost.[Arkansas Gazette, Sept 6,
1890 p. 3.]
 |
| Saengerfest Post Card. From http://www.cincinnativiews.net/ images-2/1899%20Saengerfest.jpg |
In 1889, a Gazette
article about a parade for a “Sangerfest” (a festival of singing conducted by
the local German singing club) held in Little Rock in 1889, mentioned Dietzgen’s
participation. A parade was held in
celebration of a visit by the Memphis “Maennerchor” in Little Rock. After being
entertained at Geyer’s Hall by the city’s Zither Club during the evening of the
arrival, the next day a parade went through the city’s “principal streets.” The
parade was formed with members of the city’s police force in front, followed by
the Memphis Mannerchor, a band, members of the Little Rock Singing club
(Singerverein), the Turners (members of the Turnverein), and citizens in
carriages. According to the story, “The
rear of the procession was admirably brought up by an open carriage occupied by
those genial citizens Messr. F. Dietzgen and Julius Reichter, drawn by two
mules.”[19]
An 1886 anecdote told by Mayor Frederick Kramer, the German
immigrant who served as mayor of Little Rock from 1872–74 and 1881–1888, to the
Arkansas Gazette told something of
Dietzgen peculiarities in this story, which likely contains several
embellishments of the actual facts:
“I have got a splendid joke on
Philip Dietzgen, editor of the Arkansas
Staats-Zeitung,” said Mayor Kramer.
It occurred last year while I was
stopping at a summer resort near Milwaukee. I had been at the hotel several
days when who should come along but Dietzgen. Shortly after his arrival the
proprietor of the hotel took me aside and inquired of me if I knew anything
about the gentleman who had registered from Little Rock. He said that Dietzgen
had no baggage with him and that the summer suit in which he was attired was not
sufficient to permit of him allowing Dietzgen to remain at the hotel without
paying his board in advance.
Of course, I agreed with the
landlord, who immediately pounced on the editor for a small advance as a
guarantee of good faith. The scene that followed cannot be described in either
the German and English language. When the two men were exhausting their
expletives on one another I happened on the scene and agreed to stand good for
the editor, whereupon Mr. Dietzgen, with the true characteristic of a newspaper
man, drew forth a large roll of bills and not only offered to pay my board and
his own, but wanted to buy the hotel and pay cash for it.
The manner in which Mr. Diezgen
offered to carry out his generous impulse struck the landlord so favorable that
he insisted on Mr. Dietzgen accepting a half-interest in the hotel, which would
cost him nothing. That hotel man has made over $100,000 since that incident
occurred and now Dietzgen is kicking himself all over Little Rock because he
didn’t accept the proposition. Why, he absolutely refused to eat turkey last
Thanksgiving because he missed that great opportunity of something to be
thankful for. [Arkansas Gazette,
December 1, 1886, p 8.]
Little about Dietzgen’s life during his first decade in
Little Rock, as documented in the local press, hinted at the nature of the man
who would ignite a newspaper war in the early 1890s. However, the letters that his brother Joseph
wrote to his 18-year-old Eugene son in 1880 and 1881 provide some insight into
his personality.[20]
As mentioned earlier, Philip made several offers for
Joseph’s son to come to Little Rock to work for him. Eugene hated his situation
in New York City, and was interested in Phillip’s offers. His father replied,
“I am quite pleased that you want to go to Uncle Philipp, but I think it would
be better if you stayed at your present job for another half year to figure out
what prospects you have there.”[Letter dated March 30, 1881]
Two weeks later, on April 14, he wrote to his son, “What
Uncle Phillip can do for you now, he will be able to do better over time….Don’t
be so easily misled by Uncle Ph., he is good, but unreliable.”[21]
Apparently about the time he wrote the April 14th
letter, he received a post card from Eugene saying, “I am going to Arkansas.”
(The message was written in English). Later, Joseph was relieved when he found
out that his son had, in fact, not gone to Little Rock. He explained in a
letter dated May 25, 1891 his reasons for suggesting that Eugene should not go
to Little Rock:
If you don’t have other options, then
Uncle Philipp is fine, otherwise I have to believe that working for people you
don’t know is advantageous. Uncle Ph. is
very good natured, but he is much too concerned about moola, and I fear you
will get along badly in the long run. But if his business progresses as it
appears it might, then he will finally be in a position to be a good uncle for
you.[22]
From Joseph’s letters to his son, it is clear that he liked
his brother but also saw his shortcomings.
The Battles Begin
It is easy to suspect that Dietzgen started the newspaper
war to try to eliminate the competition that a new German-language newspaper
would bring. He had been able to increase the circulation of the Staats Zeitung to make it a profitable and sustainable
enterprise.[23] Perhaps he feared that the
competition would cut into that number and would reduce his “moola,” thereby threatening
the existence of his newspaper.
Whatever the underlying reason for his enmity, Dietzgen
justified his first attacks on the editor and owners of the Echo as responses to their provocations.
The skirmishing began before the Echo
published its first issue in late December 1891. In 1890, Dietzgen wrote nasty
accusations about the man who would later become editor of the Echo.
According to a libel suit filed by Meurer in March 1892, Dietzgen wrote
a letter in 1890 to “Rev. Father Bonaventura” that said: “I received a letter from a former courier
[meaning Meurer] who has stolen several rings out of the trunk of Count
Hohenohe at a certain time, who could not find the grave of his two sisters six
weeks after they were dead, and who quarreled with his brother-in-law about the
jewels of his dead sister at her coffin….”
The letter, in effect, accused Meurer of stealing jewels not only from
the count but also from his dead sisters.[24]
In the September 5, 1891 issue of the Staats Zeitung, Dietzgen wrote that Andrew Rust, a teacher at St.
