Page:The Bohemian Review, vol1, 1917.djvu/103

 plan to have the parliament extend its mandate, for more than forty delegates will not be present, one-half of them still living and entitled to sit. Only the people can give and renew the mandate, and the Bohemian man can accept from the hands of people only political representation of the people’s rights and desires.

These desires and these rights of the Czecho-Slovak nation get new strength and new emphasis through the progress to date of the world war, for the future of Europe is coming to have a new, democratic appearance. All our political aims likewise must be looked at from a standpoint equally elevated and freedom loving, combined with the old Bohemian honesty, unselfishness and devotion, with the ancient noble consideration for the honor of the Bohemian nation and for the verdict of the future. These great qualities the Bohemian nation manifested through the self-confident calm which it managed to preserve during the war in spite of all provocation, not needing instruction by its delegates or other political counsels. This self-confident calm, this instinct of self-preservation, were the healthiest expression of our national life. This eloquent national silence, unbroken through the severest oppression, was to continue till the end of the world struggle. But now the doors of the Austrian parliament are about to open and the political spokesmen of the peoples for the first time are given the opportunity to act and speak freely, should they so desire. What they may say and what they may do will be heard not only at home, but through all Europe and even beyond the seas. Both the present and the future will look upon you as spokesmen of the Czecho-Slovak nation; nor is there any doubt as to what is expected of you.

The program of our nation is given by its history and by its racial individuality, by its modern political life and by its rights and by all that which gave rise to these rights and solemnly guaranteed them. The present day approves this program to its ultimate corollaries; if it ever appeared that it may be postponed or cut down, the present time compels you to demand its fulfilment without any reservations, to unfold it before the forum of all Europe and then defend it to the very end. For the Bohemian people never gave it up; the Czecho-Slovak hearts never lost faith in its solemn future realization.

A democratic Europe, a Europe composed of equal and free nations, is the Europe of tomorrow and the future. The people demand of you that you be equal to these great historical times, that you sacrifice all other considerations, that you offer your utmost abilities, that you act at this time as men who are independent, who have no personal ties and obligations, men of supreme moral and national consciousness. If you cannot comply with everything the nation demands of you and lays upon you, then give up your mandates before you enter the parliament, and appeal to your final authority, to your nation.

In Bohemia and Moravia, May 1917.

Signed by 183 Bohemian literary men: