The New International Encyclopædia/Weitling, Wilhelm

WEITLING, vīt′lĭng, Wilhelm (1808-71). A German socialist, born in Magdeburg. He was a tailor by trade, but traveled through his native country preaching communism and other radical doctrines. After taking part in the revolutionary movement of 1848 he settled in America, which he had previously visited, and formed a socialist society in New York City called the Arbeiterbund. He was identified with a socialistic colony in Wisconsin, but lived in New York, where he had a clerkship. The ideal society of Weitling was to be fashioned on the old ethnic lines, a federation of the families of the world, with leaders chosen by acclamation, who should divide the products of labor, giving to every one a fixed share. He wrote Die Menschheit wie sie ist und sein soll (1838), Garantien der Harmonie und Freiheit (1842), and Das Evangelium eines armen Sünders.