Page:The Bohemian Review, vol1, 1917.djvu/159

 numbers, but what do numbers matter? And if others keep on coming to replace or reinforce the early ones, do not hesitate to make a little noise about the importance of your co-operation. Your devotion is too modest. Point out also what your brothers who are still under the Austrian yoke do against Austria and consequently for us; how the voluntary surrenders of Czech regiments helped the Russians and the Serbians, how the ill-will and the discontent of the Czech people impeded, held back and obstructed Austria’s action, how the journalists of Prague and Brno kept up in the people the will to resist, how the Bohemian bankers, as the Vienna government itself admitted, worked against the war loans. All this is not supposition or promise, but facts, facts which prove what you are able to accomplish, facts before which the most distrustful scepticism is disarmed.

Finally, there remains one factor which may be harmful to your cause, and which is rather hard to explain: it is a kind of an affection for Austria. It is not widely spread. Among the people at large Austria is ignored rather than detested, or at any rate it is only hated after Germany and on account of it. Among the educated and liberal-minded people Austria is hated not only for its actual crimes, but for its whole past of atrocities and baseness. On the other hand a certain number of politicians, society people, journalists ,and particularly diplomats, talk about her with unexpected indulgence. I have often looked for the reasons; I have found many, all rather weak. With some people it is society snobbery; they have known members of the Viennese or Magyar aristocracy, they have found them amiable, with better manners than the Germans, with a certain superficial polish ,and they have concluded, somewhat hastily, that such people must be friendly to France. With others it is an affectation of political wisdom; they believe that by recommending an alliance with Austria, as Choiseul and Talleyrand had done, they become thereby modern Choiseuls or Talleyrands. But above all this regrettable favoring of Austria is a form of disease deep-seated with certain people, a disease that we call habit. As many persons look upon it, the disappearance of Austria would create a gap in Europe which would endanger its equilibrium. Since Austria has always existed, what will happen, if she ceases to be? Such reasoning, unconscious for the most part, reminds me of people who have a bad tooth; they suffer a great deal, but they imagine that if it were pulled out, they would miss something.

How does the dentist handle such naive illusions? He tries to convince the patient that with the rotten tooth out he will be able to bite even better. So we must endeavor to prove to the partisans of Austria that Europe after the elimination of that ugly abscess will find itself in better health. We must not hesitate, when necessary, to shake rudely their sheep-like fidelity to ill-understood traditions. All unconsciously they always fall back upon their idea of an after-war Europe resembling as closely as possible the Europe that was before the war. But no The war would be senseless, if it should end in a status quo ante slightly patched up. We must have courage to understand that we are entering into a new world and banish the selfish chill we may feel upon the threshold of the unknown. Europe of 1920, whether we will it or not, will not be at all like that of 1910. Should the Austro-Germans come out victorious, they would change it radically against us; we must not refrain from changing it radically against them.

You see, my dear friends, that of all the obstacles which have heretofore held back the progress of your propaganda none is invincible. Just attack them with resolution, and they will disappear. Compel the French people to inform themselves about the Czech problem, to understand it, to reflect upon it, and you will find out that they will come to take the same view of it. Faithful to the noble admonition of your John Hus, seek the truth, serve the truth, preach it, cry it to the deaf, and it will make you free.

The Austrian government has worked hard for centuries trying to Germanize the Bohemian people by force and fraud; yet even according to the Austrian census, only a third of the population of Bohemia and Moravia is classed as German. Probably at least half this minority consists of partially Teutonized Czechs who would revert to their normal racial affinities the moment German pressure was removed. Another considerable fraction, is composed of officials, agents, and privileged workmen. The remainder of real Germans and thoroughly Germanized Bohemians are entitled to courtesy, fair play and equal laws, but they have no manner of right to rule.—Chicago Journal.

After confiscating church bells, the Austrian government started in September to requisition organ pipes for use in gun factories.