Augustine Herrman
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AUGUSTINE HERRMAN The first known Cech immigrant in America THE CECHS (BOHEMIANS) IN AMERICA A Study of their National, Cultural Political, Social, Economic AND Religious Life By THOMAS CAPEK AUTHOR OF BOHEMIAN (cECh) BIBLIOGRAPHY, ETC. Illustrated BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY ^t)s HiibcriBiDe jprejij* CambritJ0e 1920 INTRODUCTORY THE subject of Germanic immigration has been treated in all its aspects, in German and in English alike. Literature relating to the settling of the Scandinavians, notably Swedes, is considera- ble. The achievements of the Irish, the English, and the Dutch have been recorded in detail by numer- ous writers. That the story of Spanish colonization is adequately described goes without saying, for the Spaniards, like the Dutch, the English, and in a lesser degree the French, were history-makers on a large scale. The large influx of Jews to the United States within the last three decades has stimulated scholars of the Hebrew race to study more inten- sively than ever before their past here. What has been written on the theme of Cech im- migration? In English very little. Emily Greene Balch's volume. Our Slavic Fellow Citizens, dis- cusses not Cechs alone, but all the Slavs; besides, Miss Balch devotes the greater portion of her book to the consideration of her favorite subject, econ- omy. My volume aims to throw light, not only on the economic condition of the Cech immigrant, but on his national, historic, religious, cultural, and social state as well. Considerable has, of course, been written, here and abroad, on the various phases of what the INTRODUCTORY Cechs loosely call their "national life" in America, although a full, connected story of the transatlantic branch of the race is still unwritten even in the national tongue. In 1908 the St. Louis Hlas published the Dljiny Cechuv Americkych (History of the Cechs in Amer- vol- ica), by Dr. John Habenicht of Chicago. The fall within ume is not sufficiently dispassionate to the more rigid definition of historical writing. It is frankly propagandist literature and ardently partisan. In compiling this work I have made generous use of the memoirs of pioneers in the Almanac Ameri- kdn. Useful data are stored in the Pamdtniky (Me- morials) which various lodges publish from time to time to commemorate some noted event in their existence. Old newspaper files have yielded abun- dant, if not always authoritative, information. I have had access to the files of the Slavie, Dennice Novoveku, Pokrok Zdpadu, Delnik Americky, New Yorske Listy, and other papers. Of the greatest help to me were notes which I had collected for my work, Padesdt Let Ceskeho Tisku v Americe (Fifty Years of Bohemian Letters in America, published in 191 1). This volume contains a complete list of books, brochures, and newspapers beginning with January i, i860, the day and year the first Cech language paper made its appearance on this con- tinent. To Mr. Milos Lier, of the University of Prague, I am indebted for valuable material which vi INTRODUCTORY he extracted from the files of Prague papers bearing on emigration between the years 1848-60. Statistics are not always dependable. In five or ten years the figures here quoted will be out of date. America, which still feels the growing pains of national adolescence, has a way of confounding the statistician. When I finger the pages of Dr. John Palacky's book, Spojene Stdty Severoamericke (United States of North America), I can hardly realize that the mass of figures contained in that volume relate to the land in which I live — so un- like is the America of 191 9 and Palacky's America of 1876. I do not describe Cech America as a tourist who passes hurriedly through a foreign country and records the impressions of the moment; I write as a close relative, a member of the family, who for thirty-nine years has lived uninterruptedly in Cech America or very close to its border. I know it in its holiday attire and in its working clothes. I know its faults, which are many, and its virtues, which, I like to think, outweigh them. A residence of seven years in Omaha, spent partly in a newspaper office, partly in a law office, gave me a rare opportunity to observe at close range the evolution of the virile settler of the Middle West, while life in large cities (in New York since 1894) has brought me in direct and daily contact with the men and women who live in those queer but cozy corners of America called, somewhat patronizingly, ** foreign quarters." vii INTRODUCTORY The Cechs sent to America not adventurers, but bona-fide settlers almost synchronously with the Dutch and earlier than the Swedes. Driven from their native land in the first half of the seventeenth century, Cech Protestant