America in the Struggle for Czechoslovak Independence/Czechoslovaks in America and Their War Activities
AMERICA IN THE STRUGGLE FOR
CZECHOSLOVAK INDEPENDENCE
I
CZECHOSLOVAKS IN AMERICA AND
THEIR WAR ACTIVITIES
While the bulk of the Czechs and Slovaks now living in the United States, came to this country during the last seventy-five years, yet immigration of Czechs, to speak of the older branch of the nation, is not a phenomenon restricted wholly to the nineteenth century. The first individuals of Czech (Bohemian) origin came to America during the seventeenth century, undoubtedly seeking religious and political liberty, even as did the Pilgrim Fathers.
Augustine Herrman was probably the first American of Czech origin, and he came to New York in 1633, removing, in 1660, to Maryland, where he founded the Bohemian Manor; there he is buried and a monument has been erected to his memory.
John Jay, diplomat and jurist of historic fame, says this of the old New York family of Philipses: “The first ancestor of this family who settled in this country was Frederick Flypsen, a native of Bohemia, where his family, being Protestants, were persecuted.”
The records present clear evidence that in New Amsterdam, under the Dutch rule, lived other natives of Bohemia in addition to Philipse. The latter is referred to as the “Bohemian Merchant Prince.”
One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence is William Paca, concerning whose possible Italian or Portuguese origin historians seem to have no other evidence than the alleged Latin structure of the name. Not being acquainted with the Czech (Bohemian) language, they did not realize that it is much more likely that Paca was of Czech ancestry. If any Czech should be asked of what origin is the bearer of this name, without being told where the name appears, he would answer without hesitation that it is that of a fellow-countryman, so typically Czech is it. Indeed, in certain parts of Moravia the name Paca—and Pacal—is frequent enough.
In the ’fifties of the seventeenth century Czechs came to Virginia, and at this time Czech names also appear in New England records.
The spiritual home of the Moravian Church is the Czechoslovak lands, Moravia being a part of the present republic and Moravians, of course, being Czechs. A certain number of Czechs certainly did come to America with the Moravian brethren, as appears from the transactions of the Moravian Historical Society, and as one sees at a glance when examining the tombstones of the Moravian Cemetery in Winston-Salem, N. C., an opportunity which came to the writer in 1919. There is buried Mathew Stach, “the first Moravian Missionary to Greenland,” where he spent forty years.
The nineteenth century immigration begins in the ’forties and is prompted not only by economic, but political motives as well. The Czechs, too, had their ’forty-niners. But even before that, in 1836, Reverend John Nepomuk Neuman, with his brother Vaclav, emigrated to Philadelphia, later becoming Bishop of that city and diocese. In the ’fifties the first Czech settlement was founded in St. Louis; they came by way of New Orleans, sailing up the Mississippi. A Czech Catholic Church was founded there in 1854. The largest Czech non-Catholic fraternal society, popularly called the C. S. P. S., was also founded in that city in 1854. The gold fever in 1849 and the ’fifties brought to America about 25,000 Czechs. Between 1850–1868 some 43,645 Czechs came to the United States. In Cleveland they began to concentrate in considerable numbers after 1852, and a private census in 1869 shows the presence, in that city, of 3,252 persons of Czech nationality. Chicago sees its first Czechs in 1852–53, and many of them commence occupying farmlands in Texas, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri, and later in the Dakotas.
According to the census of 1910, persons of Czech parentage in this country numbered 539,392. But it should be remembered, and this applies in an incomparably larger measure to previous statistics, that prior to 1918 there was no independent Czechoslovak nation, and that unavoidably many Czechs and Slovaks appear in the records as Austrians and Hungarians.
The bulk of the Czech stock is in the West. A relatively small number of Czechoslovak immigrants remain in the East. The twelfth census showed 71,389 Czech individuals of the first generation, and 32,707 of the second generation, engaged in gainful occupations, so-called, and of the first generation 32 per cent, and of the second generation 43 per cent, were devoted to agricultural pursuits.
