The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 1/New York papers speak plainly
NEW YORK PAPERS SPEAK PLAINLY.
Amid the scruples of officials and editors who fear to hurt Austria’s sensibilities lest it should declare war upon the United States, it is refreshing to come across the following editorial in the New York Tribune, one of the greatest dailies of America. The latter part of this article which appeared on April 22, is quoted here:
“The question of Austria is the question of the war which must appeal strongly to Americans. It is the question of the right of small peoples and of weaker races to follow their own will, to live under that system of law and to use that language which they desire. The liberation of the subject races of Austria will be one of the greatest of the contributions to permanent peace that is imaginable, because it is inconceivable that there can be a permanent peace as long as twenty-three millions of Austrians and Hungarians are permitted to enslave twenty-seven millions of Slavs and Latins. Now that Germany has conquered Austria, the peril becomes greater, because this vast population organized by Germany and dominated by the German military caste, would be an enduring menace to the liberties of the world.
It is a hopeful sign that Austria should seek peace. It is a hopeful sign that in seeking peace she renounces all projects of annexation. But no such program can enlist the support of an American audience, which must recognize that the war itself will be without any benefit to mankind if it perpetuates a system of human slavery and fortifies a Hapsburg-Hohenzollern tyranny along the Danube. We are marching toward peace. There are signs that are unmistakable, but the long agony of the world war should not blind people to the only method by which a repetition can be escaped. The Serb, the Italian, the Rumanian and the Pole should gain their liberty, and no just peace can be had which does not insure this.”
We are sorry that the Editor in his excellent analysis of the Austrian problem omitted to include expressly the Bohemian people among the races entitled to liberty.
The New York Times again has this to say of the dynasty which alone keeps the provinces and races of Austria-Hungary together, in an article entitled “The Patient Hapsburg” in the issue of April 20th.
“In St. Stephen’s Cathedral Sunday the Emperor Charles, ‘in a loud voice,’ read a prayer which contained this curious religious-historical medley:
In 1909 the patient Hapsburg, by means of documents forged by an employee of the Austro-Hungarian Legation at Belgrade, invented a “conspiracy” of Serbo-Croatians, aided by the Serbian Government, against Austria-Hungary. The truth was exposed in the famous Friedjung trial. It never would have been exposed, divers Croats and Serbs would have been shot, Serbia would have been invaded and gobbled up, if Russia had not yielded to the German ultimatum, which forced Russia to accept the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria and to leave Serbia in the lurch.
In 1913, the patient Hapsburg proposed to make war on Serbia, as was officially stated in the Italian Parliament in 1915.
The patience of the Hapsburg toward Serbia, his long-awaited prey, in 1914 is known to the world.
Even to the Almighty, who knows the truth, the Hapsburg cannot tell it.”