Page:The Bohemian Review, vol1, 1917.djvu/174

 as the Czechs know it. Italy knows, how much hope one may place in the reformation of a dynasty and a ruling class that do not know what liberty, independence and democracy mean.”

Members of the Bohemian National Alliance of America, like all Bohemians in every land, are profoundly grateful to the people of Italy for the sentiments of friendship expressed by these great sons of Italy. They impatiently await the moment, when the Czechoslovak army of the west, which is now being formed, will be thrown into the fight on the same side on which the Italian soldiers struggle so valiantly. J. F. S.

The splendid success of the Second Liberty Loan furnishes abundant proof, if any more were needed, that the people of the United States support with enthusiasm and earnestness their government in its determination to make war on Germany with all the great resources of the country, so as to bring it as speedily as possible to a victorious conclusion. No compromise with the kaiser, no peace except peace with victory—such is now the universal sentiment all over the United States. A million and a half men are under arms and seventeen billion dollars have been appropriated for the first year of the war. America has staked everything on complete victory.

There is, however, one phase of the great struggle as to which the United States has taken an ambiguous, illogical stand. That is our relation to Germany’s partners in iniquity. It is seven months since we declared war on Germany, and we are yet at peace with Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey. In fact Stephen Panaretoff, minister of the German czar of Bulgaria, remains in Washington accredited to our government as the representative of a friendly state. We loan France and England hundreds of millions of dollars, some part of which no doubt is used to keep in the field the Saloniki army fighting the Bulgarians; and we furnish Italy money and supplies with which to carry on the fight against Italy’s principal enemy, the Dual Monarchy, while all the time the United States is at peace with Emperor Charles. We are told emphatically over and over again that this is a fight of democracy against autocracy, of justice against tyranny, of humanity against barbarity. But the allies of Germany are tainted with autocracy, tyranny and barbarity fully as much as their dominant partner. They are as guilty as Germany; they only happen to be smaller and less efficient, and therefore less dangerous.

If this country is in earnest in its declaration that it fights for principles and not for expediency, it ought to make war upon Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey with the same fiery spirit as upon Germany. The realm of the kaiser is held constantly before us as the stronghold of autocracy, the last bastion of medieval principles, diametrically opposed to the political ideals of which this country is the foremost champion. But what about Austria-Hungary? In Hungary, it is true, King Charles is a constitutional monarch; that is to say, he is obliged to comply to a great extent with the wishes of the Magyar feudal aristocracy which controls elections to the Budapest parliament. Autocracy in Hungary is carried on in the name of the king by a small minority of the Magyar people, who in their turn are a minority of the people of Hungary. The people of Hungary have far less to say about the way they are governed than the people of Germany. In the Austrian half of his dominions Emperor Charles is a far more despotic ruler than Emperor William. The German kaiser governs in accordance with the wishes of the majority of his subjects; up to the present time, at least, the German people have willingly followed their emperor in his mad policy of conquest and bloodshed. But Charles, like his predecessor, Francis Joseph, drives his unwilling subjects by force to fight for a cause which they detest, for a monarch whom they hate. And what about Turkey? The sultan himself may not be much of an autocrat, but the clique of adventurers who are in control of the government at Constantinople have surely nothing in common with democracy, as that word is understood in the United States of America.

We have heard much of the unspeakably barbarous, cruel, murderous deeds committed by Germany since the invasion of Belgium. Earnest, eloquent men who have visited Europe go from city to city telling of