The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 1/Countries with Ideals
Countries with Ideals.[1]
By Rev. Joseph Křenek, Silver Lake, Minn.
Being a minister, I cannot begin my talk without a biblical allusion, one which it seems to me, brings out splendidly the character of the American participation in the great war. It was on Good Friday that the Son of Man, the greatest liberator of mankind, fought in the darkness of Calvary for the freedom of humanity. And on Good Friday of this year of our Lord 1917, our beloved country reached the Calvary of this gigantic world anguish. Our decision, born in pain and free from all the thought of national selfishness, carries us into the footsteps of the Great Redeemer. We are persuaded that our share in the terrible tragedy will prove to be an honest service and magnanimous sacrifice upon the altar of humanity’s freedom.
The entrance of America into the war will be put down by future historians as the real turning point in the course of this seemingly endless slaughter. We have given the war a new significance; or, at least, we have made its real object clear. For now the whole world sees that the great war is fundamentally a struggle of democracy against autocracy. The lofty sentiments and noble diction of our President have swept away from the minds of neutrals all German-made sophistry. And when the character of the fight has thus been revealed, it becomes also plain that the peace for which we must fight can be secured and guaranteed only, when all nations, great and small, are made free.
In his proclamation of April 15, the President calls us to a single-minded service to our country. He says: “We must all speak, act and serve together.” Now I want to suggest to you that one of the things upon which we must all get together is the liberation of the small nations and races of Europe from bondage to German kings and emperors. Make the small nations free, and despotism will be abolished, for usually it thrives on small, helpless nations. And the one nation which must be the very cornerstone of the future European structure and which lies closest to my heart, is that brave, beautiful, but tragical land of Bohemia.
Free Bohemia is essential to the realization of the great liberative purposes of this war. We shudder today at the very thought of barbarism and ruthlessness through which the conquering ambitions of Germany and Austria are sought to be realized. But we do not acknowledge the great service which the small nations of Central Europe, and of Austria in particular, have rendered to the cause of humanity in the past. Politically, they were enslaved, but national consciousness was alive in them, and they never ceased to hope for their liberation. Their steady, determined opposition militated against the imperialistic designs of the Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns. The Bohemian nation, since the dawn of its history, stood as a rock in the stormy sea upon which the waves of Teutonism broke in vain. Small in number, yet with an immortal national soul, Bohemia always stood in opposition to that damnable despotism which is at the bottom of the present catastrophe.
Now imagine the war ended and Bohemia left under the Hapsburgs. The German rulers of the Czechs know full well that the heart of Bohemia has been unconditionally, and from the very beginning, on the side which has now been joined by the United States. The vengeance of Austria would be terrible. What was done in Belgium and Serbia would be exceeded in Bohemia. The whole nation would be exterminated, and the destruction of this last dam to German aggression in the center of Europe would make the dream of a militaristic, domineering Mittel Europa a reality.
Free Bohemia is not merely an essential postulate of a lasting peace. It ought to be free, because it deserves freedom. Bohemia was an independent kingdom until 1526, when the pressure of the Turks induced the estates to elect a Hapsburg prince for their king. Under this dynasty the Czechs lost their independence. And do you know why? Because the Bohemian nation was the first among the nations of Continental Europe that lifted up the torch of liberty, both of body and soul. Bohemians were the people that championed true democracy since the dawn of the fifteenth century. These ideals of freedom came into collision with the German government of the Hapsburgs, for this sinister dynasty has always been characterized by a blind hatred of every symptom of freedom and democracy. One of the Bohemian literary men put recently this question: What is the big difference between the Germans and the Bohemians? And his answer was this: The Germans lost their religion for the sake of their nation: the Bohemians lost their nation for the sake of their religion. In other words, Bohemia lost its independence because it valued above all else, ideals. And today America is staking its all in the dangerous game of war because it, too, believes in ideals.
Is there any wonder that the eyes of all those to whom Bohemia is dear look up to America as the country which ought to be the chief champion of Bohemian independence?
- ↑ Address delivered in Omaha, April 30, 1917.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1949, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 74 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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