Page:The Bohemian question by Charles Pergler (1917).pdf/8

 the Articles of Confederation was full of trials and tribulations. For a long time it was a question whether in America we should have an aggregation of loose-jointed states, or whether a foundation for a real nation would be laid. Yet those architects of human society, to borrow an expression of Walter Lippmann, relative to Alexander Hamilton, who after our revolution held in their hands the destiny of this nation, did not shrink from undertaking the task.

It is objected occasionally that the new state would have no direct access to the sea. Access to the sea is important, but, with modern methods of communication, not as important as it was in the past. The sea after all is a means of communication; whether these means be the ocean, or the railroad, it makes little difference if the country is confronted by high tariffs. Again, the solution of this problem has been suggested by a number of writers, and by President Wilson in his address to the Senate, wherein he advocates the granting of economical rights of way to landlocked states in the following language:

It should also be remembered that a direct connection could be established with the new Yougo-slav state with its harbors on the Adriatic.

It is also true that the future Bohemian-Slovak state will have a German minority; but in central and eastern Europe hardly any state can be constructed without certain national minorities. In the present instance the minority is not as large as would seem on the basis of the false Austrian and Magyar statistics. But it will certainly be easier to safeguard the interests of a German and Magyar minority in a Bohemian-Slovak state than it would be to protect the rights of Bohemians and Slovaks in a deformed Austria, or to force Austria to become a federal state.

This question of national minorities will of course have to be worked out in detail, but judging from the way Bohemian cities and communes have handled the problem of German minority schools,