The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 2/Ignorance in seats of learning

IGNORANCE IN SEATS OF LEARNING.

Bohemians are not easily offended at exhibitions of ignorance concerning their people and their home land. That is the fate of all small nations, especially when they are subject to the rule of foreigner. But no excuse can be found for the wanton, outrage upon their feelings and upon their loyalty to America and the cause of the Allies, committed recently by the College of the City of New York.

This college is presumably an institution of learning. It is, we believe, the largest municipal college in the world. One would imagine that its faculty and its trustees would know from elementary geography that Prague is the capital of Bohemia, that its university is the oldest in Central Europe and that it is a Czech school, though to be sure there is a small German university in Prague artificially kept alive by the Germanizing policy of the Austrian government. They might also be expected to know that Cracow is the ancient capital of Poland, and even though it has come under the Hapsburg rule, it is still a Polish city and its old university is a Polish university. One would think also that teachers and trustees of a great school would know more of the great war than the bare fact that Germany and Austria are enemies of the United States. They might have known, if they read the daily papers, that the Czechs of Bohemia are the bitterest enemies of German tyranny, that they have rendered extremely valuable services to the cause of the Allies, that they are entitled to the chief credit for the sorry role which Austria has played in the present war, that there is one Czechoslovak army| in Russia and another in France fighting on the same side as the United States.

At any rate only ignorance can explain the action of the College of New York in ordering the removal of the banners of the universities of Berlin, Heidelberg, Prague and Cracow from the rafters of the great hall of the college. To couple Berlin and Prague, Heidelberg and Cracow as four of a kind! It would be as logical to remove the banner of Sorbonne as the standard of the Czech university, for surely not even the Paris professors desire more ardently the success of the Allied arms than the professors of Prague.

That so much ignorance about Bohemia should still prevail in this country, even among the teach ers of America, is a great disapointment to all Bohemians. They believed that no intelligent American confounded them any longer with Austrians, that the noble fight of their people was known to all the world. And this is not the only incident of the kind. Joseph Stránský, director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra is a Bohemian and has never given himself out for anything else. But agitation was started, nevertheless, to force his resignation on the ground that he is a subject of an enemy country. Fortunately he had to be given an opportunity to defend himself and was able to confound the mischievious “patriots” whose zeal is only exceeded by their ignorance.

Perhaps the policy of our government is to some extent responsible for these glaring instances of injustice to the Bohemians. Other Allied countries took the stand that hostility may be looked for or suspected from the four ruling races of the German Alliance, the Germans, Magyars, Bulgars and the Turks, but that a member of one of the subject races of Mitteleuropa is no more likely to sympa thize with Germany than an Englisman or a Frenchman. In Canada, for instance, to take the country with which we have most in common, an Austrian subject is prima facie an enemy; but if he is of the Czech race, then the presumption is that he is a friendly alien and restrictions imposed on alien enemies do not apply to him. Our government has taken the position that German subjects are danger ous, while Austro-Hungarians are not. This simplifies the task of the Department of Justice, but it is not a logical stand. As the New York Tribune says:

“No sound distiction can be drawn between the enemy feeling of the German and the enemy feeling of the Austrian and the Hungarian, if members of the oppressed races in Austria and Hungary are left out of consideration These disaffected Austrian and Hungarian subjects—the Czechs, Roumanians, Poles, Ruthenians, Slovaks, Italians and Slovenes—deserve special treatment. They ought to be segregated from the enemy alien class. But prudence requires that the same rule should be applied to all others of Emperor Karl’s subjects as is applied to the subjects of the German Kaiser.”

If our government will officially take the stand that the Bohemians are a friendly people, and President Wilson and his men know quite well that it is so, it will do no more than justice to her citizens and residents of the Bohemian blood. And what is more important such recognition will encourage and hearten the Czechoslovak people in their rebellion against German-Magyar rule.