Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/274

 babies’ garments, underwear and clothing for boys and girls, hospital linen, bed linen, bandages, X ray apparatus, tents for tubercular children, films to be shown to children, and money.

The New York office of the Alice Masaryk Fund is located at 1342 Second Ave. Mrs. Libuše Motak, head of the Relief Department of the American Czechoslovak Board, is in charge of the campaign and acts as the representative of the Czechoslovak Red Cross in America. The Bank of Europe of New York and the Bosak State Bank of Scranton, Pa., consented to act as treasurers of the Fund. Help to save the children of men who fought bravely for the Allies in France, Italy and Siberia.

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''Under this title Mr. Čapek, president of the Bank of Europe of New York, has written a book which is now in print. It is a study of national, cultural, political, social, economic and religious life of Čechs in America. Mr. Čapek has kindly consented that the Czechoslovak Review print in advance of the publication of his book a few excerpts from it.''

From the Introductory:

The subject of Germanic immigration has been treated in all its aspects, in German and in English alike. Literature relating to the settling of the Scandinavians, notably Swedes, is considerable. The achievements of the Irish, the English and the Dutch have been recorded in detail by numerous writers. That the story of Spanish colonization is adequately described goes without saying, for the Spaniards like the Dutch, the English and in a lesser degree the French, were history makers on a large scale. The large influx of Jews to the United States within the last three decades has stimulated scholars of the Hebrew race to study more intensively than ever before their past here.

What has been written on the theme of Čech immigration? In English very little. Emily Greene Balch’s volume, Our Slavic Fellow Citizens discusses not Čechs alone but all the Slavs; besides, Miss Balch devotes the greater portion of her book to the consideration of her favorite subject, economy. My volume aims to throw light not only on the economic condition of the Čech immigrant, but on his national, historic, religious, cultural and social state as well.

Considerable has of course been written, here and abroad, on the various phases of what the Čechs loosely call their “national life” in America, although a full, connected story of the transatlantic branch of the race is still unwritten even in Bohemian.

I do not describe Čech America as a tourist who passes hurriedly through a foreign country and records the impressions of the moment; I write as a close relative, a member of the family, who, for thirty-nine years has lived uninterruptedly in Čech America or very close to its border. I know it in its holiday attire and in its working clothes. I know its faults which are many and its virtues which, I like to think, outweigh them. A residence of seven years in Omaha, spent partly in a newspaper office, partly in law office, gave me a rare opportunity to observe at close range the evolution of the hardy setllersettler [sic] of the Middlewest, while life in large cities (in New York since 1894.) has brought me in direct and daily contact with the men and women who live in those queer but cozy corners of America called somewhat patronizingly “foreign” quarters”.

From the chapter, All born in America belong to America.

The process of Americanization of children begins in the primary grades of the public schools and is made complete in practical life. Often one hears foreign born parents complaining of the rapid denationalization of their offspring. It is by no means uncommon for foreign born parents, in order to give children a working foundation in their vernacular, to make it a practice to converse with them at home in that tongue, to the exclusion of English. School teachers are often incredulous that this or that child has been born in America, so elementary is the knowledge of English it brings to the schoolroom. The author has in mind the case of a boy, who, though