Edward’s German Catholic School in Little Rock, “never had any experience as a
teacher.” Also, according to Dietzgen, Rust had gone broke as owner/editor of a
German language newspaper in Quincy, Illinois.
Rust countered Dietzgen’s charge with a libel suite and this
reply:
“I … have taught from 1872 to 1882
in Germany, and I have diplomas showing my standing as a student…I have taught
in the United States in parochial schools from 1883 to 1888. I was editor of
the Germania, a German paper published in Quincy, Ill. During 1889, and was
editor and publisher of the Quincy Press, also published in Qunicy, Ill. Till I
came here in 1890….I have a teacher’s certificate, also from Cincinnati, O. and
Newark, N.J.[25]
Rust also submitted a letter from the mayor of Quincy, Ill.
to Father Bonaventura showing that Rust had sold his newspaper in Quincy to
“Mr. Wulf” and had not gone out of business.[Ark. Gazette. Sept 6, 1891]
The Gazette
article included speculation from Rust about the cause of the Dietzgen’s attack:
The Gazette understands that the brethren
of the German Catholic Church of this city are about to begin the publication
of a new paper, devoted to the interests of the German Catholic Church and the
Democratic party, and that Mr. Rust is to be made editor. This, Mr. Rust thinks,
is the basis for Mr. Dietzig’s (sic) attack upon him. [Ark. Gazette, Sept. 6, 1891)
I have found no information on the outcome of the $25,000
libel suit that Rust filed against Dietzgen. Rust did not become editor of the Echo, but was a co-owner.
Dietzgen replied to Rust’s speculation about the motive for
his story about Rust with a letter to the Gazette
stating that he wrote the story not because of plans for a new newspaper, but
because Rust had written an article in the Anzeiger,
a German-language newspaper that apparently was briefly published in 1891 in Logan
County, Arkansas, in which he “made ugly attacks on my person…”[Ark. Gazette, Sept 8, 1891] In another
letter to the Gazette published on
November 10, 1892, Dietzgen claimed that in August 1891, an article appeared in
the Anzeiger, written by Father Bonaventura,
pastor of the Little Rock German Catholic church, that called him “an apostate
of his faith and much more yet.”[26] He continued, “Since that time the ‘trouble’
is in existence.”
The first major battle in the German-language newspaper war
came when the Echo was about to
print and distribute its first issue at the end of 1891. Before the issue was
printed, a vandal or vandals broke into its offices to ransack the place,
scattering type to make it impossible for the newspaper to publish the planned
first issue. The Gazette reported
the break-in on December 29, 1891 with this headline: HE PIED THE OFFICE: Some Malicious Scoundrel
Enters the Offices of the Arkansas Echo and Pies All the Forms and Scatters the
Type on the Floor.” Despite the destruction,
the Echo managed to put out a short
(half-page) issue on the last day of December.
Stories in the Echo
provided some details about crime. One story described a trail of blood that was
found going from the Echo office to
the entry of the office of the Staats
Zeitung (the two newspapers had offices in the same building). Apparently a
vandal had cut himself when he was in the Echo
office.
Another story reported that some of the type taken from the Echo office had been found along
Commerce Street. The spot was near the house where Dietzgen lived with his wife
and two daughters.
Dietzgen denied being involved in the break in. He said that
the stories published by the Echo
had the purpose of suggesting the he had done the deed. He filed a law suit charging
the Echo with “false, iniquitous and
vindictive language in its columns,” seeking $10,000 in damages. The defendants
included Meurer, editor of the Echo, and co-owners John Kaufman,
Andrew Rust, Adolph Arnold, Herman Lensing, Fred Hohenschutz, J.P. Moser, N.
Werny, and P.B. Binzegger (aka. Father Bonaventura). Dietzgen was represented
in the lawsuit by one of the city’s leading lawyers, Morris M. Cohen.
The Echo denied
that they had claimed Dietzgen was the culprit in the break-in, saying the paper
had only published facts from the investigation of the crime. A couple of weeks
after Dietzgen filed his suit against the Echo
editor and owners, Meurer responded with his $20,000 libel suit claiming damage
from the letters Dietzgen sent in 1890 to Binzegger (Father Bonaventura) saying
Meurer had stolen jewels and from Dietzgen’s assertions that he [Meurer] was a
“liar and a slanderer.”[27]
Dietzgen lost his lawsuit. Shortly after that, he settled Meurer’s
lawsuit against him by agreeing to pay the court costs of the case.[28]
Dietzgen Accused of
Sending Indecent Material by Mail
As the Dietzgen and Meurer lawsuits were being litigated,
Dietzgen found an excuse to taunt Binzegger (Father Bonaventura), a co-owner of
the Echo. On April 21, 1892, the Echo published a notice of the coming marriage of a prominent young
German couple of this city. The
following issue of the newspaper had another announcement of the wedding to be
held the following day. It read as follows:
Willie Forster has guided his Eva,
who was named, formerly, Elizabeta Rast, into his paradise. The marriage takes
place at the German Catholic Church.
The tense of the verb suggested that the couple had sexual
relations before the wedding. Dietzgen seized on that mistake to send Binzegger
a post card with the wedding announcement clipped to the top and this written
message: “Since when people goes into
the marriage bed before they are wedded. What shall people think of such a
style?”
The matter was made more interesting by a wedding “folder”
published by the Echo Company celebrating the event. It was an illustrated
hand-out with poems and other light matter to distribute at the marriage
festival. According to a story in the Gazette:
… when [Dietzgen] saw the festival
number, with its picture of Cupid, with his arrows, floating through space on
the backs of two doves, he indited (?) the following postal card to Father
Bonaventura:
Mr.
Clergyman – The newest is the festival paper with its obscenities! Read?
____
says she.
____
says he.
Then
the locals. The pointed instruments, too, wonderfully fine?
Suitable
to festival journal!
O
splendid is the work!
