The elections were carried out but rejected by the members of the Rugean part of the state, which meant the complete collapse of the diplomatic master stroke. How seriously this refugee committee was meant to be taken can be seen from the fact that four days later Willich resigned from the committee of artisans and refugees which had only had a nominal existence for a long time, following upon repeated, wholly disrespectful revolts on the part of the "rank and file refugees" which had made the dissolution of the committee an inevitability. -- Interpellation concerning the emergence in public of the Agitation Club. Motion: that the ÉmigréClub should have nothing to do with the Agitation Club and should publicly dissociate itself from all its actions. Furious attacks on the "Agitators"Goegg and Sigel junior (i.e. senior, see below, p. 228) in their presence.
Rudolph Schramm declared that his old friend Ruge was a minion of Mazzini and a "gossipy old woman". Tu quoque, Brute! Goegg retorted, not as a great orator but as an honest citizen and he launched a bitter attack on the ambiguous, slack, perfidious, unctuous Kinkel.
"It is irresponsible to prevent those who wish to work from doing so, but these people want a fictitious, inactive union that they can use as a cover for certain purposes."When Goegg referred to the public announcement about the Agitator Club in the English papers Kinkel arose majestically and said that "He already controlled the whole American press and had taken steps to ensure his control of the French press too."The motion of the German faction was passed and provoked a declaration from the "Agitators" that the members of their club could no longer remain within the Émigré Club.
Thus arose the terrible gulf between the ÉmigréClub and the Agitators' Club which gapes through the whole history of the modern world.
The most curious fact about it is that both creatures only survived until their separation and now they vegetate in the Kaulbachian [69] battle of the ghosts that still rages in German-American meetings and papers and no doubt will continue to rage to the end of time.
The whole session was all the more stormy as the undisciplined Schramm went so far as to attack Willich, claiming that the Émigré Club degraded itself by its connections with that knight. The chairman, who happened to be the timorous Meyen, had already lost control several times in despair. But the debate about the Agitators' Club and the resignation of its members brought the tumult to a climax. To the accompaniment of shouts, drumming, crashes, threats and raging the edifying meeting went on until 2 a.m. when the landlord turned off the gas and so plunged the heated antagonists into darkness. This brought all plans to save the nation to an abrupt end.
At the end of August the chivalrous Willich and the cosy Kinkel made an attempt to smash the Agitators' Club by putting a proposal to the worthy Fickler.
"He should join with them and their closer political friends in forming a Finance Committee to manage the money that had come in from New Orleans.
This committee should continue to function until it is superseded by a general finance committee of the revolution. However, the acceptance of this offer would imply the dissolution of all German revolutionary and agitatorial societies that had existed hitherto."The worthy Fickler rejected the idea of this "imposed, secret and irresponsible committee" with indignation.
"How", he exclaimed, "can a mere finance committee hope to unite all the revolutionary parties around it? The money that has arrived and that is still to come can never suffice to persuade the widely divergent strands of the democrats to sacrifice their autonomy.
Thus instead of achieving the hoped-for destruction of the opposition this attempted seduction enabled Tausenau to declare that the breach between the two mighty parties of Emigration and Agitation had become irreparable.