Czech immigration, therefore, was to a large extent of an agricultural character. The farmers of this origin concentrate in Texas, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas and the Dakotas. Czechoslovak immigrants do not congregate in slums. In fact there are no Czechoslovak slums in the United States. The Slovaks of course came chiefly to Pennsylvania, seeking employment in mines and steel mills.
Czech labor in the urban districts consists almost entirely of skilled workmen. Merchants are plentiful, and professional men of all branches abound. A directory of Bohemian merchants in Chicago, for the year 1900 , and one which even for its time was necessarily incomplete, gives 266 grocers, 45 physicians, 43 lawyers, 40 custom tailors, 22 music conservatories. In 1917 there were in Chicago 46 male and 22 female medical practitioners and 78 lawyers. Among the professional classes the most numerous, however, are school teachers. A reliable estimate places the number of teachers of Czech descent in Nebraska at 290. College and university professors we meet in relatively large numbers, three of them on the staff of Yale University. Czech Catholics have a college and seminary in Lisle, Illinois, and many parochial schools and academies. Non-Catholic Czechs in the larger cities maintain schools, usually in session on Saturdays and Sundays, for the purpose of giving their children instruction not otherwise obtainable.
Criminality of the graver sort is quite rare among Czechs. Speaking of the Czechs in Chicago, Capek states that the Czech percentage of burglary is the same as the Canadian and the German, but both of these latter nationalities have higher percentages of the total of gainful offenses and of the specific crimes of forgery and fraud, of larceny and receiving stolen goods.
In a report to the Congressional Committee on Naturalization and Immigration, H. H. Laughlin, of the Carnegie Institution, places the Czechoslovaks in the very forefront of desirable immigrants. The report is a racial analysis of the in mates of institutions for the care of defectives, which in turn was analyzed in The Survey, and results of the analysis are found in The Literary Digest for Feburary 23, 1924, from which the following is especially pertinent:
If we are required to draw conclusions respecting these main sources of immigrants, it is clear that these data present immigration as least desirable from Ireland, the Balkans and Russia, in that order; most desirable, from Austria-Hungary (including the present Czechoslovakia) and parts of Jugoslavia and Poland, Germany and Great Britain, in that order.
Socialism and radicalism of the destructive sort, preaching the overthrow of government by force, has no serious footing among the Czechoslovaks. The Czech membership of Communist organizations barely reaches the dignity of hundreds, and among these are very few who believe in violence as a method of political action.
The Czechoslovak Press in this country, as that of other immigrants, affords the first generation the only means of information concerning current events and is frequently the only source of inspiration to cultural, political and other activities. In many respects it is the only medium of contact between distantly separated settlements. Obviously its influence has always been considerable, though it is well to point out, lest its function be misunderstood, that the more or less prevalent belief that the foreign press in the United States is running contrary to American opinion is disproved by a study of 8,504 editorials recently made by the Foreign Language Information Service, of New York. While the immigrant press has certain distinctive interests, it does not differ essentially in subject or emphasis of editorial comment from the vernacular press. This is particularly true of Czech journalism. Only 8.3 per cent of the Czech editorials dealt with the native country, and 7.3 per cent were devoted to special group interests. American economic, political and religious problems occupied the foremost place in editorial discussions.
Fraternal organizations and other similar societies are so plentiful that the number of Czech lodges and clubs is generally fixed at not less than 2500. Chicago is credited with 500, while in the same city there are at least 227 Building and Loan Associations. The total membership of fraternal societies is, in round figures, more than 160,000, and the ritual and methods of business of these organizations closely follow American models. In fact, such orders are practically unknown on the European continent, certainly not in the form found in the United States. Their combined reserve fund, according to the Fraternal Monitor, is over $10,000,000, and it is wholly invested in American securities, such as Liberty, governmental, state, soldiers' bonus and other bonds of a similar nature.