Dietzgen
Only
indecencies
Don’t
the editors feel ashamed?
Although no issues of the “festival paper” still exist, it
is easy to image the drawing of “Cupid, with his arrows” floating on the backs
of two doves. Apparently Cupid’s arrows could be interpreted in different ways.
The president of the Arkansas Echo Company, John Kaufman,
wrote a letter to the Gazette in
which he defended the illustration in the “illustrated marriage festival
number.” He wrote
To any one of pure mind and morals,
nothing in the least is at all apparent as obscene or improper. In Greek and
Roman mythology we read of Cupid (Amor in German) as the “God of Love” who is
represented as a little boy with wings, holding a bow and arrow in his hands,
and all loving people’s hearts he wounds with his arrow. So much for the
pointed instrument, which seems to be the center of attack by Mr. Dietzgen.[Arkansas Gazette, Nov. 8, 1894]
To this, Dietzgen replied in the Arkansas Gazette on November 10th:
As to the “pure mind” and “morals”
of the aristocratic families – no matter whether in Europe or elsewhere – we
only state this: Many a book, periodical etc. of an equivocal character (Paul
de Cook) are circulating in these circles.”[29]
Likely, Dietzgen was surprised when his postcards got him
indicted by a Federal Grand Jury on charges of sending indecent material
through the mail. The action was
initiated when Binzegger showed the cards to Meurer, who complained to federal
authorities.
The trial was held on November 4, 1892. Dietzgen, defended
by Col. W. G. Whipple, was acquitted of the charges. According to the Arkansas Gazette, the jury took only
two minutes to return its decision. [Arkansas
Gazette, Nov. 6, 1892, p. 4]
A Smacking
A few day after the U.S. District Court jury made its
decision in the indecency case, Dietzgen and Meurer were again in the
news. Meurer attacked Dietzgen on a
Little Rock sidewalk, near the building in which both had offices, smacking the
older man around. The news of event was published in many newspapers across the
United States.
This story about the encounter appeared in the Arkansas Gazette:
C. Meurer and Phil Dietzgen, Two German
Editors, Come to Blows
In front of the Arkansas Democrat
office yesterday the two rival editors of the German papers of Little Rock, C.
Meurer of the Echo and Phillip Dietzgen of the Staatszeitung had an altercation
which resulted in Dietzgen being knocked down by Meurer. Friends interfered and
prevented any further trouble. The altercations, said Mr. Meurer to Chief
Sanders, grew out of the publication of a slanderous and libelous article by
Dietzgen, which Meurer resented by knocking the former down.
Meurer
pleaded guilty to simple assault before ‘Squire Peay. [Arkansas Gaz., Nov. 8, 1892, p. 4]
 |
| Carl Meurer, Editor of Das Arkansas Echo (Source: Ancestry.com) |
After this encounter, things apparently quieted down for
some months; but more battle were to come.
Dietzgen Sues Herman
Lensing; Is Caned and Slugged in Circuit Court
Among the many lawsuits he filed in 1892 and 1893, Dietzgen
sued Herman Lensing, a local grocer and co-owner of the Echo.[30] I have no
information about the substance of the law suit. It came to trial on May 23,
1893 in the Pulaski County Circuit Court.
Among the witnesses summoned for the trial was Meuer, the Echo editor. He waited outside the
court to be called for his testimony, but he was never asked to testify. After
the trial ended, he obtained a “certification of attendance” that could be used
to claim compensation as a witness.
Lensing won the case, but the trial gave Dietzgen another
avenue to attack his Echo enemies.
Observing that Meurer had filed for a certification of attendance but had not
testified, Dietzgen swore out a warrant against him for perjury. As a result, Meurer
was brought to trial on June 3, 1893. Court officials testified that Meurer was
entitled to compensation as a witness because he had responded to the summons
even though he did not testify. He was acquitted of the charges. The Gazette described what happened next:
This prosecution so enraged Meurer
that at the close of the trial he struck Dietzgen with his cane the latter
warding off the blow with his own cane. A friend of Meurer’s, A. Arnold, then struck
Deitzgen (sic) several blows in the face with his fist. All three were arrested
and taken before Justice Wilson. Dietzgen was discharged, but Meurer was fined
$10 and Arnold $5, which they paid. Arkansas Gazette, June 4, 1893, p. 6
Adolph Arnold, the man who hit Dietzgen, was a co-owner of
the Echo and, at the time, treasurer
of the Echo Company. Dietzgen would make sure he paid a price for his attack.
Threatening Mail;
Another Accusation of Slander
The newspaper war heated up in early 1894 when Dietzgen was
charged with sending threatening letters through the mail to members of the Echo team. The trial set for January 19th. The Gazette
observed, “It is but another chapter in the feud between Dietzgen and his rival
brethren, adherents of the Arkansas Echo,
the other German paper published in this city.”[31]
Before this trial took place, Dietzgen had bigger problem.
He was prosecuted for criminal libel based on a complaint filed by Adoph Arnold
(the Echo co-owner who had slugged Dietzgen
at the Meurer trial in June 1883). The cause of the complaint was a story in
the January 6, 1894 issue of Staats
Zeitung entitled “The Noble Poles.”
According to the Gazette,
“the heroes of [the story] were Adolph Arnold, a second hand dealer on Center
between sixth and Seventh streets, and a man names Ackerman, who stays with
him. The story would make racy reading in English.” (Like the Adolph Arnold in
the story, the real Adolph Arnold was a dealer in second hand goods with a
store on Center Street.) Arnold said the story accused him of “forgery while in
Switzerland, theft, hypocrisy and other crimes and his wife of keeping “a house
of ill-fame.”[Arkansas Gaz., Jan.
18, 1894, p. 6]
The Gazette article
about the first day of the two-day trial reported “several lively bouts between
Arnold and Dietzgen,” but no serious trouble.
