Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/182

 hope to settle accounts with their oppressors, and shake off the shackles that for three centuries had been cutting deeply into their flesh. Though the Czechs had no more anticipation of the outbreak of hostilities than had the rest of the world, there was one thing that they felt immediately, that right was on the side of the entente allies, and that the ideals that were written on their banner, and to which America gave later such glorious expres sion, were identical with their own. They too stood for the greater freedom of every man, for the high est humanitarianism, and for pure democracy. Naturally, then, all their sympathies belonged at once to the side which drew the sword in defense of raped Belgium and which resolved to crush and destroy that dread Prussian militarism.

With most extreme eagerness the Czechoslovaks in America began to watch the demeanor of their nation “back home”. It seemed for a long time that in Bohemia all was quiet. But it was not a natural calm, for Austria had transformed the little king dom into one large territory of imprisonment: gal lows were reared upon which were made to die those who would neither deny nor forsake their real at titude, who could not betray their love to the exe cutioners. Austria was silencing the Czechs by means of imprisonment and death, in order that the world might never know of the seething unrest and rebellion that existed. But when the nation itself was thus silenced the Czech soldier who stood unwillingly on the firing line in the Carpathians and the Balkans heralded forth the feelings and convictions of his people, by refusing to shed the blood of his Slavic brethren for an unworthy cause. Entire Czechoslovak regiments surrendered freely, refusing to back up Austria’s aims against their own kin; and having gone to the other side picked up their weapons to avenge the tragic centuries of wrong and injury perpetrated upon their race.

To the Czechoslovaks in America this outcry of the revolting soldier was a signal for a general movement against hated Austria. At last a way seemed open for action that had much promise of success; and with this new hope and call to action the Czechoslovak consciousness awoke anew. Our people asked what they could do, and promptly began to respond to the need for financing the revolution. Once their beloved leader, Prof. Masaryk, reached safety and freedom to assume leadership of the movement, they avowed the cause as rightly their own, and conscientiously began to supply the necessary funds, declaring proudly that they would finance a Czechoslovak revolution with Czechoslovak money.

In order that the funds might be secured it was necessary, first of all, to organize the American Czechs into a single disciplined unit. This unity of organzationorganization [sic] was not achieved at once. At the beginning small associations appeared in different cities and these developed only gradually into one immense whole, namely, the Bohemian National Alliance of America. The president of this general organization is Dr. Ludvik J. Fisher, who from the very beginning stood at the head of the liberating movement, and who with a staff of earnest workers labors untiringly for the great cause. The Alliance has at present over 250 branches in the United States, and has won for itself the admiration and respect of leading American fellow-citizens. And this ought to be said, that it not only labors for the financing of the Czechoslovak movement for independence, but also zealously seeks every op portunity to prove and interpret our love and loy alty to America, as witness the official reports of the