Page:President of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, Thomas G. Masaryk.pdf/19

 was hissed as a poisoner of youth, as a person robbing the nation of ideals, as a cold reasoner delighting in his powerful intellect, which with its dry analysis was decomposing national life.

In the year 1890 Dr. Rieger met Masaryk and exclaimed in the private circle of his friends: "What a beautiful man!" Nevertheless, nothing could save Masaryk in the eyes of the powers in sway. The eighties were a time of growing pettiness, weariness, and boredom in general. Such a state of affairs comes to pass in every society whose great expectations have been bitterly disappointed. That notorious period of enthusiasm, the period of conflict between the State Rights Party and passive politics, ended with the capitulation of the representatives and their entrance into parliament. The nation expected paradise and plenty from the Austrian government and was thrown crumbs under the ministers' table.

In this time of passiveness there was a complete lack of thought, followed by deterioration. At such a time, of course, a man like Masaryk became the general scape-goat, for to stand on a lost bulwark of truth is a dangerous service, as Macaulay says.

"What a beautiful man!" And nevertheless even Rieger was silenced. From all sides bad influences surrounded him and prevented his drawing nearer to Masaryk. The inordinacy and hate originated in the circle of the learned and passed into the blood of the journalists. These two factors succeeded in defacing Masaryk's image and filling the Czech public with distrust and suspicion of the doctor who came with new cures and was in the way of the quacks. I bring to memory all of this by way of explanation, not for the joy of it nor for the purpose of reopening closed wounds.

In the year 1900 we took courage to organize a party with Masaryk's program which received the name of the Progressive Party, later popularly called the Realistic Party. When the daily newspaper "Čas" (Time) was founded and the Progressive organizations took up work in the country, Masaryk's name began to acquire a better sound; Masaryk developed a great activity in lecturing in Bohemia and Moravia. In 1907 and again in 1911 he was elected to parliament by Valašsko, a mountainous part of Moravia. At that time Masaryk called the attention of the foreign world to himself in the three Yougo-Slav law-suits which formed a continuous organic whole in that intrigue of Pest and Vienna against the Slavs and especially against the Serbs.

Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne, was then bent on throttling Serbia, and was looking for a pretext. Masaryk succeeded in catching the intriguers red-handed, for he proved that Austrian 11