Current Topics.
WHAT THE BOHEMIAN NATIONAL ALLIANCE IS DOING.
The war which has made great gaps in every business organization and almost every family has also reached into the ranks of the active workers of the Alliance. Dr. L. J. Fisher, who has been president of the organization since its foundation, is in France doing medical work for the Czechoslovak army. His place is taken by the first vice-president of the Alliance, Dr. Joseph P. Pecival. The best known worker in the East, Mr. Emanual V. Voska, is now an officer in the American army.
After the Fourth of July which was celebrated with extreme enthusiasm in every town in this broad land in which there is a branch of the Alliance or the Slovak League came the French National holiday. There is no other land for which the Bohemians and Slovaks feel so much affection as for the brave France, which gave its hospitality to the Czechoslovak National Council, organized the Czechoslovak Army| and was the first of the Allied Powers to recognize the Czechoslovak National Council as the supreme representative of its people. And so on the Fourteenth of July hundreds of telegrams rached the French Embassy in Washington from all parts of this counntry congratulating France on her holiday and assuring her of the gratitude of all the sons of Bohemia.
The Bohemian National Alliance still sustains the chief burden of supporting financially the Czechoslovak National Council. The figures of the Secretary of the Alliance showing the state of affairs for this year have considerable interest. The amount expeected to be raised in 1918 was apportioned last year among the various districts of the Alliance. After six months it appears that the New England district has paid up 94% of its apportionment, next comes Oklahoma with 55%, San Francisco 51%, Omaha 50.50%, Canada 47%, Chicago 47%, St. Louis 40.50%, Cleveland 34.50%, Detroit 32%, Milwaukee 27.50%, Texas 26%, Pittsburgh 23.43%, Cedar Rapids 12.55%. The total for the six months lacks somewhat of one-half of the assessment, but there is no doubt that the full amount will be raised before the end of the year.
PROFESSOR MASARYK IN BALTIMORE.
Baltimore is one of the cities which contain a considerable number of the Czechoslovak people, who were naturally eager to see and hear the great leader of the race. Although Professor Masaryk is unable to accept the many invitations to speak, coming from various cities and societies, he did not wish to disappoint his countrymen in Baltimore.
The Baltimore meeting was held under the auspices of the War Saving Stamps Committee in the Lyric, the largest theatre in Baltimore. The Bohemians and Slovaks of the city turned out in full numbers, marching from Northeastern Baltimore to the Union Station to receive the guest as he descended from the Washington train. The meeting was presided over by Ex-Governor Goldsborough. Professor Masaryk spoke both in English and Bohemian, discussing the problems of small nations and the situation of the Czechoslovak soldiers in Russia. After his speech an effort was made to have everyone of the audience pledge a certain amount for the War Saving Stamps; the total pledge of the meeting was $67,000.00, and the leaders promised to bring it up to $100,000.00.
After the mass meeting a dinner was given by the Baltimore colony to Professor Masaryk and the Washington guests in the Belvedere. Masaryk spoke again briefly and short addresses were also made by a number of the guests and leading Baltimoreans.
While in size the Baltimore reception would not equal the wonderful reception extended to Professor Masaryk in Chicago, New York and Cleveland, there was the same high enthusiasm and the same unanimity in Baltimore, as in the other cities.
REKINDLED FIRES[1]
By Joseph Anthony
A book dealing with the life of Bohemians in America is a rare event. There are few of them in the Bohemian language and none at all in English, and one picks up with a great deal of interest a novel which its publishers say deals with a Bohemian-American community. Mr. Anthony’s book is summarized by the publishers as follows:
“This is the story of how Stanislav Zabransky became Stanley Zabriskie; of his family who came from Bohemia, and of the colorful life of the Bohemian-American community on the edge of the Jersey meadows where the Zabranskys lived. Michael Zabransky, father of the family, is the social and political dictator of his community and a czar in his own home. His other children disappoint him, and Stanislav becomes his hope, the apple of his eye. In the relation that grows up between them, idealism is rekindled in the son, and Stanley, product of Old World and New is born in the flame. There are humor, broad humanity and romance in the telling of this novel of youth and Americanization and of Old World ideals rekindled on new hearths.”
We do not know anything of the author, except that his picture shows him to be very young. If he is not himself the son of a Bohemian immigrant, it is hard to explain where he got his wonderful insight into the life of the Czech cigar makers in the New Jersey town. To one who has lived among these people, his figures and the atmosphere appear to be truthful and accurate. He has emphasized the two outstanding characteristics in the life of the Bohemian immigrants in the United States: the hostility to the Germans which they brought with
- ↑ Henry Holt & Co.
