Against the Current: The Life of Karl Heinzen. By Carl
Wittke. Chicago (University of Chicago Press), 1945.
Pp. x+342. Frontispiece. $3.75.

The first half of the title of this intensely interesting bio-
graphical study is part of a sentence which Heinzen wrote in
Der Pionier early in 1860. He was then nearing fifty-one
years of age and had neither money nor influence, nor had he
accomplished much either in Germany, his native land, or in
the United States, the land of his adoption. The complete
"against the current" sentence reads: "It is hard to swim
against the current, but it is upstream that one finds the
source, and the clearer, fresher water."

Karl Peter Heinzen was born on February 22, 1809, in
Grevenbroich in the district of Duesseldorf, Germany, to Joseph
Heinzen and Lisette Heinzen, née Schmitz. Heinzen spent eight
years in the gymnasium at Kleve and entered the University
of Bonn in 1827 to study medicine. Two years later the rector
of the university dismissed him because "of inattention to his
academic duties and too much student life." In 1835, after
six years of service both as a soldier in the Dutch foreign
legion and as a minor public official, he tried but failed to be
readmitted to the university to continue his medical studies.

Nothing characterizes Heinzen so much as his radicalism.
This was no doubt inherited from his father who in 1797
"agitated for the establishment of an independent republic on
the left bank of the Rhine, based on the French revolutionary
principles of the rights of man." Wittke blames Heinzen's
father, who was "severe and pedantic, rather than friendly,
flexible, and understanding," and says that he must "bear his
share of responsibility for a son who developed an untractable,
irascible, rebellious temperament which he could not shake off
during his entire lifetime." It may be, of course, that radical-
ism was just simply a part of Heinzen's nature and that the
revolutionary agitation of the late 1840's was the breeze that
fanned the flame.

Although important, Heinzen's activities in Europe need not
be considered in this review. His activities in the United
States need a great amount of attention, but they cannot be
dealt with as fully as one should like. Early in 1848 Heinzen
came to the United States on his first trip, became the editor
of the New York Deutsche Schnellpost, and immediately used
his position to espouse the cause of revolution. On March 25,
1848, he returned to Germany by way of London, Paris, and
Geneva and went "to Baden to join the uprising led by Fried-
rich Hecker." During this stay of over two years he really
accomplished nothing, but he had the opportunity to advocate
a federal German republic.

In October, 1850, Heinzen returned to the United States and
in rapid succession served as editor of the Schnellpost, the
Deutsche Zeitung, and Janus in New York, and of the Herold
des Westens in Louisville. After the accidental burning of the
Herold on December 3, 1853, Heinzen started Der Pionier, "the
paper which he was to edit, in one place or another, for more
than a quarter of a century and on which his chief fame as
an American radical rests."

Heinzen published the Pionier in Louisville, Cincinnati, and
New York during the first five years of its existence and then
moved it to Boston late in 1858 where, after his physical inca-
pacitation from a stroke of apoplexy on November 26, 1879, he
allowed the Pionier to be merged with the Milwaukee Freiden -
ker. On Friday, November 12, 1880, Heinzen died at "Rock
Garden," his home in Boston, and was laid to rest three days
later in Forest Hills Cemetery.

It is well-nigh impossible to list all of the subjects that at-
tracted Heinzen's attention as a radical journalist. His major
interests, such as freedom of the press, rights for women, equal
rights for the negro, American democracy, education, social
reform without communism, a foreign policy, and the problems
of Americanizing the immigrant, are portrayed in the last
seven chapters of the book. The masthead of the Pioneer
always carried the words, "Liberty, Prosperity, and Education
for All." In his editorials and discussions Heinzen resorted to
epigram and to a "powerful, blasting, and biting invective"
which he used "all too frequently to his own disadvantage."
He had a "zest for personal combat" with the pen and made
"many enemies unnecessarily." The literary style of the
Pionier "was equaled by few of its contemporaries and excelled
by none."

The bibliographical note of two pages indicates a prodigious
amount of research without which, however, this splendid book
and this understanding evaluation could not have been pro-
duced. Wittke read all of Heinzen's published works, the
complete file of the Janus (1852), and a nearly complete file
of the Pionier (1854-1879), besides many other German-
language newspapers, as well as manuscripts with additional
information. Although Heinzen has been the subject of three
monographs, Wittke's book will really make Karl Heinzen live
and will have its place not only in German-Americana but also
in Americana, for Heinzen became a true American.

The University of Texas

Rudolph L. Biesele

How to cite:
"Against the Current", Volume 50, Number 2, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v050/n2/review_DIVL5106.html
[Accessed Tue Dec 2 6:13:01 CST 2008]