Czechoslovakia became an independent nation in October, 1918. Necessarily, statistics relating to Czechoslovakia, even as far as the Czechs are concerned, are incomplete, and as regards the Slovaks such statistics are still more meager, since the latter suffered under Magyar (Hungarian) rule even more than the Czechs did under the Austrian régime. But no one can gainsay that in potential capacity there is no difference between the Czechs and Slovaks.
The great part played by the Czechoslovaks of America in the liberation of their native land can only be properly understood if we bear in mind the character of the Czech and Slovak population in the United States. The winning of independence of any nationality is the result of interplay of various political, social, and economic forces, and the future historian, in appraising the importance of the several constituent parts of the movement for Czechoslovak independence, will not assign to American Czechoslovaks an insignificant role.
The plain people , as Lincoln would have called them, constitute, of course, the vast majority of Americans of Czechoslovak origin. It is a tribute to their sound political instincts, and to their political maturity, that upon the outbreak of the war they at once, and spontaneously, took a position which events have proved to be in the right, and which, in the end, prevailed. The general idea obtains that the Czechoslovak movement for independence was wholly of European origin and was directed entirely from Europe, but this impression is erroneous.
Francis Sindelár, in his work (Z Boje Za Svobodu Otciny: From the Struggle to Liberate the Native Land), has this to say in the first chapter:
On the sixth of August, Austria declared war on Russia and thus commenced a conflagration which in a short time covered all Europe. The whole maneuver was directed from Berlin by the criminal Emperor William and the German militaristic clique. The American nation in the United States witnessed a terrific spectacle and followed it with breathless interest. We, American Czechs, lived in great excitement. Our sympathies always were on the side of unfortunate Serbia and we suffered in the knowledge that Czech and Slavic regiments were first sent against the Serbs. But we were helpless, our sympathies could not help the Serbs. Nevertheless, we permitted no one to doubt that the conduct of Austria was considered by us a fearful crime. In certain Czech settlements protest meetings were arranged; the largest was in Chicago on the day Austria declared war on Serbia, July 28th. Without any special agitation thousands of our fellow countrymen met in the Pilsen Pavilion on the west side, on 26th St., known as the “Bohemian California,” and many speeches were made and Austria deservedly condemned. There went forth an impressive protest, which, however, in the excitement prevailing in the great metropolis, remained unnoticed.
There were posters in the hall, with eagles, God only knows what kind of eagles, but because they could be Austrian eagles, the posters were torn from the walls and torn into shreds. The Austrian consul had his informers at the meeting and these brought to him aa list of people most prominent at the meeting and the respective names later appeared in the so called black book of the Austrian police in Prague.
The meeting had its positive results. It appealed for the founding of an organization of all American Czechoslovaks for the purpose of aiding the poor, suffering from the consequences of the war and on behalf of widows and orphans of Czech soldiers who were forced to fight contrary to their will against brother Slavs.
A rather simple picture, but it speaks volumes as to the attitude of the Czech mind immediately upon the outbreak of the war.
The meeting described by Mr. Sindelár had its origin in a conference of a group of patriotic Czechs and Slovaks held on Saturday, July 25, 1914. This gathering and the subsequent conferences have been described by a leading participant, J. V. Nigrin, who, according to a contemporaneous newspaper report of July 27, 1914, made this statement during one of the discussions:
In Bohemia our compatriots must remain silent, although they disagree with the action of the Austrian government, and therefore it is incumbent upon us, in this land of liberty, to protest against this barbarous and for us fratricidal war. Let us foment the fire of enthusiasm in Czech hearts. The new age must bring freedom to Bohemia.
In a statement issued by a preliminary organization on August 9, 1914, and printed in the Czech press, the following appears:
It is possible that the present storm will uproot the old state system and give rise to larger freedom and independence. We must think even of this possibility and with opportune help show that we are worthy descendants of the nation and worthy of its former glory.
