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5418478_2_1218.xml
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<title>
<bibl><title>Denní Hlasatel</title>,
<date when="1915-09-07">Sept. 7, 1915</date>.
<title level="a">Austrian Ambassador Insults Bohemian Workingmen</title><title level="a" type="sub">Tells Washington that Workers of Bohemia, Moravia, Galicia, Croatia, and Slavonia Are Uneducated, while German workers Belong to Educated classes</title></bibl>
</title>
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<publicationStmt>
<publisher>The Newberry Library</publisher>
<pubPlace>Chicago, Illinois</pubPlace>
<address>
<addrLine>60 West Walton</addrLine>
<addrLine>Chicago, IL 60610</addrLine>
<addrLine>USA</addrLine>
<addrLine>http://www.newberry.org</addrLine>
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<idno>5418478_2_1218</idno>
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<notesStmt>
<note>Transcribed from digital images contributed to the Internet
Archive by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.</note>
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<bibl><title>Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey</title>, <date>1936-1941</date>,
<sponsor>Works Projects Administration</sponsor>,
<sponsor>Chicago Public Library Omnibus Project</sponsor></bibl>
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<title>Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey [microform]</title>
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<item>BOHEMIAN</item>
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<div type="citation">
<bibl><title>Denni Hlasatel</title>,
<date when="1915-09-07">Sept. 7, 1915</date>.
<title level="a">AUSTRIAN AMBASSADOR INSULTS BOHEMIAN WORKINGMEN</title><title level="a" type="sub">Tells Washington that Workers of Bohemia, Moravia, Galicia, Croatia, and Slavonia Are Uneducated, while German workers Belong to Educated classes</title></bibl>
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<body>
<p>The present Austro-Hungarian Empire, whose future destiny is just as obscure and dark as is its past, is still overwhelmingly Slavic. Fully sixty-two per cent of its population are Slavs; they pay three fourths of all taxes and other revenues from which, among others, the Austrian Ambassador in Washington, Dr. Dumba, of ill repute receives his pay.</p>
<p>It would seem that mere courtesy, or at least simple decency, would make Dr. Dumba give consideration to that circumstance when in a country where a considerable number of citizens of Bohemian and other Slavic origin hold important public offices, and that he would govern himself accordingly in his public utterances. But there can be no talk about decency where an <pb facs="5418478_2_1219.jpg" n="2"/>insatiable hatred of everything Bohemian and Slavic prevails, where that hatred has taken possession of a man's mentality and has lowered him beneath the lowest level approachable by an intelligent person in his dealings with his most dispised enemy. Dr. Dumba has spoken in public several times during this war, and always in the same manner--a manner which has shown that as far as brazenness goes, he exceeds even Count Bernstorff. But it has also shown how little understanding of the inner political life of the nations of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, how little tact, and how little general intelligence, is sufficient for a man who is to become Austrian Ambassador in such an important city as Washington is these days. All he needs is some little ability to degrade by false, derogatory statements--Dr. Dumba's most recent exploit in this respect concerning the Bohemian and Slavic element was made in a most silly ridiculous way--and cheekiness in relying on American ignorance of conditions in our old country. Nothing more is necessary to represent a country which likes to believe it is a great power and which, together with Germany, its master, would dominate the whole world.</p>
<pb facs="5418478_2_1220.jpg" n="3"/>
<p>Dr. Dumba is an Austro-Hungarian pay-roller, whose duty it is to protect the interests of his country's subjects in America. This protection, which, in Dr. Dumba's case, is of rather doubtful character, is being paid for mostly by the most productive country of Austria-Hungary, Bohemia, "the Pearl of the Empire". But Dr. Dumba works emphatically against a full half of the Empire's population. The caddishness of shamelessly accepting with one hand money from somebody whom the other hand slaps in the face is not far from pathological. It is just a distinguishing mark of Dr. Dumba's character and intellectual make-up that he, during a sojourn in America which is probably longer than even the true Austro-Hungarians would like it to be, has not found an opportunity to learn that a true American gentleman simply would not accept pay from anybody for whom he felt such a strong and ill-concealed hatred as Dumba has for his Slavic opponents who foot more than one half of his bills in Washington. An American gentleman would have resigned long ago and gone whither his heart attracted him. Mr. Dumba who represents here an empire whose fate will be decided neither in Berlin nor by Vienna, but by the sixty-two per cent. of its population, has been guilty of a--mildly expressed--maladroitness in his <pb facs="5418478_2_1221.jpg" n="4"/>interview with pressmen, which alone should suffice to furnish Vienna with proof that the important office he holds has been put into the hands of someone who can do it justice neither in these critical times nor in those which will come in the near future. What he is saying and doing is diametrically opposed to Austria's own interests. Of course, we are far from trying to defend Austria, but it should not be necessary, really, to demonstrate so publicly the idiocy, clumsiness, and intellectual inferiority of Austrian bureaucrats as is being done by Dr. Dumba. How much intelligence, how much statesmanship, how much diplomatic acumen does it take to state that the Bohemian workingmen from Bohemia and Moravia are unintelligent, illiterate, do not know enough to form for themselves an opinion about conditions in the old country? is it necessary to try to prove in these days that Bohemian workingmen are the most intelligent and most mentally mature not only of all workingmen in Austria but also of all those who have immigrated to this country? Mr. Dumba may rest assured that our people know how to form a much better, much healthier opinion about the events in the old country and their own duties here than he himself can form about their actions and their motives for <pb facs="5418478_2_1222.jpg" n="5"/>those actions. We are certain that history will prove that the Bohemians, Bohemian workingmen, in America had a much better conception of conditions in disintegrating Austria, the seat of moral and intellectual prostitution, than Mr. Dumba with all his diplomatic acumen.</p>
