Page:The Bohemian Review, vol1, 1917.djvu/185

 State of Nebraska the 550 members present, representing some 200,000 church adherents, sent a telegram to President Wilson asking him to support at the peace congress the threefold programme of free Poland, free Bohemia and free Jugoslavia. Three Czech members of the conference, Dr. K. J. Sládek, Rev. F. K. Šedý and Rev. Jos Tuma, gave the initiative for this act.

On the Pacific coast Mrs. Clara V. Winlow of Berkeley, Cal., has given a number of lectures on the Bohemian fight for independence, while through the interest created by members of the San Francisco branch an excellent article on the Liberation of Bohemia has been written for the San Francisco Bulletin by Mr. James Landfield. Much remains to be done in this field of informing America of the justice and sound policy of creating a Bohemian state on the ruins of Austria.

Organizations are constantly springing up in the United States with high sounding names and very praiseworthy objects. But experience and Secretary Lansing’s revelations have shown that such Leagues and Alliances in many cases serve consciously or unconsciously the German cause.

Bohemians have from the very beginning of the war set their hopes of liberation partly on their own efforts and sacrifices, partly on the sympathies of the Allies, of whom the United States is now one. Guided by such considerations, Charles Pergler, vice-president of the Bohemian National Alliance, and director-general of the Slav Press Bureau in New York, refused to take part in the coming Congress of the League of Small and Subject Nationalities. The matter is of sufficient importance to call for the publication of his letter. Mr. Pergler says:

New York papers have lately published an announcement of the First Congress of the League of Small and Subject Nationalities, reporting that I shall address the Congress on behalf of the Czechoslovaks. I am sorry this has occurred. The Czechoslovaks cannot participate in this Congress for the following reasons:

1.—The aims of the League and of the Congress do not appear to be formulated with a sufficient clearness. In these times nothing is more necessary than definiteness and clearness.

2.—It is evident that elements will take part in whose participation we see not so much an accentuation of the principles of nationality as a symptom of an endeavor to cause disintegration of States whose unity and power can substantially accelerate the Allied victory, and thereby also the victory and real liberation of nations that have a moral right to such liberation.

3.—The Czechoslovaks in America will not do anything that might even remotely embarrass the United States Government.

Since I have already been announced as a speaker I trust you will make this letter a part of your record so as to show the reasons for my decision.

Truly yours, (Signed) Charles Pergler.

It seems inconceivable that Austria can get through the winter without starvation. Items that one gathers at random from the German and Bohemian papers of Austria make it appear that the privations of the people must be near the limit of human endurance.

There is Hungary, for instance, jealously guarding every bit of food for its own consumption. Only a very small part of the harvest of the rich Hungarian plains has been allowed to go into Austria and Germany. Budapest is not far from Vienna, and since the Hungarian capital enjoyed comparative plenty, rich people of Vienna moved over there or sent their families to Pest. This suited the Magyars at first, as it meant an influx of money. But now the Hungarian government seems to think that the country has no food to spare for aliens, even though they be subjects of Charles like themselves. The crops this year being especially disappointing, an order has been issued by the Hungarian minister of the interior that all aliens who have not a permanent occupation in Budapest should leave the city in fourteen days, while all residents of Galicia and Bukovina, that is Jews, must leave even if they have steady work. Another symptom of Hungarian shortage is the prohibition of export of vegetables which up to now could be sold freely to Austria. If Bohemia could dispose of its food stuffs as Hungary does, no one in Bohemia and Moravia would go hungry, while Vienna would starve.

In Brno, the capital of Moravia, potatoes were again to be had in September after a period of several months. But more as curiosity than food, for no one could get more than 1 kg. (2.4 lbs.) for two weeks. In Prague women stand in front of bakery shops from 10 o’clock at night to make sure that their tickets and money would get them some bread in the morning. In Pardubice, the chief city of Eastern Bohemia, people get only half the food that their cards call for.

As a result of insufficient nutrition the death rate is rising constantly. In Prague it was 13.90 in 1914; two years later it was 15.29, and in the last year it has grown much more rapidly. Statistics up to the end of August, 1917, give the number of deaths for the eight months as 2706, while in the corresponding period of the preceding year the number was only 2240, when the population was greater. The death rate from consumption has increased from 18.21% of the total deaths to 24.48%. The greatest danger of today is the increasing epidemic of the “hunger typhus”. People die, because they are too weak to fight disease.

The first democratic newspaper of the United States, the New York World, gave a full page to the discussion of the issues of the war by Commandant Milan R. Štefanik. The interviewer, Mr. Rowland Thomas, arranged the article excellently and added Štefanik’s picture and two maps, one showing Cen-