Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/224

 Wilson, he represented them before the Mid-European Union and secured their admission to this body on the same terms as other far more numerous people. In fact, it might be said of him that he put Uhro-Rusinia on the map.

As far as the Czechoslovaks are concerned, they are naturally pleased that this mark of confidence was reposed in them by the Uhro-Rusins of America. If the people at home approve the decision taken here, the Czechoslovak Republic will welcome their Uhro-Rusin kinsmen as a distinctive and self-governing part of the newly estab lished country. One advantage which this arrangement would have for both the Czechoslovaks and for the entire new structure of Central Europe consists in this that the Czechoslovak Republic would then have a common frontier with Roumania. Poland, Bohemia and Roumania would thus constitute a barrier from the Baltic to the Black Sea, separating the Germans from the Russians and the East.

It is a fact of history that among the ancient Czechs, women were held in high esteem and accounts have been handed down from prehistoric days of Bohemia of the rule of Amazons over men. The most famous person in the days before history was written in Bohemia was the mighty and wise Libuše, its ruler. When we come down to definitely recorded facts, we find the great role played by women during the Hussite period, when Bohemia (early in the Fifteenth Century), a hundred years before the German reformation, raised the banner of religious, political and national liberty.

During the long period of oppression, inaugurated by the Hapsburgs and lasting