These meetings and discussions were followed by numerous others, and on September 18, 1914, there appeared the first manifesto of the Bohemian National Alliance . This declaration is important, since it was formulated and published before any contact with European leaders could be established, and because it proves that even the founders of the movement in America were quite clear as to their ultimate objectives. The purposes of the Alliance, among other functions, are defined as follows:
By effective propaganda to work for the information of the American and the world public concerning the historical, natural, and human desires and rights of the Czechoslovak nation in Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and Slovakia.
By proper means to work to the end that at the forthcoming solution of European political and national questions, which the present war inevitably leads to, the demands for a free development and government of any independent Czech state be taken into account. (Sokol Americky, November, 1916.)
Considering the outcome of the war, who can deny the farsightedness of these unknown states men? For, bearing in mind the results of the movement initiated by them, may we not, with all propriety, call them statesmen?
How spontaneous the movement was, and how it arose in a number of places at the same time, is well illustrated by the fact that in New York, as early as September, 1914, there was formed the American Committee for the liberation of the Czech people. A national scope was given to the organization by a conference held in Chicago, January 2–3, 1915, while the organization itself was perfected at a conference held in Cleveland, March 13–14, 1915. Thereafter the official designation of the national organization was the “Bohemian National Alliance ” which ultimately spread all over the country and toward the end of the war numbered 250 branches. The Czech press in America from the very beginning was united in opposition to the Central Powers.
So when Professor Thomas G. Masaryk escaped from Austria to become the head of the movement abroad, he found at least the rudiments of an efficient organization at hand, with a definite program; and he was entirely free, in so far as America went, from worries of an organization or administrative nature. The importance of this is best realized if we bear in mind the fact that the Czechs in America are the strongest branch of the nation living outside of the present republic; that they are comparatively wealthy, owing to their thrift and industry; and that they could of course exert, and did exert, considerable influence upon American public opinion.
The first need of successful activity was funds. Money is as much an essential of revolution as it is of war. So the leaders of the movement applied themselves first of all to the raising of financial means, and in this they exhibited remarkable ingenuity. Some of the methods adopted are described by Thomas Capek in his work, The Czechs in America, from which the following paragraph may properly be quoted:
Not a dollar was asked for or accepted from a foreign source. Those were Masaryk’s orders, “This is our revolution, and we must pay for it with our money.” The first bazaar of consequence was held in New York in the winter of 1916. It yielded $22,250. This was thought an extraordinary achievement. The bazaar given in Cleveland in March, 1917, netted $25,000 and one closely following it in Chicago, $40,000. The comparatively small Omaha community surprised all by making $65,109.20 in September, 1918. A few weeks later the Texas Czechs got together at a bazaar fete in Taylor an other $50,000 or $60,000. The bazaar at Cedar Rapids (Iowa) turned in $25,000. The Thanksgiving Day offering in 1918, which was nation wide, totaled $320,000. To this Chicago gave over $100,000, Cleveland, $40,000. All the money was not spent for political purposes. Large sums went to relieve distress on the other side. For instance, one million francs were cabled to the Czechoslovak Minister of Foreign Affairs in Paris for the purchase of food.
The total sum so raised, augmented by subscriptions contributed by individuals, has never been published. But in any event it was more than sufficient to finance the whole movement in America and the Allied countries, except Russia, which presented a problem in itself and where ultimately the main part of the Czechoslovak legions was organized. One is well within the truth, and the objective historian no doubt will so hold, that the financial help from America in itself was an act of first-rate political importance, since without it no activities abroad would have been possible. It was a standing refutation of Austrian and German charges that the Czech movement was an artificial one financed by the Allies, and it made possible the proud boast that Czechoslovaks financed their revolution themselves. President Masaryk would have been helpless without this aid.
