Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/40

 seven different places the censor cut out objectionable passages. But what remains gives some indication of the defiant attitude assumed by the convention. We quote a few of the significant passages from :

"It has fallen to me to welcome you to this memorable gathering as the legitimate and freely chosen delegates of our entire nation. I welcome all my colleagues of the Imperial Parliament, and especially those who after a painful absence of many, many months are now taking for the first time a part in this plenary assembly and whose mandates conferred by the free choice of the people could not, in the eyes of the people, be taken away from them by commanded judgments of illegal courts. I welcome also the deputies of all three Diets of the lands of the Bohemian Crown, for neither dissolution nor expiration of the diets can deprive them of the right to speak in these fateful days of their nation

“It is our duty to declare to the nation and to the world that in our opinion one of the foundation stones of the future general peace must be the great idea of the self-determination of nations. And we can state with much satisfaction that our predecessors, delegates of the Czech people in 1870. in their protest against the proposed annexation of Alsace-Lorraine declared the right of free determination of nations to be the foundation of freedom and brotherhood, of general peace and true humanity, in these words: ‘All nations, great and small, have equal right to rule themselves and to have their individuality safeguarded.’

“When we see today that the right of self-determination is demanded by peoples of Europe who are not independent and never have possessed political unity, how much more strongly and firmly shall we insist upon it, we, the Czech nation, who have earned a secure place in history and who are second to no other nation in popular enlightenment, but who were robbed of our political independence.

“If there is then no hope that this right of self-determination may be had within Austria, there is even less reason to believe that there could be any guarantee of it in the Hungarian half of the empire. To speak of Hungary is to utter an accusation before the whole world. Hungary of today is the last survival of barbaric Asia in Europe. There is not in the world a more violent racial tyranny or more brutal political oppression than in that satrapy of the corrupt high-born Magyar oligarchy. A constitutional solution of the question of the self-determination of nations in Hungary would be a bloody perversion of the principles of justice, freedom and humanity before the face of the whole world. To leave the carrying out of this principle to the Hungarian parliament, which looks upon the rights of non-Magyar nationalities as nonexistent, would be burying it completely.

“Therefore the present situation is an impossible and intolerable one for us and we must declare with the greatest emphasis that in this way no permanent peace can be obtained. In this conviction we are at one with all the real democracies of the world (confiscated).

“Gentlemen of the Convention: Our Bohemian nation demands for herself nothing more but what every cultured and enlightened nation of the world demands and with her blood defends. Our demands are union with our Slovak brothers and independent political, economic and cultural life (confiscated). What is not deemed a crime, when others do it, shall not be a crime in our case. And if others who are sacrificing their lives and treasures for the freedom of their people get respect and recognition and appreciation, respect is due also to the men of our nation who, sacrificing all, follow after the same high ideal.”

After the declaration had been unanimously adopted, Chairman Staněk added these words: “In 1848, at the first memorable Slav Congress in Prague, our great Paul Joseph Šafařík said: ‘Dear brothers, there is no liberation from slavery except by fight; for us there shall be either victory, or noble death and immortal glory.’ With these words let us depart and scatter through all the Czechoslovak lands to take up the work for a new future of our nation.”

The discussion by Charles Pergler in the Yale Review of the question, “Shall Austria-Hungary Be Preserved” and the article by J. F. Smetanka in the Journal of Race Development on “The Demands of the Bohemian People” have been reprinted in attractive pamphlet form.

They may be obtained from the Bohemian National Alliance, 3639 West 26th street, Chicago. Please send 5c in stamps. Both articles are very suitable for presentation to Americans who may be interested in Bohemia.