The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 4/The Čechs (Bohemians ) in America

The Čechs (Bohemians) in America. By Thomas Čapek. Houghton Mifflin Company, publishers. Price $3.00, postpaid $3.15.

 

It is a book for which Bohemians in America have been long waiting; and it could not have been written by anyone else than Čapek, the man who kept his finger on the pulse of Bohemian-American life for thirty nine years and who has already published monographs in English and Bohemian on certain phases of his general subject. Besides Čapek has the additional qualification of conservative judgement and eminently fair temper so necessary to the man who desires to deal justly with the various camps into which Čechs in America are split. The book he gave us will probably satisfy all except a few extremists on either side.

The study is quite exhaustive and must have represented a tremendous amount of preliminary research; there are nearly three hundred pages of reading matter and over one hundred illustrations and photographs. Čapek tells of Augustine Heřman, the first known Bohemian immigrant in the days, when New York was still New Amsterdam, describes the immigration of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, discusses every important character and every interesting movement and ends with an account of the part Čechs in America took in the world war and the liberation of their home country. You will find in this book the biographical data, an estimate of the personality and life work, and probably also the picture, of any man who was talked of in the Bohemian settlements, when you were young, or may have occupied a place of leadership during your father’s younger days. Čapek’s Čechs in America is a complete Who’s Who of Bohemian America.

Looking at the Bohemian record in America, registered in this book, one must admit that while it is respectable it does not furnish any reason for boastfulness. Half a million Čechs have brought forth in half a century no great men; they have made no startling contribution to the civilization of either Bohemia or America. Ant yet they have made good from the point of view of the old country, when they financed the revolutionary campaign which ended in the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic: while from the point of view of the United States, the country is a gainer by the addition of the intelligent, industrious and law-abiding Bohemian immigration.

An American reader who is not personally acquainted with the Čechs and their leading men may find the bok occasionally too rich in names and details; to a Čech reader this only enhances the value of the book. However that may be, any man that finds the Czechoslovak Review interesting will enjoy reading Čapek’s new book.