Page:The heart of Europe; an address delivered by Charles Pergler in Washington, December 11, 1916, at a conference of oppressed or dependent nationalities (IA heartofeuropeadd00pergrich).pdf/18

hemian people are now convinced that they must strike out for themselves. Austria was defeated not only by Russia, but by the little, despised Serbia, and is now a dependency of Germany. To-day Berlin has galvanized this corpse, but it is the last effort. Austria-Hungary has abdicated. We have lost all confidence in its vitality; it has no longer any reason for existence. By its incapacity, by its voluntary subordination to Germany it has convinced the whole world that the former belief in the mission of Austria is out of date, forever overthrown by the European war. Those who defended the usefulness, even the necessity of Austria-Hungary, and at one time the great Bohemian historian and statesman Palacky was one of them, thought of Austria as a federal system of nations and lands with equal rights. But Austria-Hungary as a dualistic monster became the oppressor of all who were not Germans or Magyars. It is a standing threat to the peace of Europe, a mere tool of Germany seeking conquest in the East, a state having no destiny of its own, unable to construct an organic state composed of a number of equal, free, progressive races. The dynasty living in its traditions of absolutism manages to maintain the semblance of the former world power through the undemocratic cooperation of a sterile nobility, a bureaucracy that belongs to no race, and a body of army officers that is against every race.” This is the authoritative expression of the Bohemian position. I have neither the right, nor the desire, to deviate in the smallest degree from the programme so defined. Independence that one word embodies