Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/186

 That we commend for the consideration of the Slavic race, the position America has assumed in the attempt to restore Russia from the ruin of false leadership and German propaganda and respectfully urge all Russians to implicitly trust America.

Be isit [sic] further resolved, that in line with action of our finance committee in past loan campaigns, that the world may know our answer to the cries of peace of tthe Magyarized Boche, we do now direct our finance committee to subscribe for $150,000 of the Fourth Liberty Loan.

Previous to the appearance of this small book of 200 pages the only grammars of Bohemian avail able to English-speaking people who desire to study this language were very hard to obtain. Charles Jonáš wrote a grammar in 1890, entitled Bohemian Made Easy, and R. W . Morfill, professor at the University of Oxford, published a book in 1899 entitled “Grammar of the Bohemian or Čech Language.”

Mr. Nigrin’s book is neither too heavy nor too elementary and it will be very useful to American and English friends of the Czechoslovaks who are sufficiently in earnest to try to master their difficult language. Mr. Nigrin has been for three years a teacher of Bohemian in the Carter H. Harrison Technical High School and is well qualified for the task which he undertook.

The Bohemian Literary Society, publishers of the grammar, are also publishing a series of Bohemian Classics to be used primarily as school texts. The books that have appeared so far are: Krupař Kleofáš by A. V. Šmilovský (short story), České pohadky (Bohemian folklore), and Noc na Karlštejně (comedy) by Jaroslav Vrchlický.

The address of the Bohemian Literary Society is 2315 South Ridgeway avenue, Chicago, Ill.

At the recent conference of secretaries of the American Socialist Party at Chicago a memorandum was presented by the Czechoslovak branch of the party, signed also by the Serbian and Slovenian sections. The memorandum demands that the American Socialist Party change its anti-war attitude for one supporting the war.

The three following paragraphs best express the trend of the memorandum:

“The war and peace program of President WilsoWilson [sic], which today is timely and acute, in all decisive res pects is absolutely democratic and expresses those principles which international socialism always proclaimed. And these principles remain such principles regardiessregardless [sic] of the fact who enunciated them. What we have considered good and demanded, we cannot declare evil or condemn because coming from somebody else.

The real mission of the Socialist Party in America now is, consciously and firmly to support the war and the principles laid down by President Wilson, and if the party now takes this attitude and in such a fashion that unsocialist pacifists and camouflage idolizing of the German regime will be unable to use it as a cloak, then it will have the next duty of seeing to it that the principles of President Wilson remain the real American principles until the very end, and that they receive appreciation in places where heretofore they have not been sanctioned.

If the steps hereinbefore enunciated are not taken, the situation so created will force us to act upon our convictions to the limit.”

In this connection it should be noted that the chief editor of the only Bohemian Socialist daily in America, Joseph Novak, recently enlisted in the Czechoslovak Army.

In the “Právnicke Rozhledy” (Legal Review). Dr. J. Kollab discusses “Self-determination of Nations as a Legal Principle.” He argues among other things against two incorrect deductions of which the enemies of this principle make use. Some declare that the idea of self-determination of nations cannot be realized, because in almost every territory one find; members of foreign nations. Those who reason;a this way confuse the principle of self-determination of nations with the principle of civic liberty, bort are derived from the principle of people’s sovereignty. Civic liberty, however, determines the legal status of each individual, whereas the self-determination of nations determines the status of entire nations. The nation as whole, as a cultural unit, can not be subordinate to any one else; but that does not mean that every individual whom fate might have blown into the midst of another nation is entitled to demand the right of self-determination. He, like everyone else is entitled to civic liberty,.

The self-determination of nations is therefore something substantially different from national autonomy. National autonomy is the right of citizens of a certain nationality to have the conditions of their cultural development guaranteed in a state ruled by another culture, or the manner in which the state shall guarantee to members of a foreign nationality their civic liberty. Self-determination, on the other hand, constitutes the demand that the nation as a whole shall have the opportunity to mate use of all its powers in the service of its national interests so that it would enforce its individuality in all directions, including the life of the state, of course within the limitations set by international law.

Others again try to make the principle of self-determination ridiculous by demanding that it be applied to self-determination of uncivilized nations of Africa and Asia. In the same way the enemies of civic freedom a hundred years ago derided this demand by claiming that a child or an insane per-