On the second day, the focus was on the meaning of a German compound
word, Staupf-Schule. This word was used in the story to describe the “girl
employee” of a second hand store kept by the wife of a character by the name of
Adolph Arnold. The prosecution maintained that the word alluded to Arnold’s
wife “keeping a house of bad character.” According to the Gazette,
A large number of intelligent
German witnesses were put on the stand by both sides and asked to give their
construction of the word, the witnesses for the defendant declaring it could
mean only a “darning school.” Those for the prosecution declaring it might in
the connection used be taken to mean something else reflecting on the parties
mentioned in connection with it. (Ark.
Gazette, January 19, 1894, p. 8.
In his testimony, Dietzgen explained that the article was
the fourth canto of a story from life to contain ten cantos, which he was
publishing in serial form in the paper and which would be published later in
New York as a book. He said he intended no libelous attack on Mr. Arnold or his
family. The jury took the only a few
minutes to find Dietzgen innocent of the charge. I can find no evidence that
Dietzgen’s ten cantos were ever published as a book.
Dietzgen’s Retreat
After the January 1894 trial, no other major incidents
between Dietzgen and his foes at the Arkansas Echo were reported in the local English-language newspapers.
Perhaps the reason for the cease fire was that Dietzgen was planning his exit
from Little Rock.
Sometime in the latter half of 1885 or in early 1886, he
purchased the Kansas City Daily Post and
Herald, a daily German-language newspaper in Kansas City, Mo. In late 1886
or early 1887, he bought another daily German-language newspaper, the Kansas City Presse (according to
testimony in an 1898 court case, he bought Presse
for $4,000). In 1887, he merged the two papers into the only daily
German-language newspaper published in the area. The combined newspaper, Kansas City Presse, also published a
weekly edition. According to circulation
figures for 1906, the Presse had a
daily circulation of 8,250 and its weekly newspaper had a circulation of 4,960.[32]
As he was preparing to move to Kansas City, Dietzgen sold
the Staats Zeitung. A Gazette story on October 25, 1895,
said, “Mr. A. von Landberg, for the past thirty years editor of the Syracuse
Union at Syracuse, N. Y., has purchased the Arkansas Staats Zeitung of this
city, and will establish his office at No. 211 West Markham Street.”[City News,
Arkansas Gazette, Oct. 25, 1895, p.
3] In December 1896, the newspaper was
sold to a group of local citizens. The Gazette
reported:
George Doerner, the well known
newsdealer, and other prominent Germans have purchased the Arkansas
Staats-Zeitung, the oldest German newspaper in the state [from] A. Von Landberg
for $1800 and Mr. Doerner will be manager and editor. Arkansas Gazette, Dec. 23, 1896
The names of stockholders of the Arkansas Staats Zeitung were not listed in the story about its
purchase, but later story about a meeting of the newspaper’s stock holders
showed that its stock was held by some of the most prominent Germans in the
city. The Board of Directors of the Staats Zeitung stockholders included Nick
Kupferle (president), E. C. Wehrfritz, Herman Kahn, George Reichardt
(treasurer), Fred Rossner (vice-president), Fred Wolters, and George Doerner
(secretary, editor, and manager). Morris
M. Cohn was the paper’s attorney. [Arkansas
Gazette, Feb. 2, 1898 p. 5]
The new editor, George Doerner, had a temperament that differed
greatly from Dietzgen’s, and he had some notable physical attributes. Allsopp described him as follows: “Mr.
Doerner will be remembered as a good-natured, hard-working, earnest and intelligent
German, of immense physical proportions, standing over six feet in height and
weighing more than 250 pounds. He had a remarkable peculiarity, in that he
possessed five fingers and a thumb on each hand and is said to have had six
toes on each foot.”[33]
Before becoming editor of the Staats Zeitung, he ran a small book and stationery business on Main
Street, which he continued to do after taking his new position. Also, he as a popular orator, invited to make
public addresses at important events held by local German organizations.[34]
In April 1908, he was the victim of an unfortunate buggy accident
that greatly hindered his work as editor of the Staats Zeitung.[35] He died on November 9, 1912. The paper suspended
publication from about May 1911 to the beginning of September. [Arkansas
Gazette, August 11, 1911, p. 7] When it
resumed, Curt Ackermann was the editor. It continued publication until 1917
when the editor, who was a German citizen, was interned for the duration of the
war.[36]
Following Dietzgen’s exit to Kansas City, relations between
the Echo and Staats Zeitung again became normal. The papers were still
competitors, but apparently the editors and owners maintained civil
relationships. Doerner and Meurer were members many of the same civic groups
and even served together on some committees.
On the other hand, as the relations between the Staats Zeitung and Echo were repaired, Dietzgen quickly found new enemies in Kansas
City and was again spending time in courts.
Dietzgen in Kansas
City
It did not take long for Philip Dietzgen to make his mark on
Kansas City, Missouri. By the middle of 1897, he was owner of the only daily
German-language newspaper serving a large area with many German speakers. The Kansas City Presse was a much larger and
more important newspaper than the Staats
Zeitung.
Also, within a year of his arrival, he was:
●Sued by Carl Wentrock, the solicitor for the Kansas City Presse, for $300 back
salary. Wentrock's duties were to write campaign editorials for the Republican
Party when not interviewing candidates and central committee members. He
claimed Dietzgen did not pay him for his work.[37]
●Issued a restraining order and threatened
with a charge of contempt of court. An article titled “Teutonic Journalists in
Court” described the circumstances of these actions:
Several days ago Phillip Dietzgen,
president of the United Presse Publication Company, was enjoined from
interfering with Edward Deuss and A.O. Anderson, the two other directors of the
company. The restraining order was made returnable yesterday, but when the case
was called the plaintiffs asked leave to amend their petition, as they charged
that Dietzgen was in contempt of court for ejecting Deuss from the offices of
the company, after being enjoined from interfering. Judge Scarritt yesterday
gave the plaintiffs till June 5 to amend their petition….The troubles in the
directory of the United Presse have been aired considerably of late and
culminated in the proceedings now pending in Judge Scarritt’s court. Lack of
harmony on the part of the directors, who charge Dietzgen with running things
too much to suit himself, is responsible for the trouble. Kansas City Journal, May 30, 1897.