exiles are known to have settled in New Amsterdam, the present New York, and among the English in Virginia. The real Cech immigration, however, dates from 1848, the year of revolutionary changes in Austria, and it is of that immigration that the volume. The Cechs {Bohemi- ans) in America, chiefly treats. Most of the men and women who have taken a leading part in the affairs of American Cechs I have known personally, many of them intimately. My list of friends and acquaintances has included Charles Jona§, F. B. Zdrubek, L. J. Palda, John Rosicky, Barto§ Bittner, Josephine Humpal- Zeman, Frances Gregor, Vojta Ma§ek, John Bo- recky, John Karel, Paul Albieri, Edward Rosewater, Frank Skarda, John A. Oliverius, Vdclav Snajdr. Of these Vaclav Snajdr is the only one now living. I exchanged letters with Joseph Pastor and corre- sponded with the widow of Frank Mr^cek, latterly a resident of Odessa, Russia, and with the widow of Vojta N^prstek. I never had the good fortune to meet Ladimir Klacel, but heard sufilicient concern- ing that unhappy philosopher from my brother to enable me to form a fairly accurate picture of the purely human side of the man. The younger men and women who now stand at the helm of affairs viii INTRODUCTORY are known to me personally or through their work. Thirty-odd years ago Cech America was so Lilli- putian that it was possible, without consulting Who '5 Who, for every one to know every one else. If a meeting of nationals was held, all the men of consequence could be crowded under a common roof, if not conveniently seated around one table. Those were the days when the newspaper editors were the sole intellectuals of the nation. The poli- ticians, big and little, lawyers, teachers, physicians, merchants, and others who presently clamor for their share of sunshine and popularity, were yet unborn or were striplings, attending school, when the veteran journalists like Jonas ruled Cech America. As appears from the context, the volume dis- cusses the Cech branch of the Cechoslovak nation only; the Slovaks are not included, for although the two race groups live side by side in several ur- ban centers, each attends its own churches, patron- izes its own club-houses, joins its own fraternal and other societies, lives its separate life. The Cech im- migration was fully thirty years old when the Slo- vaks began coming in. Their habitats are not the same. The Slovaks, as is shown by statistics, are massed in Pennsylvania, where the Cech population is small by comparison. Is the Cech an asset or a liability to his adopted country? "Our nation," comments Charles Veleminsky, a ix INTRODUCTORY pedagogue who traveled in the United States, "has ever been idealistic, sacrificing all for its ideals. Idealism is the most precious offering of the Cech immigrant to America. Without ideals even prac- tical America is unthinkable." The Declaration of Independence of the Cechoslovak Nation pledges itself to uphold the ideals of modern democracy "as they have been the ideals of the Cechs for cen- turies." From Hus to Havlicek the Cech has waged a ceaseless, though at times a losing war against the sinister powers of reaction. In the course of the struggle and directly due to it, his native land lost political independence, but the conqueror could not stifle in him the lofty ideals he inherited from his Hussite forebears. The Cech is self-reliant. Note the names of the deputies in the former Austrian Parliament, or those now guiding the affairs of the Republic: Dr. Rieger, Dr. Pacak, Dr. Kramar, Dr. Soukup, Mr. Klofac — all commoners. On the other hand, ob- serve, for the sake of comparison, who had been the spokesmen of the Magyars in the Hungarian Parliament: Count Karolyi, Count Andrassy, Count Batthyany, Count Tisza, Count Apponyi. The native Cech nobility practically disappeared in the seventeenth century. The aristocracy owning estates in Bohemia was, up to the time of the war, almost without exception Austrian in sentiment, ultramontane in politics, feudal in traditions. Stern necessity has taught the Cech commoner to rely on INTRODUCTORY none save himself, to think and act for himself. It is astounding what progress in art, literature, com- merce, and industry he has made within the last few decades of national revival unaided by aristocracy and hampered, if anything, by the Vienna Govern- ment. He is intelligent. At Ellis Island he has estab- lished two records. Of all the races from the old Dual Empire, Germans and Magyars not excepted, the Cech was the lowest in the percentage of illit- erates — one and one half per cent — and the highest in the percentage of skilled labor. If it is true, as their enemies contend, that the Slavs are as yet barbarians, the Cech, who in culture is fore- most among the Slavs, can boast of being the first barbarian in Europe.