<p>Mr. Dumba's activities are most useful--to those who think of Austria as we do. At the beginning of the war he kept quiet, as quiet as a mouse. When this was criticized, he blossomed out with an article about Austria's situation which was published in the North American Review. At that time, independent critics were correct in maintaining that Mr. Dumba would have helped his cause much more if he had continued keeping quiet. His article was considered the weakest of all articles on the war published in this country since the war began. What interested us most in that article was Dr. Dumba's insult to our Sokols, whom he accused, without giving any evidence, of promoting a Pan-Slavistic movement whose center is in Prague. Thus he talked--the representative or the Austrian Government--in the first stages of the war, at a time when the same government was recruiting our best <pb facs="5418478_2_1223.jpg" n="6"/>[Bohemian] men to be slaughtered on the battlefields, when 89,000 of its best soldiers were Sokols, when the Sokols were taking care of thousands of crippled and wounded returning from the battle, and were doing so with much more ability and devotion than any members of the Turnverein (German gymnastic association) ever could.</p>
<p>However, Mr. Dumba keeps on insulting us. He works up enough cheekiness to state that our workingmen are unintelligent, they do not know how to read and write, and therefore cannot form any opinion as to what is going on in the old country, for which reason they keep on working in industries manufacturing arms and ammunition for the enemy. How much scorn and haughty disdain, an awakened, enlightened workingman will find in Dumba's contention that the German workingmen read, discuss what they read about various events, and therefore can be reasoned with! There is no reasoning with the Bohemians. To them you must give promises! (Bigger wages, better, easier jobs). And threats! (Giving the names of those who are in war industries to the Austrian government and making them fear possible retaliation). There are only a few <pb facs="5418478_2_1224.jpg" n="7"/>hundred German workingmen employed in arms industries, but many thousands of Slavs. These have to be handled quite differently from the Germans."The workingmen from Bohemia, Moravia, Galicia, Dalmatis, Croatia, and Slavonia are uneducated, while German workingmen in almost any kind of industry belong to the educated classes," said Dumba to the American newsmen, hoping that their articles would spread throughout American in a few hours, debasing the Bohemian workingman, making him the laughingstock of the whole country, picturing him as a man who does not know how to read and write, who does not know how and what to think! It makes no difference that the percentage of German illiterates is, according to the statistics of the United States Bureau of Immigration, larger than the percentage of the almost nonexistent illiterate Bohemians. All that matters is the fact that Dumba's diplomatic outpourings will spread throughout the United States, and stung to the quick enlightened Bohemian workingmen from the Atlantic to the Pacific.....</p>
<p>We should overlook Dumba's arrogance if he were just Dumba, a man who, like an <pb facs="5418478_2_1225.jpg" n="8"/>Eskimo, has never had an opportunity to learn anything about the Bohemians--the economic, cultural, and intellectual level of their nation, which is appreciated by men of much greater names than Dumba, even if they are not, fortunately, Austrian Ambassadors in Washington. But Dr. Dumba talks here in his official capacity, as a representative of a government for which thousands of our workingmen die daily on the battlefields. Therefore we consider it our duty to refute most emphatically Dr. Dumba's deprecating statement about the ignorance, and therefore smaller worth, of our workingmen, and return it whence it came. We also condemn most emphatically the practice of denunciation in which the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador in Washington indulges, reporting the names of workingmen who honestly support their families and frequently send money to friends at home who are daily being brought into a worse state of wretchedness by the Austrian government, to government spies who, thought unable to do real harm, deprive the relatives of the last vestiges of peace and calm. The purpose of the activities of this Ambassador is to cause loss of employment and misery to hundreds of families in these difficult times. it is imperative, therefore, that his activities be stopped. The United States <pb facs="5418478_2_1226.jpg" n="9"/>is not Austria-Hungary, where the well-being of thousands of families may depend on the whim of an official. Our enlightened workingmen have come to this country in order to be rid of the oppression of the Austrian government and to find an opportunity to earn an honest living. This opportunity was not afforded them by the corrupt Vienna government, whose specific ambition it was to deprive all Slavic countries, especially, however, Bohemia, of all sources of employment and the resulting prosperity, with the effect that the best and healthiest of our people had to emigrate and find their bread in this country. It is absolutely intolerable that a representative of that same government should be permitted to interfere here also with their lives, to deprive them of work, and cause misery to their families.</p>
<p>Dumba has insulted not only American citizens of Bohemian origin, but also those who have recently migrated from Bohemia to this country. There is danger that his words may be given credence by American employers and politicians. The result of this might be that the work of our men would be considered of lesser value, and consequently might be less well paid, than the work of a <pb facs="5418478_2_1227.jpg" n="10"/>German workman. It would be easy for an employer to refer to the opinion of such an Ambassador concerning the inferiority of the Bohemian workingman as compared with the German, and to try to lower the Bohemian's wages.</p>
<p>Statements of this kind made by a man of apparent authority, the title to which we rightly refuse to recognize, but which would not be too closely scrutinized by those whom such statements of inferiority of the immigrant element are welcome, might be used in support of their efforts for legislation aiming against immigration.</p>
<p>These are the circumstances that cause us to deal with Mr. Dumba somewhat more in detail at this time, and to assert that we not only find his insults most provoking and condemnable, but believe that they go so far as to cause damage to thousands of families making an honest living. For this reason it will become necessary for our representative in Congress, Mr. A. Sabath, the staunch defender of the immigrants' interests, to give <pb facs="5418478_2_1228.jpg" n="11"/>his attention to this matter. It appears to be imperative that energetic steps be taken to call to account the representative of a foreign power and thus safeguard the interests of our workingmen in the proper manner.</p>
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