Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/229

 have made their Magyar rulers very uneasy. Everybody in Hungary realized that the sentiments and public acts of the Czechs found a ready response among the Slovaks, who had less opportunity and less liberty to say what they wanted.

When Baron Hussarek brought forward his plan to federalize the Austrian half of the empire and met with refusals from all of the Austrian nations with the exception of the Germans, the Magyar aristocracy felt that time was here, when they must break away from Austria, if Magyar rule over Hungary is to be preserved. Preparations were made therefore in Budapest to declare Hungarian independence in the hope that the Allies would look upon it as rebellion against the Germans and forgive the Magyars for their misdeeds of the last four years. For the Slovaks this moment signified the time, when finally they could come out in the open. On November 19 Baron Weckerle was ready to come out in the Budapest parliament with a declaration of independence. The Slovaks, who according to all rules of justice should have had at least 50 deputies in the Hungarian parliament, had managed to elect only two, of whom one, Dr. Blaho, is sick; the other, Ferdinand Juriga, ascended the speaker’s tribune and amid great noise and many insults declared that the Budapest parliament was no longer authorized to bind the Slovaks and that the only authority recognized by the Slovaks was their own national council. He said in part:

“We are near the end of the war, and two great ideals have come victoriously from the war, namely democracy and the self-determination of nations. They will bring again into the world order and peace. Democratization of states can no longer be averted, and this made it necessary that kindred nations should be joined together. The Magyar politicians have realized this, they want to pour new wines into old, rotten wine vessels, but the new wine will burst the old vessels. The Germans and their allies represent the old world, in which force was held up as the greatest thing. Under the new conditions it is no longer possible that at the command of one man, who claims the grace of God for his authority, millions of people should fall on their knees I speak as a member of the Slovak National Council (noise and interruptions). If you could not terrorize me before, when you sent me to jail for two years, now we are living in times when your terror no longer scares any one,—neither me nor the other Slovak leaders. I will say to you what I like.”

He read a declaration of the Slovak National Council:

“The rock which since 1907 pressed down on the Slovak people has been rolled away. It has been shown that a nation desiring to live can not be obliterated. We demand, and demand emphatically, the right of self-determination for our people, so that they may erect their own independent institutions on their own territory. The Slovak nation looks into the future with open eyes; it knows that it will enter into the new world with all its rights. The Slovak nation does not recognize the right of the Budapest parliament to speak in the name of the Slovak people. All decisions taken there concerning the Slovaks are declared by the National Council in the name of the Slovak people to be null and void. We demand the right of self-determination for all the Slav nations of Hungary, for the Rusins, for the Serbians who have no representatives in this parliament, as well as for the Magyars and Germans of Hungary.”

“The Slovak nation expressed its undying and deep gratitude to President Wilson, because he first came out with the idea of liberating the world. . . Count Karolyi and his party need not imagine that they are still fooling the people. The Magyar aristocracy does not care a bit for the Mag yar people, to say nothing about the Slo vaks. If they cared anything for their Mag yar countrymen. Hungary would not be the last country in the world, with the greatest misery, the greatest mortality and the smallest number of schools ”

Juriga’s speech was the signal for the outbreak. Shortly after came the news that rebellion broke out in Bohemia and won everything without a shot. In Slovakia the chairman of the national party. Matuš Dula, immediately called a conference of the party at Turčan St. Martin. The conference unanimously adopted a resolution declaring Slovakia to be a part of the new Czechoslovak republic. It elected a national committee of 20 members and de cided to send a delegation to Prague to reach an understanding with the Czech