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The conflagration of 1914 is a proof of a profound dissatisfaction among civilised nations with the existing political structure of the Continent. Alsatians, Poles, Czechs, Finns, Serbo-Croats, Roumanians, and the rest "still struggle for country and liberty; for a word inscribed upon a banner, proclaiming to the world that they also live, think, love, and labour for the benefit of all."
The Czechs adopted a Parliamentary system, but finding that "one man one vote" brought to power new revolutionary elements, the system was quickly defunctionized. The administration is now appointed by the President, and he, having been elected by acclamation, "President for life," is in the nature of elective autocrat.
The Slovaks abroad, of course, work hand in hand with the Czechs for their common cause. Nevertheless, even in Hungary the Slovaks showed their unanimity with the Czechs. According to the Narodni Listy of July 24, 1917, the Slovak political leaders, especially their two deputies, Father P. Juriga and Dr.
As a matter of fact, I cannot too strongly condemn on principle all military enterprises undertaken from neutral territory; but, from the purely moral point of view, I cannot but remark that it ill befits America to give vent to righteous indignation over such activities, considering the facilities she afforded to Czechs and Poles, during her period of neutrality, for supporting to the utmost of their power their blood brothers in their designs against the Central Powers.
Palacky openly declared that he abandoned political activity and Rieger went abroad. Havlicek continued to work for the national cause under great difficulties, until he was arrested in December, 1851, and interned without a trial in Tyrol where he contracted an incurable illness to which he succumbed in 1856. Even as late as 1859 the Czechs were not allowed to publish a political newspaper.
Similarly, also, Palacky in his letter to Frankfurt, explaining why the Czechs would not attend the Pan-German Parliament, made it clear that he had no illusions about the good-will of Austria to adopt a just policy towards her nationalities: "In critical times we always saw this state, destined to be the bulwark against Asiatic invasions, helpless and hesitating.
The older people, Italians, Czechs, Poles, Greeks, Assyrians, or whatever nationalities now compose those hordes, remain somewhat in the tradition of their home civility; but their children, their grandchildren, pick up our impoliteness with the first words of our language, or our slang, which they make their adoptive mother-tongue long before they realize that it is slang.
In order to refute this allegation and to assure the Czech soldiers fighting on the side of the Entente of their solidarity, the Czechs summoned a meeting at Prague in which some 6000 delegates of all Czech parties and classes took part, as well as twenty-three delegates of the Yugoslavs. The meeting was most solemn and impressive.
And the Germans in Austria would never have forgiven the Crown if it had entered upon a war with Germany; the Emperor would have been constantly encountering the powerful Republican tendencies of the Czechs, and he would have been in constant conflict with the King of Serbia over the South-Slav question, an ally being naturally nearer to the Entente than the Habsburgers.
In other lands that vital force frittered itself away in the frothy rhetoric of Déroulède and the futile prancings of Boulanger, in the gibberings of Italia Irredenta, or in the noisy obstruction of Czechs and Parnellites in the Parliaments of Vienna and London. Everything proclaimed that the national principle had spent its force and could now merely turn and wobble until it came to rest.
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