Page:President of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, Thomas G. Masaryk.pdf/11



In December 1914, there fled across the boundaries of Austria-Hungary a university professor, about whom it was rumoured that he corrupted the young; the political leader of the not numerous Progressive Party, whom no district in Bohemia would have elected to Parliament; a philosopher whose teachings were an evangel to some, but an abomination to most; a scholar recognised abroad who, nevertheless, at home was a member neither of t ethe [sic] Academy nor of the Learned Society—a man of disputed significance it was who fled. In December 1918, this man returns home from exile in triumph as the first president of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, the sound of whose name thrills the hearts of the whole nation, from the borders of Bavaria to those of Roumania—whose name calls forth exultation and tears; in favour of whose election as head of the state the whole National Assembly arose with cheers as one man, all parties without exception; and for whose coming the whole Czecho-Slovak Republic is decorating itself with flying banners in every village and solitude. The significance of Masaryk's personality today is undisputed and omnipresent.

T. G. Masaryk made his appearance in Bohemia at an unpropitious time. He was a new man. Dissimilar to all who at that time were active in public affairs. Wherever he stepped in, he found opposition. Many years did not pass before he became a factor that could not be disregarded in public affairs. It was necessary to go with him or against him, it was not possible to avoid him or go around him and remain indifferent. Every thinking Czech had to balance accounts with Masaryk, because Masaryk was a live problem, a new program.

Masaryk was born on March 7, 1850, in the Moravian border-town Hodonín. His father was a coachman on an imperial estate. Thomas's childhood was restless and varied, because his parents lived in a different village almost every other year. His father was a native of Kopčany in Slovakia, then Hungarian, and his mother came from a somewhat Germanized family of Hustopeč, a town on the Moravian plains. At home Thomas learned Czech and a little German, and went to a Czech school in Čejkovice. There 3