pire, living under oppressive conditions, were compelled to fight in behalf of their hated overlords and against their own Polish brethren. The Prussian and Austrian Poles were pitted, despite their wills, against the Russian Poles. Moreover, this intra-racial struggle had to be fought on their own Polish soil and at the expense of the destruction of their homes and property. Today, it is authoritatively said that scarcely a child under five years of age is alive in Russian Poland.

The outstanding trait of the Pole is his love of liberty. The role of the Polish knights of liberty is almost interminable. The Pole is not simply a defender of liberty; but boldly goes in search of opportunities to fight successfully for the cause. Witness Kosciuszko and Pulaski who came to help in the war for freedom in America. The latter gave his life in our behalf; and the former, years of valiant service for the sake of American independence. When Kosciuszko fell wounded while leading the illfated Poles in one of their uprisings against the Russian tyrants, the English poet, Campbell, gave immortality to the leading Polish characteristic in the words:

Freedom shrieked when Kosciuszko fell.

What patriot of any fatherland has ever raised a question so significantly loyal as that of the Polish Kraszevski who asked: "Can Heaven really be so grand as to make us forget Poland?"

At a banquet in New York City a few years ago, a Polish patriot declared: "Where liberty is, there

is my country." But a younger Pole more accurately expressed the Polish spirit, when he asserted: "Where liberty is not, there is my country." The Pole fights not simply for Polish liberty, but for the cause of liberty anywhere. He will travel half way around the earth rather than miss an opportunity to fight for freedom.

Polish love of art stands out strongly. In the field of music, Chopin's iconoclastic ideas cry out the tragedy of Poland. Paderewski, famous as a pianist, is greater as a Polish patriot. Then there is Madame Sembrich, of whom one critic has said: "She has as perfect a voice as has ever been heard on earth and used in connection with as perfect a technique," and Madame Modjeska, whose dramatic art was characterized by purity of aim and great force. In the field of scholarship, the leading figure is that of Nicolaus Koppernigh; and in letters, Henry Sienkiewicz, who out-towers all others in the place that he made for himself in the hearts of his countrymen of all three sections of dismembered Poland.

Where are the Poles in America? They are in the steel mills, the shops, and the mines, where they have borne opprobrious names patiently. America is unappreciative of the potentialities of Polish immigrants.

The Russian in America comes from Northern Russia, or Great Russia, the capital of which has been, successively, Moscow and Petrograd. The Great Russian possesses two strong but anomalous characteristics. He is noted for his laborious pa

tience, great tenacity, and enduring strength. Climatic selection has developed in him a strong physique and the correlative mental traits of patience and tenacity of purpose. On the other hand, the Russian manifests a fatalistic attitude which rests. upon an underlying spiritual faith and finds satisfying solace in the belief that "God wills it," whenever the defeats of life overwhelm the individual.

Many Russian immigrants in America formerly belonged to various persecuted religious sects in Russia. Some of these sects were opposed to militarism; after the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) the immigration to America began. One of their greatest disappointments in our country is caused by the disintegrating effects of American life upon the family as a social institution. Their family life is patriarchal. When the children slip out from parental control and develop suddenly into pert young Americans without respect for their elders, the reac tions of the parents toward the United States are unfavorable.

It is difficult for the Russian immigrant to understand our hurrying, restless attitude. His first reaction has been described as follows:

"Oh, I cannot live here, I am always late! Everybody runs ahead! The crowd on the street is so restless! Why are they hurrying so?"5

And his ultimate conclusion, if he thinks through the problem, is "that all the work of humanity should

"Maria Moravsky, "The Greenhorn in America," Atlantic Mon., Nov., 1918, p. 663.

Ibid., p. 669. Cf. E. A. Ross, Upheaval in Russia, Chaps. VI, XI-XIV.

be not a hurried job, undertaken for money, but a free, joyous, and thoughtfully slow Creation."

The Ruthenians, who were migrating to the United States at the rate of 30,000 annually in the years preceding 1914, are Russians. In Southern Russia, they are known as Little Russians. In those regions of Southern Russia which border on Austria-Hungary, they are called Ukrainians (Ukraine means "the border"). In Austria-Hungary they have been nicknamed "Ruthenians," because of their ruddy complexion. They are the Southerners of the Russian peoples. They are "children of a more genial climate," more indolent and less enterprising, more imaginative and less positive, more independent and less co-operative than the Great Russian.

Among their ancestors were the Cossacks (the famous cavalry of the Czars), who were the Kazaks (riders, or robbers) of the Middle Ages with a communistic and semi-military life. The Little Russians, or Ruthenians, contrary to the implications of their name, are slightly taller than the Great Russians. Ruthenian immigrants to America have come chiefly from Austria-Hungary whence they are glad to get away from oppression.

The Czechs, known to us popularly as the Bohemians, and Moravians, constitute the intellectual vanguard of the Slavic race. The Bohemians are the leaders, the Moravians the middle group, while the Slovaks represent a low state of economic develop

ment.

Bohemia, a diamond-shaped province, is "the brightest jewel in the Austrian crown" because of its

interesting population. Surrounded on three sides. by Germany, it has been subject to German infiltration and influence. But recent decades have wit

nessed a remarkable change of attitude in Bohemia toward Germany. Widespread currents of unfavorable reaction had set in by the year 1900; in the University of Prague the use of the German language had given way to an extensive use of the Czech language.

Bohemians are liberty-loving. They have objected strongly to Austrian domination. What Washington is to the United States, Luther to Germany, Tolstoi to Russia, and Garibaldi to Italy, John Hus is to Bohemia. Hus sacrified his life for his convictions concerning liberty, before any of the other leaders whose names are cited above. He was the pioneer among Reformation heroes. To the Bohemians, he is not known as a Protestant reformer, but as a heroic exponent of civil and political freedom.

Bohemians are nominally Catholics. Upon arrival in America, they become the least faithful of the adherents of the Church of Rome. They swing to the extreme, as an expression of their desire for liberty; they form free-thinking societies and profess semi-atheistic principles. Socialism is strong among them here, as it is in Bohemia, where several years ago the movement had reached proportions where it was strong enough to support two antagonistic parties, the national and the international. Bohemians in America are found not uncommonly in the skilled trades in which they have organized strong labor unions.