Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/136



Many oppressed races of Europe raise their voices today, reciting their grievances and demanding the right to live their own life. The Czechoslovaks are but one of a dozen nations, similarly situated, ground down under the heel of German war machines, appealing to the Allies not to forget them, when the day of final reckoning comes. But none of the races inhabiting that peculiar zone of small nations, stretching from the Baltic to the Mediterranean Sea between the great nations on the west and the immense territory of Russia, has so well succeeded in arresting the attention of the world and winning its sympathy as the ten-million nation of the Czechoslovaks.

The very word “Czechoslovak” was known before the war to a few scholars only. Many had heard of Bohemians, and in the United States especially, where so many of the Bohemian emigrants had made their home, they were rather extensively and on the whole favorably known; but few people realized that this race called itself Czechs and that the Slovaks were a branch of the same race. Today everyone, the man in the street, as well as the journalist and statesman, admire the Czechoslovaks, and the governments of the League of Nations, opposed to the Central Powers, have committed themselves definitely to the policy of resurrecting the ancient state of Bohemia. Every one who has Czech blood in his veins is full of pride, when he sees the great statesmen of the Entente and the leaders of public opinion refer to his people as “those gallant Czechoslovaks” or “the brave Czechs”, or when he reads that on Bastile day in Paris the groups lining the streets cheered especially the American and the Czechoslovak troops.

What are the reasons that brought the Czechoslovaks into such an honorable place among the oppressed nations of Central and Eastern Europe? For one thing it is their excellent organization and discipline. These qualities appear equally in the great move ment that has been carried on among emigrants of their race in all parts of the world and in the attitude adopted by the people in the home lands. Take the matter of their organization in the United States. They have achieved here a complete unity and wonderful efficiency, while at the same time allowing full autonomy to certain sections that would have made harmony difficult in a strictly centralized organization. People of Czechoslovak descent in the United States, whether naturalized or not, have grouped themselves for the purpose of supporting the movement for Bohemia’s independence in two large bodies, each representing one branch of the old stock. There is the Bohemian National Alliance, which grew up almost spontaneously in the very first days of the war out of the instinctive feeling of the Czech immigrant that the Great War constituted a unique opportunity, which might never come again, to free the land of their fathers from the domination of the Germans. Today that organization numbers some 350 branches, and while its original purpose still remains its , it has also helped to line up the great body of Bohemian immigrants for loyal participation in the war on the side of their adopted country. The Slovak League, which was brought into being before the war, has done the same thing for the Slovak immigrants in the United States. And since among the Bohemians there had been for years a sharp difference between the Catholics and the non-Catholics, the Bohemian National Alliance, in the formation of which the Catholics had a very small part, allowed their Catholic brethren full internal autonomy, when they came later and asked to have a share in the work. And for more than three years these two principal organizations have reached every man and woman of their race in the United States. Before America entered into the war. they fought the German propaganda carried on with some measure of success among the less advanced immigrants from Austria-Hungary, though not the slightest impression had ever been made by the lavish expenditure of Austrian corruption funds upon the Czechoslovaks themselves. Since America has taken its rightful share in the great struggle, these bodies have seen to it that their people enlisted in the American army, bought Liberty Bonds and in general helped the war activities of the Government bv producing more and spending less. But all along the great emotional force at the back of this unusual organization was the burning desire in the heart of all these people that the Czechoslovak nation, which at one time played an honorable