●Sued for misusing a donation. The story of this suit was in the Kansas City Journal:
“Another chapter of the litigation over the
$720 contribution of the national Republican committee to Phillip Dietzgen,
editor of the Kansas City Presse, was written yesterday when Maria and August
Krueger brought suit against Dietzgen and city officials, to recover $500
damages. The plaintiffs were sureties on the bond of Mr. Dietzgen, and were
compelled to pay a judgment for $197 secured by J. Casberg for services as solicitor
for the Presse. They allege that the contributions from the national Republican
committee went into the pockets of Mr. Dietzgen himself and not into the
coffers of the Presse.”[Kansas City
Journal, Nov. 27, 1897, p. 10]
These legal matters were trivial compared to a slander
lawsuit that Joe Speyer, editor of Die
Reform, a weekly German-language paper published in Kansas City, filed
against Dietzgen in May 1898 and to the state charges brought against him in
June 1898 for disturbing the peace of Joe Speyer. These legal matters flowed from
a nasty newspaper war between Dietzgen and Speyer. This “war” was brief and
brutish because, like Dietzgen, Speyer was also a take-no-prisoners newspaper
warrior.
When Dietzgen was arrested on May 30, 1898, based on
Speyer’s charges that Dietzgen had libeled him, the Kansas City Journal explained:
The arrest of Dietzgen was the
culmination of an altercation that has been going on for nearly a year. It was
about a year ago that Philip Dietzgen obtained control of the Presse and a
strong rivalry sprang up between this paper and the Reform. As time went on the
rivalry grew more intense, and personalities exchanged between the two editors
did not tend to allay the feelings.[38]
The slander charge stemmed from statements that Dietzgen allegedly
made after the death of Speyer’s wife in December 1897. Speyer had remarried.
His new wife, Mabel Haas, was “well known in Kansas City and the vicinity as a
most successful singer and teacher of music.” According to Speyer’s charge
against Dietzgen, he had stated before several people that Speyer has poisoned
his first wife and cremated her in order to marry the richer woman.
After that, the two exchanged unkind words through their
newspapers, but things got worse when Speyer tried to put Dietzgen out of
business by buying a mortgage on the Kansas
City Presse and demanding a
payment that was due. When Dietzgen could not immediately make the payment of
about $700, foreclosure was imminent. However, before the foreclosure could be
carried out, a judge intervened to hear a challenge to it. It seems Dietzgen
had bought a mortgage on Speyer’s paper, and Speyer owed Dietzgen even more
than Dietzgen owed him.
Again, according to the Kansas
City Journal, after Speyer had bought his mortgage,
Dietzgen was...filled with
animosity, and his paper fairly scintillated with personalities, of which
Speyer was the chief subject. In an issue of the Presse of May 16 he took up in detail the alleged treatment
accorded the first Mrs. Speyer, citing one alleged instance where an occurrence
“brought the enraged neighbors to the house.”
The Reform was not at all backward
in replying and personalities were exchanged in German in each issue of the
papers.
A Kansas City Journal
reporter interviewed Speyer the day he filed his slander charge against
Dietzgen. He was filled with outrage:
He is a bad man, an unusually bad
man, this Dietzgen,” said Mr. Speyer last night. I did not care to get mixed up
in a lawsuit with him, but matters came to such a point that I had to. I don’t
like lawsuits, and especially with a man that has had so many as Dietzgen.”
Mr. Speyer began nervously pacing
the floor of the studio. He was very much excited and yet very much in earnest.
“The people do not know what I have
endured,” he broke forth: “nobody knows. You see this?” opening a desk and
extracting a bunch of letters from a pigeonhole. “Well, this one is an anonymous
letter that I received about a week ago. Read it. Read It. I want the people to
know about it.”
The
letter was written in German style and read as follows:
“I will
tell Dietzgen all about your first wife, whom you poisoned and brought to St.
Louis.”
“That letter was written by
Dietzgen,” excitedly continued Mr. Speyer. “I know his writing, no matter how
much he tried to disguise it. I showed it to my wife, to Mrs. Speyer, and we
thought it best to keep it to ourselves. Ah what I suffered then! But, you see,
I have others to think of beside myself. And then came that affair at
Scharnagels’ when this villain, this Dietzgen, said openly to my friends that I
had killed my wife in order to be at liberty to marry a rich woman, and other
vile things that I do not care to repeat. Ah, that hurt.
…
Did I tell you about the other
letters I received? No? Well, there was a second letter of threats and only
last night, while sitting out on the porch, a negro brought this,” and he
opened a letter upon which in large letters were the words, “Vicht, Vicht,”
This word is German word for poison.
If I
can get justice, all right. If I don’t I will kill him. Yes, kill him,” and he
looked as if he meant it.”
[Kansas City Journal, May 31, 1898, p.
10]
The reporter also interviewed Dietzgen, “a grey-bearded man”,
who said he had only repeated what he had heard other says about Speyer and his
deceased wife: “…I have plenty of witnesses to prove that I did not make the
statements in the way that Speyer says I made them.”
Before the slander charge was brought before the court, Dietzgen
was tried on June 22 on another charge. The state of Missouri charged Dietzgen
with disturbing the peace of Joseph Speyer for going to Speyer’s house on May
26, 1898 and hurling “disgraceful words at him in a very loud voice” and for
conducting “himself generally in a way that was not legal, and that greatly
disturbed Speyer’s peace.”
According to Speyer’s testimony at the trial, he was sitting
on the porch of his house with his wife, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law when
he saw Dietzgen approach the house.
As the defendant passed the house,
Speyer testified, he cried out the words. “Gift, gift,” which is the German
word for “poison.” As he passed the house on his way up Ninth Street, the
witness said that Dietzgen threw over into the yard a paper containing the same
words in large letters.
His testimony was corroborated by the testimony of several
neighbors who saw the occurrence. The jury found Dietzgen guilty of slander and
fined him $1, plus court costs. The
newspaper story of the trial added this description of what then happened in
the court:
A most exciting scene took place just
as the jury was leaving the room, and serious trouble was avoided only through
the interference of bystanders. During the entire trial, Speyer and Dietzgen
had been eying each other with savage glances, and it was evident that only the
surroundings prevented them from attacking each other personally….Speyer’s face
was triumphant as Attorney Silverman finished his address to the jury, and as
the crowd mingled, the editor of the Reform said in loud tones: He wrote those letters, and I can prove it.”
“You are a liar,” came the response
from Dietzgen, and the two made at each other. They struggled madly to get
together, but those present got between the belligerents and each was hurried
out different doors.
[Kansas City Journal, June 23, 1898, p.
10]
The slander case against Dietzgen was scheduled to be heard
the day after the disturbing-the-peace trial, but was postponed. I found no
information about the resolution of the case.
Not long after he bought the Kansas City Presse, Dietzgen took on the role publisher, leaving
the editor position to Henry J. Lampe. He remained in that position until he
sold the newspaper in either 1914 or 1917. His obituary says he sold it in 1914,
but other information suggests he may have sold it in 1917.[39]
Dietzgen died on March 7, 1920 at his home in Kansas City. He
left a sizeable estate, estimated as about $24,000 in personal assets (mostly
in the form of loans he made) and $10,000 real estate. The estate owed about
$11,000.[40] His surviving family
included daughters Anna (b. 1887), Else (b. 1889), and Katherine (b. 1885) born
in Little Rock and Ruth (b. 1898) born in Kansas City. His wife Sophia lived in
Kansas City until her death in 1948.
Conclusion
The influx of German immigrants into Arkansas in the late
1870s and early 1880s brought a diverse group of people with different
religions (primarily Catholic and Lutheran, with a few Jews), political
beliefs, educations, occupations, and reasons for leaving their homeland. Of
course, it also brought people with a wide range of personalities.
With so many differences among the people who wore the label
“German immigrant,” it should not be surprising to find divisions among them or
the formation of opposing factions. And some divisions and factions existed,
manifested by where different immigrants chose to live, the churches to which
they belonged, the political party (if any) with which they affiliated, and the
social clubs and groups to which they belonged. However, the divisions were not
sharp or deep. It seems that their mutual status as social outsiders – as
people who spoke English with an accent, if they spoke it at all -- exerted a
greater force for unity than the religious/social/ political/economic
differences exerted to divide them.
With the unified face that the German immigrants presented
to their American-born neighbors, the open conflict between the two
German-language newspapers was an abnormality. It is tempting to ascribe the
bad feelings between the two newspapers to religion (the Echo was Catholic-oriented and the Staats Zeitung was oriented toward the Lutheran Church, though both
professed to be independent in both religion and politics) or some other social
factor. However, the SZ – E newspaper
war seems largely to have been the product of one strong personality who was
riled up because of perceived insults and perhaps because of fear of monetary
loss.
Whatever his motives, Philip Dietzgen attacked his “enemies”
with verve and maybe a smidgen of craziness. He clearly was a headstrong man who
nursed his grievances. Because of the central role of his personality in the
fights that he picked with his competitors, the main lesson from Dietzgen’s
life is that as a group, German immigrants had not only had its share of hard
working and talented people, but also had in its midst difficult people, hot
heads, and troublemakers. Dietzgen seems to have combined all of these good and
bad characteristics.
Endnotes:
[1] Kathleen Condray. 2015. Arkansas’s Bloody
German-Language Newspaper War of 1892. Arkansas
Historical Quarterly. Vol. LXXIV, no. 4, pp. 327-351.
[2] Allsopp, Fred William. 1922. History of the Arkansas Press for a Hundred Years and More.
Parke-Harper Publishing Co., p. 363.
[3] The Staats Zeitung of Little Rock. Ft. Smith New Era. December 11, 1878, p. 2. Another piece of evidence that William (or
Wilhelm) Fischer was publisher of the Staats
Zeitung in 1877, 1878 and 1879 comes from biographical information about
Adolph Fischer, his brother, who was a typesetter for the paper during these
years. Adolph moved to St. Louis in 1879. He later was executed in Chicago for
his anarchist activities in conjunction bombings following with the Haymarket Riots
in May 3, 1886. At the time, he a compositor at the Chicago Arbeiter-Zeitung. See https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolph_Fischer
[4] See Allsopp.
Also, see Morning Republican
March 7, 1870 and Morning Republican
March 11, 1871.
[5] Several proposals were made for the
Arkansas state government to subsidize the fledgling Staats Zeitung in 1871. For example, legislation was introduced
into the Arkansas legislature for the state government to purchase a fixed
number of issues of the paper each week for two years. The proposal was never
enacted. See Morning Republican,
March 4, 1869 and March 29, 1870]
[6] Margaret Ross (ed.), Chronicles of Arkansas: A 19th
Century Look at Arkansas’ Press. Arkansas
Gazette. November 25, 1960, p. 4.
[7] Allsopp, p. 310.
[8] The year of birth is from Dietzgen’s tombstone in the
Forest Hills Cemetery located in Kansas City.