The organization very soon launched numerous political activities in the real sense of the term. American neutrality during the first period of the war imposed certain legal and moral restrictions, since the Czechs are intensely loyal and sincere in their Americanism. But it was realized that even in case of permanent neutrality America inevitably would exercise considerable influence at the Peace Conference, and that her good-will and friendship must be gained. The result was a shower of pamphlets and the utilization of every possible opportunity to address American audiences. Such addresses literally ran into hundreds and their nature and standard may best be judged by the fact that Czech spokesmen succeeded in reaching such organizations as the April, 1917, meeting of the American Academy of Political and Social Science in Philadelphia, and the conference on Foreign Relations at Long Beach, May, 1917, held by the New York Academy of Political Science.
During the period of neutrality the tactics adopted and pursued by the Bohemian National Alliance are perhaps best illustrated by the manifesto of this organization in 1916, in which it was declared that neutrality will be observed in letter and spirit, and that within the limits imposed by American neutrality the Czechs of America were simply seeking to lay before the American public the merits of the Czechoslovak cause. It was this manifesto (1916) , addressed to President Wilson, which attracted so much attention and even editorial comment, because of the statement that the Czechs are not hyphenated citizens, but American citizens of Czech origin.
When the United States declared war, the bars were down and Czechoslovak propaganda gained proportionately in force and volume. The first step was the establishment of a press office, called the Slav Press Bureau, in New York City, in the Tribune Building, brought about by the Bohemian National Alliance and the Slovak League of America. And here it may be parenthetically remarked that the names “Czech” and “Czechoslovak” became current only toward the end of the war, and that the Slovak League, founded even before the war to aid in the struggle against Magyarization in Hungary, loyally co-operated with the Czechs and furnished conclusive evidence that Czechs and Slovaks sought not only liberty, but unity as well.
The methods adopted by the Slav Press Bureau are an illustration of the simplicity of propaganda when presenting a legitimate and appealing cause, and call for a few words concerning their nature.
Naturally enough, the first thing the director did upon taking charge of the office was the purchase of a newspaper directory (Ayer’s ). From this directory a selection was made of five hundred of the most important American publications, monthlies, weeklies, and dailies. In the determination of the importance of these publications various factors were considered. Established magazines were included as a matter of course. Other publications were selected because of the strategic location of the place of publication. Still others, because ably edited, they could boast of a national reptuation. These were such papers as William Allen White’s Emporia Gazette, The Topeka Capital, New Orleans Picayune, The Seattle Post Intelligencer, etc. To these publications were sent two or three times a week, as need appeared, what were called bulletins, mimeographed. These were articles of an anti-German and anti-Austrian nature, reports of conditions among Czechs and Slovaks, of their struggle for independence, formation of their legions, historical surveys of the treatment of Czechs by the Germans and the dynasty in Austria, of the Slovaks by Magyars, etc., etc.
Almost the first of these articles attracted some attention. There had been called in New York, in May, 1917, what was called the Emergency Peace Conference, by a pacifist group. The director of the bureau received an invitation to participate in the conference and responded in a letter declining to do so and describing the general Czech position, as well as taking the attitude that the preponderance of right was on the Allied side. It was in this letter that the expression appeared that war for democracy, or at least in advance of democracy, is preferable to the peace of a graveyard. The phrase caught the imagination of some editors. Thus the New York Globe published the document verbatim , as did the Milwaukee Journal. Because of this, and because it furnishes an illustration of war-time political methods and views of certain organizations, this letter appears in the Appendix as it was given to the press.
