Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/211

 period, and that we have all of us the same ideal, that we have subordinataedsubordinated [sic] our differing interests to one common aim. This is not true to the same degree of other nations that were oppressed and are now striving for real liberty. When some day a history of our fight for liberty is written, full credit must go to those who by organizing the National Alliance of Bohemian Catholics made possible the full participation of all divisions of our people in the great work.

Let me add also that the National Alliance from its very foundation, when the future form of the Czechoslovak government was uncertain, insisted on the establishment of a republic, fashioned after the example of the United States; and we have always emphasized the necessity of gaining the good will of our great President Wilson and of the American Government.

The National Alliance of Bohemian Catholics has its headquarters in Chicago (2601 South St. Louis Avenue) and represents about 200 Czech Catholic parishes in the different state of the Union. It carries on its work independently of the Bohemian National Alliance, which has been in existence for two years earlier. But the distinction between the two is limited to their internal affairs; outwardly in all public manifestations the two organizations are one and they use the common name—The Bohemian National Alliance.

In view of the present loudly proclaimed intentions of the Austrian Government to realize at once that one of the fourteen demands of President Wilson relating to full self government for the nations of Austria-Hungary, an article published in the Czech paper Lidové Noviny more than two months ago (August 21, 1918) will be found of considerable interest. The article is entitled: The United States of CsileithaniaCisleithania [sic] (Austria), and it reads as follows:

The daily “Czech” prints a report that Hussarek has in preparation a far-reaching change of the constitution in the direction of federalizing Cisleithania; according to this account Austria is to be changed into a federation of several national states. German papers reprint this and German deputies declare that there is nothing to it; everything is to remain the same, crown lands (provinces) will remain as they have been, only Bohemia will be divided, and stories of Hussarek’s radical plans, so all the Germans say, have as their only source the pious wishes of the Czechs.

We do not know the origin of these reports, and it may be that the Germans are right, and it may be that they arose simply out of pious wishes, but we know much that these pious wishes cannot be Czech, because the program described in the reports of Hussarek is far more unsatisfactory and unacceptable to the Czech nation than to the German.

If there are such pious wishes, they may be found only in the significant group of Czech activists among whom the clericals are the most numerous. Perhaps these opponents of the poltiicspolitics [sic] of our “Declarations” flew an experimental balloon to try out the domestic and Vienna air currents and to prepare the public for a new attempt at settlement between the Czechs and Vienna. The Germans turned it down, and the Czech public ignored the clerical report altogether which in this case amounts to something more than repectionrejection [sic].

But however these stories may have arisen and whatever plans Hussarek might have, there must be something to these stories and that something, which happens to be two years old, is worth mentioning. Vienna has for sometime been willing to negotiate with Czech statesmen and this willingness has not disappeared in spite of all Czech refusal; on the contrary it grows and will grow still more through the effect of foreign happenings. Negotiations were possible even during Seydler’s administration, and they are possible with Hussarek, and the time is swiftly approaching, when Vienna will bend down to the Czech traitors with surprising condescension. Czech activists with clericals at their head have been looking for a long time to this negotiation and they look upon it as their coming hour. Several times they attempted to bring this hour nearer and to induce the Czech Club to meet the government half way, they negotiated behind the scenes in Vienna with all kinds of persons to enable Czech politics to reestablish the torn-down bridges; at meetings and in their press they systematically limited the Czech program and expounded it in a manner which breaks it down and makes it noxious. But Vienna and German politics are, thank God, so stupid that not only did they not support the endeavors of the Czech activist speculators, but crossed them and made them impossible, but this only strengthened the Czech nation in its determination not to abate a single letter, but to fight out this great fight finally and completely.

The possibility of negotiating with Vienna is here, it has been here for two years. All that is needed is for the Czech nation to give up Hungary and Slovakland, and it becomes possible at once to take seats around the green table. It is now even possible to lay down on the green table the demand for the Czech state; no one will any more jump up excitedly and no one will call it high treason (four lines confiscated).

We can get the Czech state within the frame of Cisleithania. We would have to leave forever the Hungarian third of our nation to the Magyars and give up all our claims to it, but in return for that the justice of the Czech state-rights purogramprogram [sic] would be admitted and negotiations for its execution would