Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/195

 ing the men with a wholesome evening’s recreation these home-made theatres contribute much to the philantropic and patriotic enterprises of the army.

Besides the theatres, the men have provided themselves with libraries, reading rooms, and in some cases tea-rooms. They are constantly handicapped by the lack of funds, however, and it is in this respect that the Young Men’s Christian Association has been able to be of real service to them.

The Association assigned Mr. Charles M. H. Atherton, also of the Jan Hus Neighborhood House in New York, and myself to the work among the Czecho-Slovaks. We encountered unbelievable obstacles in purchasing and transporting our equipment and supplies to the front. But at last we have been successful in establishing three centres. At two of the regiments we have a kinometograph and tea-room in operation, while at the head-quarters of the staff we have established a tea-room. From the very outset the buildings have been crowded to capacity day and night. The men use the buildings as a club house, and are extremely grateful for the opportunity to sit down and read the newspapers or look at illustrated magazines, or play a quiet game of chess, or listen to the hard-worked gramophone. In each “hut” we have a large picture of Professor Masaryk, surrounded by the Bohemian and American flags, and our work seems to represent in their minds the willingness of America to stand up for the rights of the Czechs and the other smaller nationalities, and to fight for those rights. The expressions of gratitude and appreciation which have come to our ears, make us feel that all the long trip over here has not been altogether in vain.

The most interesting part of our experience is the conversations with the officers and men. We never miss an opportunity to draw them out, and the tales they tell of what they have been through are exciting enough to make one’s hair stand on end, and horrible enough to instil in one the most violent abhorence of war fare and the whole unhuman bloody business. When men can sleep out in the open snow, or tied to the branch of a tree, when they can go for days with nothing to eat at all and then devour with the utmost relish a dinner of two cats and a dog; when they can go through four years life in the muddy, vermin infested trenches, or in the disease ridden prison camps where men die by the thousands every day; when men can live through all of that and many other untold and untellable horrors, and at the end of it be ready and eager for further suf- end of it be ready and eager for further [sic] sufferings and hardships for their country, they have shown the large measure of patriotic devotion, and it cannot be, it must not be, that they shall have fought and suffered and died in vain. Out of it all there must issue a new free Bohemia, where these men and their countrymen may have the freeestfreest [sic] opportunity for self-development in every department of social life.

When discussing the present military and political situation, the men invariably end by saying: “Well, we are relying upon America.” They are most fervent in their expressions of gratitude for what America has already done for them. The liberality of the Bohemians in America, the espousal of the cause of Bohemia by President Wilson have given to America a very warm spot in their hearts. They will never for get it. But they are looking to us for still further assistance. They are looking to the Bohemians of America to swell the number of the ranks of the Czecho-slovak army in France. They expect to see a bountiful subscription to the Bohemian Liberty Loan in America. But most of all they are looking to America to win the war and make the world safe for the democratic Czechoslovak Republic. May their hopes and ours come to a speedy and complete fulfillment!

Kiev, Russia. January 4, 1918.

Dr. Hazen says of the Czecho-slovaks: A people that has shown such intelligence, such an appreciation of the issues involved in the present struggle, in which the Allies have made such errors of judgment, have so often hesitated, delayed, backed and filled; a people that has displayed such unanimity of feeling and such a sense of subordination to its leaders, is a peole worthy of independence, a people which, under most perplexing and unfavorable conditions has given every evidence that it will know how to use its independence wisely, when it comes.

Fifty years ago Palacký, the great Czech historian said: “We existed before Austria, and shall exist after her.” And now his saying has come true.

The October issue of the “Unpopular Review” has for its leading article a contribution by Jaroslav Císař, secretary to President Masaryk, entitled “Peace Via Austria.”