To the propagandist the publication of the first document of importance was good fortune indeed. But those in charge did not expect, and could not expect, that in the very beginning all their material would be widely reprinted, and were thankful if the clipping bureaus could prove that even some of the smaller country journals made use of this or that bulletin. Also, it was believed that even if a large number of the bulletins did not actually appear in print, the constant hammering of editors would inevitably do some good, and that at least it should bring sound and truthful information to the editorial sanctums of America. This theory was strikingly substantiated when one of the leading editors of New York, then in charge of an important and respected weekly, informed the director that he always carefully read whatever was sent and filed it for future reference. William Hard, in an article in the Metropolitan Magazine for January, 1920, said that he found the bulletins very useful. For the sake of further illustration of war-time methods, some of the bulletins of the Slav Press Bureau, in addition to the one containing the letter to the Emergency Peace Conference, are reprinted in the Appendix.
A confirmation of a different kind as to the usefulness of the work of the Bureau came from one of the liberal journals of New York which for a period was decidedly pro-Austrian, in that it advocated the preservation of Austria-Hungary, though in a federated form. At one time this journal was pressed so hard, particularly with reference to its misunderstanding of the principle of nationality, that on more than one occasion it deprecated the “powerful Czech propaganda,” and at least once declared that an expression of dissent from Czech aims immediately subjects one to the risk of being snowed under by numerous Czech pamphlets. When this journal, upon the occasion of Dr. Masaryk’s visit to America, came out for the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary, its change of front was of course quite gratifying to the Czech exponents in America.
As time went on, and almost sooner than could be hoped for, many papers frequently made use of the Bureau’s stories, to speak in journalistic parlance, sometimes giving the Bureau credit, at other times refraining from doing so. This matter of credit was immaterial; indeed, publication without such credit was preferred, since it avoided the appearance of propaganda, a word which by that time had become rather discredited owing to unsavory German methods. The writer recalls distinctly how a small western daily would occasionally make use of the bulletins in editorial form, as its own material. The truth of the facts registered in these bulletins was never challenged even by those hostile to the work.
Toward the end the offices of the Bureau became much more than a press office and developed into a political center, particularly of the representatives of the smaller nationalities. More than one conference was held there and more than one resulted in concerted important action. Thus, when in 1918 a conference of small nationalities was called in New York, and it became evident that it would be made use of as anti-Ally propaganda, the Slavic representatives met in the offices of the Bureau, joined by the spokesmen of Armenians and others, and there formulated their declaration, declining to participate and resulting in making the conference abortive. In fact, the Czechoslovak movement became the axis around which movements of other nationalities revolved.
The intense political activity of the Czechoslovaks in America is further well illustrated by the fact that they could, and did, bring their cause effectively to the attention of the Vatican, realizing its international importance. The National Alliance of Bohemian Catholics was the organization of the Czechs of that denomination, and while, for purposes of political activity, it formed a part of what the American public came to know as the Bohemian National Alliance of America, so that there could be no question as to the solidarity of the Czech movement, it yet lived an active life of its own. On November 18, 1917, this body addressed to the Holy Father a memorandum in Latin, eloquently worded, setting forth before the head of the Roman Catholic Church the plight of the Czechoslovaks, and asking for a sympathetic consideration of the Czechoslovak problem and for prayers for a revival of the ancient liberties of their nation. The receipt of the memorandum, forwarded by the Apostolic Delegate in Washington, was acknowledged through the same office by a letter dated February 21, 1918, in which the Apostolic Delegate, acting upon orders of the papal Secretary of State, assured the petitioners that the welfare of Bohemia was dear to the heart of the Holy Father, who accorded the Catholic Czechs of America his Apostolic benediction. (Sindelár, Z Boje Za Svobodu Octiny, pp. 76–78.)
All this was done under the leadership and management of Czechs and Slovaks who had long been residents of this country. The Czechoslovak National Council, with offices in Paris, was nominally the head of the movement all over the world and was always so referred to, but as a matter of fact, owing to distance and differing conditions that could not be known and much less grasped by those living in a purely European environment, the Council was rather a symbol than a directing institution; a statement not in disparagement of its importance, which was great, but as a matter of simple historical truth and justice to thousands of Americans of Czech and Slovak origin, who, unlauded and unsung, have yet contributed much to the liberation of their native land.