Holan’s place of employment—the imperial, royal provincial criminal court on Charles Place, where almost all the Czech judges and officials read it, from the highest to the clerks and janitors. In revenue offices, post offices, railroads we had our confidential men who circulated the Hlasatel. Many offered subscription money, and Fialka collected from poor fellows who just managed to live on the small salary of an official two or three crowns a month for the support of Czech treasonable activities. Dr. Šámal was the treasurer, and our readers volunteered contributions of their own accord. So many were eager to make some sacrifice for the cause. Today it semes to have been long ago, but it is the most pleasing recollection of my life. There I found the true altruism of the Czech nature.
In the country we had about 70 regular subscribers, so selected that the Hlasatel reached every corner of the country. These men were pledged to pass on the copy or its contents to the general public, and they, succeeded most wonderfully in doing it; most of the copies circulating in the country were re-copied. If anybody asked me for Hlasatel and if the man was half-way trustworthy, I let him have it. Why worry over detection? Besides I relied on my host of friends.
Ordinarily I was not guilty of coloring the news; our people did not have to get their mental food with salad dressing. But once I was guilty of exaggerating. It was before the convocation of the Vienna parliament. Among the Czech deputies there were men who could not inspire confidence, men inclined to compromise, afraid of the outcome. Suppose they let the government get some sort of a statement from them which would bring disagreement into our ranks and make more difficult the task of our leaders in Entente countries? So I inserted in the Hlasatel—which was circulated among the deputies a report from Geneva that it is known there what the Austrian parliament amounts to, and that the names of Czech deputies who can be bought or intimidated by the Austrian government are well known there. Journal de Geneve did bring about that time some thing of this sort, but my report was more definite. And it was successful. No break occurred in the ranks of the Czech elected representatives.
In the summer of 1918 I was surprised to hear that our Hlasatel had no longer a monopoly of subterranean journalism. Friends brought me copies of another Hlasatel, with very sensational reports about the terrible defeats of Germany, the march of the Allies into German territory, etc. These items were claimed to be translations of Dutch reports, but they were falsified. In spite of that they spread like an avalanche and were believed by the public. I never found out who was behind this enterprise, but I was told that even the police president of Prague got this paper regularly.
Our prisoners in the Vienna jails also had their own periodical, and Klofáč told me after his release that they heard of the Hlasatel, though they did not know who wrote it.
Thus our modern Hlasatel served a good purpose, like Nejedlý’s Hlasatel a century ago, like the underground publications of subjugated Belgium and revolutionary Russia, like the secret meetings of Czech Protestants in the days of our downfall. Hlasatel was one of the sources of Czech oposition to Austria. We did what we could, and we did it in a way which has been used in similar cases many times before—oppression fed opposition, until in due time opposition culminated in universal and successful revolution.
The Czechs of Cedar Rapids, Ia. are proud, because they have given a hero to the American army. Ladislav J. Janda, whose father Václav Janda is city street commissioner, has received all kinds of distinctions for his service with Uncle Sam. He was promoted several times, until he became major of the 9th regiment of infantry. The French gave him the croix de guerre with palms, and General Pershing cited him in special orders for extraordinary bravery in Belval Forrest on November 3, 1918, during the American offensive. In addition he is to get a decoration for brave conduct under fire in leading a counter attack at Thiancourt on September 12, 1918.
Major Janda since his demobilization is again attending engineering courses at the Ames State College.
One of the oldest civil war veterans died recently in Cedar Rapids. His name was František Peřina and he was born in Bohemia in 1837. From 1862 to 1865 he served in Company H of the 6th cavalry regiment of Iowa and participated in many battles.
