Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/124
among capitalists and those who are their wiling and blind instruments, whether they sit in the seats of legislative assemblies, or at editorial desks or stand in pulpits. Everyone must own that the conscienceless profiteer cannot be a good American, for he is a bad man. To us a good man and a good American, have come to be a synonymous conception. When everyone who has in his heart a desire for the welfare of this land, will work to bring about these conceptions, then, Americanization will be accomplished rapidly to the satisfaction and joy of all good people regardless of what origin.”
The attempt to distract attention from the real point in the industrial issue by confounding it with the problem of the foreigner and making it appear he is the disturbing element is a trick perceived early in the game by others as well as socialist publications. The St. Louiské Listy published at St. Louis, Mo., in an editorial entitled “What Do We Mean by Americanism”, after statistically proving that the majority of leaders in the strikes are fullblooded native born Americans, asserts that “hardly had the foreign born element become accustomed to American standards and demanded better pay and better living conditions, when the employers imported a new supply of foreigners who were not yet Americanized”. In the recent steel strike, the Steel Company imported negroes, Greeks and Mexicans who were willing to work under conditions which the strikers regarded as intolerable. . . . . We naturally desire to have every citizen of this land sympathize with American ideals, but we do not see how American ideals can be separated from American standards of living. And if the immigrant population is to accept American institutions, it must unquestionably be given a wage making it possible for them to live like American citizens. . . . . . . . As far as we are concerned if ‘Americanism’ signifies anything, it should signify justice, freedom and genuine liberty. We advocate with all our strength the “Americanization” of our foreignborn population by educational methods and protective methods and protective legislation, but we doubt that anyone will be convinced he is in “the land of the free and the home of the brave”, when he is denied the right of vote or that he is justly dealt with, when a wage commensurate with decent living is denied him. Americanism based on the Declaration of Independence in the American constitution will find a response in every intelligent and faithful citizen and there will be no difficulty whatever with the immigrant, when the American standard of living will go hand in hand with the American form of just, lawful government. But the word “Americanization” must not be used to conceal tyranny, militarism and industrial persecution. Americanization is in truth necessary in this land but it is the selfish plutocratic class that needs it most.”
The excellent schooling facilities in Bohemia which are justly a cause for pride to the Czechs have given the members of that group unusual oportunities for social fourteen years of age who knocked at our expansion. Among the immigrants over gates, in the last score of years, the Czechs have an average of only a small fraction over one per cent illiterates as against the Germans with about six per cent of illiterates, Magyars and North Italians with twelve per cent.
Since 1899 or in the last 20 years, 141,669 Czechs and 480,286 Slovaks have immigrated to America. The majority of the Czechs belong to the older and settled immigrants, for they go chiefly to the agricultural states. They have become citizens, bear their burden of the responsibilities of the communities where they live equally with the native born. Admiration for the free institutions of this government have ever characterized them and because they are inveterate readers and active in community work they have kept abreast of the spirit of the times. But they cannot understand why, after being Americans, for a generation or more, they are now to be “Americanized.”
The Relief department of the Czechoslovak National Council, with offices in New York, was closed in February. Balance of funds on hand were to be used for the purchase of American Relief Administration food drafts for the Czechoslovak Red Cross.
The total circulation of paper money in the Czechoslovak Republic on January 9 was 4,854,000.000 crowns, that is about 340 crowns per unit of population. That would be $68 per head on the basis of normal rate of exchange, about the same as in the United States; measured by the present depreciated value of crown, circulation per head would be less than $4.00. It cannot be said that the Czechoslovak Republic owes its economic ills to inflated currency.