Page:The Bohemian Review, vol1, 1917.djvu/128

 sition, the Radicals, the National-Socialists, and the Progressives, were annihilated and their newspapers suppressed. Their leaders, such men as Kramarzh, Rasin, Klofatch, Scheiner, Mazaryk, Durich, the men who served as guides to the nation, were imprisoned or exiled. This is surely a violation of the principle that Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, for all these men were true representatives of the people. The fact that the Government was obliged to get rid of the leaders of the nation shows what the real situation in Bohemia is. The Czech deputies who were considered dangerous, numbering forty, were mobilized. They were not all sent to the front; some were allowed temporary exemption; but the Government gave them to understand that the slightest act of hostility towards the Monarchy on their part would result in their being called up immediately and sent to the front.

The fetters of the Press were drawn more tightly. Even the German papers were not allowed into Bohemia. For some months, two or three enterprising editors used to send a representative to Dresden to read the German and English papers there. At present three-quarters of the Czech papers and all the Slovak newspapers have been suppressed. The columns of those which are still allowed to appear in Bohemia and Moravia are congested by mandates of the police and the military authorities, which the editors are compelled to insert. Recently the Government censorship has been particularly active against books, collections of national songs, and post-cards. It has even gone so far as to confiscate scientific works dealing with Slav questions, Dostoyevski’s novels, the books of Tolstoi and Millioukoff, and collections of purely scientific Slav study and histories.

The Government, however, have had to proceed to far greater lengths. By May, 1916, the death sentences of civilians pronounced in Austria since the beginning of the war exceeded 4,000. Of these, 965 were Czechs. A large proportion of the condemned were women. The total of soldiers executed amounts to several thousands.

Is it not peculiar that among people which the Viennese propaganda represents as loyal, hostages are taken in Bohemia, and condemned to death, under the threat of execution if a popular movement takes place? The people are told of this and are given to understand that the hostages have hopes for mercy if all is quiet.

Not only have the authorities confiscated the property of all persons convicted of political offenses and of all Czechs who have fled from Austria-Hungary, but a system has been established by which the property of Czech soldiers who are prisoners in Russia is confiscated. The State profits doubly by this measure, for it further suppresses the allowances made to the families of these soldiers. In order to terrorize its adversaries through such measures, the Government instructs the Austrian newspapers to publish long lists of confiscations and other penalties.

After a time, however, the Austrian Government practically abdicated in favor of the Prussians and now undertake to carry out the measures of Germanization dictated by Berlin. The rights in connection with the use of the Czech language in administration, in the Law Courts and on the railways, rights which were won by the desperate efforts of two generations of Czech politicians, have been abrogated. The management of the railways has been placed in the hands of Prussian military officials; the use of the Czech language has been suppressed in the administration, where it had formerly been lawful. The Czechs have been denied access to the Magistrature and to public offices where they had occasionally succeeded in directing the affairs in their own country.

“No life is safe, no happiness is safe, there is no chance of bettering life until we have made an end to all that causes war

“We have to put an end to the folly and vanity of kings, and to any people ruling any people but themselves. There is no convenience, there is no justice in any people ruling any people but themselves; the ruling of men by others who have not their creeds and their languages and their ignorances and prejudices, that is the fundamental folly that has killed Teddy and Hugh—and these millions.

“To end that folly is as much our duty and business as telling the truth and earning a living” H. G. Wells: Mr. Britling Sees It Through.

The Sioux City Journal in telling about the share of the Middle West and its many immigrants in the sacrifices required by the war has this to say about the Czechs: “Bohemians have not been satisfied to do even the things that were expected of them as adopted children of America; they have gone farther with schemes of their own to show a spirit of sacrifice greater than that.”