He gave his birth year as March 1849 in the 1900 census. The information
in the 1910 census noted that he was born in 1840, and the 1920 census gives
“about” 1839 as his year of birth. His grave stone has no month or day of
birth.
[9] Information about the Dietzgen family is from a
biographical sketch that Phillip’s nephew, Eugene, wrote about his father Peter
Joseph. See https://libcom.org/history/joseph-dietzgen-sketch-his-life-eugene-dietzgen
[10] Dietzgen’s
obituary says that he was born in “Ukrad”, which seems to be a mistaken attempt
to spell Uckerath. In Josef’s letters to his son Eugene (discussed later in
this paper), he mentions three people whom he calls “Ohm” (an abbreviation for
“uncle”): Philipp; Conrad, who was living near him in Germany’ and Ottersbach,
who was also living close by in Germany. It is likely Ottersbach was his uncle
while Philipp and Conrad were Eugene’s uncles.
In Germany, the name Phillip or Philip was spelled Philipp;
Eugene was Eugen; and Joseph was Josef. I use the spelling common in the United
States.
[11] For biographical information on Joseph Dietzgen, see
the nicely written Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Dietzgen
Many of his translated writings, translated into English,
can be found at this site: https://www.marxists.org/archive/dietzgen/
For a deeper biographical and intellectual sketch, go to
this site: https://libcom.org/history/joseph-dietzgen-radical-chains
For information on the Josef Dietzgen club in Siegberg ,
Germany, go to this site: http://josef-dietzgen-club-siegburg.blogspot.com/2014/11/blog-post_46.html This site shows a bust of Dietzgen, plus a
picture of a stamp bearing his image.
Among the Chicagoer
Arbeiter-Zeitung employees arrested was Adolph Fischer, a printer who had
worked for the Arkansas Staats Zeitung
in 1877 and 1878. See footnote 3.
[12] For information on the Dietzgen Corporation, see http://www.dietzgen.com/
A historical timeline of the company is found at this
link: http://www.nashua.com/dietzgen/aboutus/history.html
[13] The original
German is as follows: “Ohm Philipp hat
auch heute geschrieben. Er meint, Du könntest jeder Zeit auf him los kommen.
Essen and Trinken wäre Dir frei, u. sobald Du etwas fertig in Englischen seist,
können er Dich leicht mit Verdienst underbringen; auch wäre es ihm leicht, Dir für den grössten Teil der
Reise ein Freibillet verschaffen.”
[14] A paragraph in one of Joseph Dietzgen’s letters to his
sons provides a clue that Philip may have been a journalist or writer before he
immigrated to the United States:
Wegen einem Artikel in Zuericher war ich angeklagt die
Klassen etc. gegeneinander aufgereizt zu haben. Von Richter deschalb hier
vernommen, habe ich dreist gelogen; ich sei nicht der Verfasser, vielleicht
mein Bruder Philipp u. erhalte gestern von Staatsanwalt die mitteilung, die
Sach sei wegen Mangels an Beweise niedergelegt; den bösen Feind belügen and
betrügen ist Gottesdienst.
Because of an article in Zurich I was charged with inciting the
classes etc. against each other. Therefore in response to the judge, I lied
brazenly; I was not the author, perhaps my Brother Philipp. And yesterday I
received a message from the prosecutor that the matter has been closed for lack
of evidence; to lie and deceive the evil enemy is to serve God.
[15] Dietzgen is a rare surname. Searches for Philip Dietzgen on Ancestry.com
yield few results. The rarity of the name and its appearance in two city
directories suggest that Dietzgen might, in fact, have lived in both St. Louis
and Davenport Iowa during 1878.
[16] Arkansas Gazette,
July 28, 1884. Louis Fritz was a German-immigrant poet and teacher who the Arkansas Gazette described as “the
popular young German professor”. Soon after his stint with the Staats Zeitung, he moved to Memphis to
become editor of the Southern
Post-Journal there.
[17] For more on Bishop Fitzgerald, see this entry in
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Fitzgerald_(bishop)
According to Dietzgen, Father Bonaventura Binzegger, a
Catholic priest described him as an apostate in an article published in 1891 in
a German language newspaper issued in Logan County, Arkansas.[Arkansas Gazette, November 10,
1892)
[18] According to his obituary, Reigler (1833-1892) was born
in Althansen in the Kingdom of Wurtenberg, Germany. He came to Little Rock in
1852. He served as the elected treasurer
of Pulaski County during the Reconstruction years, 1866 to 1874. After that he
was an elected Justice of the Peace in Pulaski County for many years.[Arkansas Gazette, July 12, 1896, p. 6]
He was also a leader of the local Republican Party.
It seems that as times passed, the spelling of his last name
was sometimes Reigler and sometimes Riegler. While early newspaper stories that
mentioned him referred to John Reigler, some used Reigler in one sentence and
Riegler in another. The last name on the
tombstone of John and Katherine Barbara is Riegler.
[19] The Sangerfest. Arkansas
Gazette, September 17, 1889, p. 6.
[20] A website at the University of California- Santa
Barbara contains biographical information about Eugene Dietzgen, including two
long interviews of one of his daughters.
See
This site also has a link to the letters from Joseph to his
son Eugene. The handwritten letters were typed by Eugene in 1904 to give to his
sisters. They can be downloaded as a .pdf file at this link:
[21] In German: “Was
der Ohm Philipp da heute kann, wird er über Jahr u. Tag noch besser können…. Lass
Dich durch Omn Ph. Nicht so leicht verleiten, er ist gut, aber
unzuverlässig.”
