Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/176

 erty and parcelled it out to the neighboring Slovak peasants. This process scared the Magyar chauvinists who ruled in Budapest, and a law was passed authorizing, the government to expropriate large landed estates and settle on them disabled soldiers who must of course be Magyars. This law copies the Prussian program as applied in Posnania, to settle Polish lands with German farmers. The law provides also that the property of dangerous alients shall be taken over, and this section is aimed principally at the Czechs, who as Austrian subjects are aliens in Hungary.

Political persecution against Slavs has continued in full force. In May representative Slovaks gathered in Liptov St. Nicholas, and indorsed the Czech program for an independent Czechoslovak state, embracing both branches of the nation. The principal speaker at that Assembly was Dr. Vavro Srobar, a physician and author of Ružomberk. After his address he was charged with treason and sentenced to a long term in the Magyar prisons of Szegedine. The best known Slovak poet, Hviezdoslav, and a number of women are now before the Hungarian courts on the charge of treason for participating in the Czech demonstrations held in Prague in the month of May. The terrorism, of the Magyar authorities is best illustrated by the case of the old professor Polony, who was indicted because he said in a funeral address over the grave of the poet Maro that Maro could not attend a Slovak school, because the Slovaks had none. Such cases are only too common and they flatly contradict Magyar peace offensive which has the audacity to claim that it accepts President Wilson’s principles.

-The Slovaks are now as united as the Czechs, and both look forward to the same ideals. The “Slovak Tyždennik,” the only political newspaper of three million people, wrote recently:

“Let us pay no more attention to the Magyar persecutions. No longer will Magyar soft words have any effect on us. Let us stand together, shoulder to shoulder, work and fight for that beautiful future of our people of which we now feel assured.”

The notorious disregard of the common rights of man by the Central Powers since the beginning of hostilities demonstrates to the world in most emphatic terms their in sane purpose of world domination. The Teutons have not only overridden man’s rights, but they have trampled on the rights of nations and prostituted the law of God. Is it any wonder that the harvest is utter hatred of all things German?

Shivering “neutrals” hate and fear them, while open enemies cover the earth. The condemnation, the contempt, the distrust, the disdain of the entire world has been heaped upon their heads. Thus the case now on trial before the court of last resort, that grim and ghostly court, may fairly be listed, in the annals of history, as “Teuton Madness vs Humanity and Civilization.”

In no past war has universal public opinion been so unanimous in condemning acts of sheer mad barbarity. Why is the alignment of humanity and civilization so bitter toward the Central Powers? Germany and Austria lifted the lid off hell in August, 1914, and have kept it off ever since. They rode rough shod over the little brave nation that stood in their path. This breach of international law, respect for neutral peoples and territory, is unpardonable, unforgiveable. It was an act of a barbaric militarist gone mad. The “Most High and Omnipotent personage” would brook no interference in his plans and purposes, nor allow such trifles as international treaties, the national words of honor, to defeat his ambitions. Innocent nations must be made to suffer to permit the realization of a mad man’s fantastic dream.

From the smoke of battle emerged the menacing and monstrous purpose: Teutonic world domination. None could mistake it. The German “superman” was to master mankind, rule throughout the world by force or fear of force. His battle shield bore, indelibly imprinted, his motto: “Deutschland ueber Alles”. The world was to be German. In his grand triumph, at the termination of the war when the grand dream would be realized, the “superman”