WCP2689

[1]

FREILÄNDISCHES ACTIONSCOMITÉ

Alt Aussee

Steiermark

Austria

7 August 1893

Dear Sir,

My English comrades, and D^r Julius Wilhelm, who visited England as the representative of our Executive Committee, for the purpose of negotiating with the English Government, have informed me that you sympathize warmly with our objects, and the letter which you wrote to our Committee in London on the 1^st of December shows, that you are willing, if occasion arises, to give us the weight of your well-known name. Thus, when we stand on the threshold of our undertaking, I venture to ask you to give effect to your intention, by allowing our Executive Committee to elect you a member of the same, in the capacity of vice-President.

Should it be possible for you not only to give us your name, but also to cooperate with us in the deliberations which will take place next month for the inception of our great work, this would, of course, be a double advantage for us. But I perfectly understand that, in view of the numerous duties which you have undertaken, this might be hardly preferable for you to do; and I should therefore be more than satisified if you would merely allow us to associate our names with yours.

I can assure you that you will not find yourself in bad company. The present members of the Committee are as follows - The President is myself, and the Secretary is D^r Julius Wilhelm, who belongs to me of the best families in Vienna. The other members are M^r Julius Alois Pollak, a leading paper-manufacturer [2] and M^r Emil von Neuman, a well-known iron-master of Vienna; D^r Carl Winterstein, the head of a leading Firm of merchants at Prague, and Baron Adolf Von Leonhardi, a member of the Austrlian Parliament; M^r Herman Krecke, a judge at Berlin, and M^r Moritz Katzenskin, a merchant in that City; M^r Ferdinand Wolff, a Banker of Hamburg, M^r Heinrich Hohewenser, Banker of Frankfurt in the Main, and lastly M^r Clemens Dennhardt, a large owner of property at Witu (on the Jana River), and a well-known African traveller.

All these are men who, from sheer devotion to the cause, have already made very considerable pecuniary sacrifices, and are prepared to do so still further in the future. The agitation has hitherto been conducted entirely at my own expense. We have not asked the Public for a penny for the purpose, and the contributions paid by the members of the numerous Freeland Associations in various Cities of Europe (accounting only to a few shillings a year for each member) have been spent entirely by the respective Associations to which they were paid. Even the expenses of the preliminary Expedition which is now in hand will for the most part be paid out of our own pockets, since it was not our intention to appeal to the generosity of the general public, before we can point to something actually achieved.

I am well aware that the names of above enumerated, being probably quite unknown to you, can give you no information and no guarentee; but it may possibly reassure you to know that the Austrian Foreign Office recommended our representative whom we sent to England, so warmly to Count Deym, our Country's Minister in England, that the latter felt himself bound to treat presumally with the English Foreign Office on Dr Wilhelm's behalf, and not merely to present him to Sir Phillip Currie, but to [3] vouch for the disinterested nature of the aims of our Committee.

The Austrian Government can scarcely be suspected of slightly exposing the cause of men who entertain Socialistic ideas; and, if they do so, the respectibility of the Committee may be regarded as quite above suspision.

I repeat, therefore, that our Committee consists of men who are not unworthy to have their names associatied with your own.

Such an honour, however, would be of the greatest value to us, as we are in hopes that the weight of your name will contribute in no short measure to bring about the entry of other Englishmen of position and influence into our committee, to which we are most anxious, now that the Freeland movement is beginning to assume larger proportions in England, to add a corresponding number of English names.

If, therefore, you are willing, my dear Sir, to do us a very real service, I beg you to comply with the desire which I have expressed.

Believe me | Respectfully yours, | Dr. Theodor Herkzka¹ [signature]

To

Dr. Alfred Russell [sic] Wallace

Accepted as an Honorary member. Aug. 20. 1893²