Letter to Hermann Meyer, October 18, 1867

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 18 October 1867


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXV, Moscow 1934
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 42


ENGELS TO HERMANN MEYER1

IN LIVERPOOL

Manchester, 18 October 1867

Dear Meyer,

I received your telegram this morning and can't say how sorry I am that I am unable to go to Liverpool this evening. My associé[1] and our chief clerk[2] are both away tomorrow, and so I have to be here to sign cheques and keep an eye on everything myself. Moreover, we close at 1 o'clock here on Saturdays, and as you yourself are not arriving in Liverpool until about 11 o'clock this evening and the Russia sails at 12 o'clock, you will see for yourself that there is nothing to be done.

Please write your address and Mrs Weydemeyer's on the enclosed piece of paper and then hand in the envelope at the hotel for posting. Please convey my hearty greetings to Mrs Weydemeyer and tell her I would have written her a few lines long ago if I had known her address.

I hope you will be able to bring Marx's book[3] to the attention of the German-American press and of the workers. With the 8-hour-agitation that is in progress in America now,[4] this book with its chapter on the working day will come at just the right time for you over there, and, in other respects too, it is likely to clarify people's minds on a variety of issues. The future of the party in America will be greatly beholden to you for any step you can take in that direction.

Please pass on my best greetings to Jacobi[5] in New York as well. Have a safe journey!

Yours most sincerely

Friedrich Engels

  1. ↑ Gottfried Ermen
  2. ↑ Charles Roesgen
  3. ↑ the first volume of Capital
  4. ↑ When the Civil War ended, the movement for the legislative introduction of an eight-hour working day intensified in the USA. Leagues of struggle for the eight-hour day were set up throughout the country; in California alone there were over 50. The National Labour Union, founded at a congress in Baltimore (see Note 383) in August 1866, joined the movement. Attaching great importance to the demand for the eight-hour working day Marx included it in the agenda of the Geneva Congress. In his 'Instructions for the Delegates of the Provisional General Council' he emphasised the need to raise it 'to the common platform of the working classes all over the world' (see present edition, Vol. 20, p. 187). This point as formulated by Marx was adopted as a congress resolution.
    On 25 June 1868, the US Congress which was forced to reckon with the mass movement, adopted a law on an eight-hour working day for the employees of all governmental and federal bodies.
  5. ↑ Abraham Jacobi