[22] In German: “Wenn
Du nichts anderes hast, dann ist der Ohm Philipp Schon gut, sonst sollte ich
glauben, dass der Dienst unter Fremden vorzusiehen. Ohm Ph. Ist sehr gut von
Gemüth; aber er ist gar zu arg auf die Moneten u. bin ich bange, dass ihr
deshalb auf die Dauer schlecht auskommt. Wenn aber sein Geschäft so voran geht,
wie es den Anschein hat, dann kommt er schliesslich in die Lage Dir ein guter
Onkel sein zu können.” From a letter dated May 25, 1891
[23] The 1890 circulation of the Staats Zeitung was, according to the N.W. Ayer & Son Newspaper Annual (vol. 1), about 1,500.
[24] This accusation is from a lawsuit that Meurer filed
against Dietzgen. In it, he included charges that Dietzgen had later called him
a “liar and slanderer.” See, A Libel Suit. Arkansas
Gazette, March 4, 1892, p. 5. As mentioned elsewhere, “Father Bonaventura”
was Bonaventura Binzegger, a Catholic priest. For more on the Arkansas Echo,
see this link: http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=8496;
http://arc.stparchive.com/Archive/ARC/ARC08051960p06.php
[25] See “A $25,000 Damage Suit.” Arkansas Gazette, September 8, 1891. According to Condray (p. 339),
the Echo asserted that the Staats Zeitung’s “harassment” of Rust
had caused him to become “physically ill due to stress.”
[26] Father Bonaventura Binzegger was a Catholic priest. He
was a co-founder and holder of the largest number of shares of the Arkansas Echo. Also, according to
Condray (p. 331), he was quite a volatile personality. She quotes the author of a book on a Catholic
mission in Subiaco as saying the priest was “obsessed with a controversial
spirit.”
[27] Arkansas Gazette,
March 4, 1892 p 5.
[28] Information about the settlement of the suit was not in
the Arkansas Gazette. See Condray
(p. 335-336) who quotes the Arkansas
Echo about the settlement.
[29] He is likely referring to Charles Paul de Kock, a
French writer of risqué novels. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Paul_de_Kock
[30] Herman Lensing (Feb. 1838 – January 1925) was a Little
Rock grocer and active Catholic. His wife’s name was Marie (1851 – 1934). They
both were born in Germany and married there. They traveled to New York City on
the Belgenland, arriving on October 22, 1879 with four children; they listed
St. Louis as their destination, but ended up in Little Rock. In all, the couple
had 13 children, eight of whom were alive when the 1900 census was conducted.
Herman became a naturalized citizen in November 1892. He died in Memphis,
Tennessee on January 17, 1925. Both Herman and Marie Lensing are buried at
Calvary Cemetery in Little Rock.
[31] According to Condray (p. 348), the Echo reported that Dietzgen had threatened “to insult and to kill”
Binzegger, Meurer, and Fred Hohenschutz (another Echo co-owner) in February 1892; he was required by a county
justice of the peace to post a $500 bond in the matter. Also, an Echo correspondent reported in a letter
to the paper published on June 2, 1892 that he had heard Dietzgen threaten to
bomb the Echo offices.
[32] The actual dates are unclear. According to a book written in 1908, “In 1896,
Dietzgen bought the Kansas City Presse.
In 1897, it was combined with the Kansas
City Post and Tribute. Dietzgen was
publisher. Henry J. Lampe was editor.”
The book had the following description of the newspaper:
This only German daily publication of
Kansas City is the household paper of the 45,000 German-Americans of the twin
cities on the mouth of the Kaw River. It is the organ of the 130 German,
Austrian and Swiss societies, lodges, mutual aid and benevolent associations of
Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas, and their 23,000 members, thousands of whom
do not fully command the English language, or prefer a daily paper in their
mother tongue.
Carrie Westlake Whitney, 1908. Kansas City Missouri: The History and
People. S.J Clarke Publishing Co [accessed through Google Books]).
The following information was in the Kansas City Journal, March 9, 1897 p 5: “Phillip Dietzgen,
publisher of the German Post and Tribune,
bought Kansas City Presse, and will
hereafter publish a first-class German daily paper.”
[33] Allsopp, p. 363.
[34] Doerner – who was born in Wurtemburg, Germany in about
1859 – was a featured speaker for several years, starting in 1892, at the
annual Maifest in Little Rock. Also he addressed a huge celebration of the
opening of the Turnverein Building on October 20, 1892. His speech was
published in the Arkansas Gazette on
October 23, 1892. He spoke at the 17th
anniversary celebration of the Little Rock Turnverein in 1901.[Arkansas Democrat, March 9, 1902,
p.7] Also he spoke at various times to
the Sons of German, the Schiller Lodge, and other civic organizations of the
German-speaking community.
[35] Doerner was badly injured in 1907 when he was thrown
from an out-of-control buggy and hit his head on the curb. [George Doerner
Seriously Hurt: Editor of Staats Zeitung Perhaps Fatally Injured in Accident. Arkansas Gazette, April 15, 1907] He recovered from the accident, but was
never again in good health. He died on November 9, 1912, at the age of 53.
[George Doerner Dies after Long Illness. Arkansas
Gazette, November 10, 1912, p. 6]
[36] Curt Ackerman, the editor and publisher of the Staats Zeitung, was arrested in August
1917 on charges of obstructing enlistments and encouraging dissent. He was
interned for the duration of the war. The Staats
Zeitung ceased publication.[The Case of Ackerman. Arkansas Gazette, August 10, 1917, p. 4]
[37] Got a Verdict for $200. Kansas City Press, November 17, 1897, p. 10.
[38] Arrested for Slander. Kansas City Journal. May 31, 1898, p. 5. Also see Lie Passed in Court. Kansas City Journal, June 23, 1898, p.
10.
[39] The Kansas City
Presse was purchased in 1917 by Joseph Peter Valentin, who had, starting in
the early years of the Twentieth Century, purchased German-language newspapers
throughout the mid-West and had consolidated them.
It is unclear if Dietzgen still owned the Kansas City Presse
in 1917 or if he had sold it earlier. See
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