Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/188



The Hearst papers were never friendly to the aspirations of the Czechoslovaks. They never would publish news that tended to set this people in a favorable light, and on innumerable occasions they jibed at their efforts to smash Austria. Judging by their record, we are compelled to believe that a heading published in the New York American on September 4, reflecting on the Czechoslovaks, was not a mere accident, but a malicious slur cast on this brave people.

Immediately below the account of the American recognition of the National Council the New York American displays a headline “Wounded Tell Story of Czech Treachery.” The story speaks of a cavalry officer who ordered his forces to charge Bolsheviki near Harbin, but was deserted by them and killed by the enemy. The context makes it plain that the soldiers were Russians of Semenoff’s force, but the Hearst paper makes Czechs out of them, and creates the impression that the men whom our government has just recognized as Allies are cowards and traitors.

Comment is unecessary. It is what one would expect from Mr. Hearsts’s publications.

The October World’s Work is devoted in its entire issue to conditions prevailing in Russia, and has several excellent articles dealing with the Czechoslovak campaign there.

The high cost of living in America cannot be compared for a moment with conditions in Bohemia. Since 1913 the cost of pork has increased by 2321 per cent (more than 23 times), lard by 2535 per cent, eggs by 2018 per cent, peas by 3500 per cent and rice by 11823 per cent.

President Masaryk wrote recently to his countrymen in Texas:

“We Czechs and Slovaks at home want to be equal to you who are citizens of the free republic—the Independent Czechoslovak Republic will strengthen the League of Nations by a strong element of modern democracy. Bring up your children and grandchildren so that they will not forget their ancestors, teach them that to be a Czech or Slovak or their descendant does not conflict with true Americanism, but rather strengthens it, for our fathers were the first to die for the liberty which you so fully enjoy in this country.”

Among the many congratulations received by President Masaryk upon the occasion of the American recognition there is a telegram from the Roumanians of America and a letter from the Zionist Organization of America. Judge Julian W. Mack, president of the Zionist Organization, adds this:

“The Zionist Organization of America gives utterance to ittsits [sic] unfeigned joy in the fact that the recognition of our Government by the Secretary of State was extended to and through the person of Dr. Thomas G. Masaryk, one of the noblest statesmen of the Allied world, whose leadership of the Czechoslovak Council is an augury of the broad and humane spirit which is to govern the founding of the life of the Czechoslovak nation.”

Two months after Sedan a country was found in Europe to lift its voice on behalf of a stricken France. It was little Bohemia who, amidst the world’s silence, declared that if Germany tore from France a part of her territory which, French in sentiment, wished to remain French, she would be committing a crime against the freedom of peoples. The courage which in 1870 expressed itself in so unequivocal a statement of political morality has, in these years of war, been manifested by Czechs both within the frontiers of Bohemia and on the battlefronts of the East, South and West. But little is known of the reign of terror in Bohemia since the war began, but executions are placed anywhere between 30,000 and 60,000. This brave and martyred people has given a magnificent account of itself in the most desperate circumstances. In France, up to 1917, the Czechoslovaks, 700 strong to begin with had won 110 Croix de Guerre, 12 military medals, a cross of the Legion of Honor, and the red regimental fourragere. On the Eastern front this is General Brusiloff’s tragic testimony: “Forsaken at Tarnopol by our infantry, they fought in such a way as to deserve the admiration of the whole world.” The Czechoslovak’s is one of the most thrilling records of the war.

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