Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-02-10
EUROPE Is BUSY
MAKING NEW MAPS
Future Frontiers Will Be Linguistic and
Racial-The Scattered Slavic Races
See Liberty Ahead-America' Word
In the Final Summing Up.
Bv VANCE THOMPSON

England-and, I presume, Russia.-are busy
these days mapping out the lands Of the old
Austrian Empire and of those parts of the
German Empire which are inhabited by nom
German races. think you see the i'm
port Of this governmental work.
With serene foresight the great Powers are
looking forward to that ultimate day when
peace shall be declared. 1t is an intmation
that the final settlement shall be made upon
the lines OF race and nationalty-that lin
guistc frontiers shall follow the natural
curve of race and kin.
Now 1t was discovered there are no authen-
tic maps Of this sort more recent than 1908
or thereabouts. The German maps, not
naturally, minimize the Importance Of the
slavs, Serbs and wends in the empire; the
Austrian maps are not scientific, For these
reasons the great Powers have ordered their
| geographers and mapmakers to draw up new
| maps, linguistic and photographic based on
the latest and most exactly ascertained facts.
What action our own Department of State
has taken 1 do not know precisely; but, as
| It is certain that we look forward to having
| a word in the final summing up, 1t is not
| likely our scholastic President has overlooked
the obvious preparation.
Long.SuFering SIavs
If may believe what 1 read in the news
the origin and meaning of the Great War
but whatever it meant in the beginning, it
has come to be, for many of the minor ma
tionalitles of Europe, a war of liberation. The
subjugated races see in 1t chance to gain
autonomy-to rejoin the family groups-to
speak their own languages and live under
their own laws.
The struggle is old as the years The Bal
kan wars marked its more recent successes,
for in the fight for mans liberation each fall
ure is q success a part of the strategy of
evolution
If you glance at an ethnographic map of
Europe you will that the race which has
most bitterly suffered by conquest is the
Sav; but, with one exception, all the conti-
mental nations have suffered The exception
Is Germany. Nowhere are there subjugated
Germans. To be sure there are over 100000
Germans under the Russian flag but they
are there by choice, as II, 100000 Germans live
willingly under the flag of our country.
(Spain and Portugal are unconsdered) The
subjugated Italians of Trentina and Trieste
are numerous, but it is the Sav who has
borne for many sad years the heaviest bur-
den.
OF the nine great Slavic nations six have
passed under the yoke of one or another of
the three great empires-the Austrian, Ger
Turkish. You can understand why
those who are looking toward the establish
ment of a sane and righteous peace are
studying now the sad subject nations which
stretch from the Carpathians to the Adriatic.
The Great Slavic Host in Europe
1t is difficult, until the geographers have
finished the work now in hand to get an
exact statement of the number Of Slavs in
Europe. The estimate given in 1907 by Pro-
fessor Florinsky, of Kiev, is this:
Russians in Europe. 103, 900 |
Bulgarians ........-...-..-........ 100000 |
Serbs and Croats. s...-..---.-...-..... 100000 |
SZechs OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES. 6,641,O0O |
Slovaks NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.. 100000 |
Poles .....-..-.-....--.-....--.-. 2O,S55, 900
Wends NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.. 10000
In round figures this makes 14s 600, 900 Slavs
in Europe for the year 1907 Now the ethnog-
raphers say the natality Of the race is IT
per cent, so that each year you may add
100000 to the population. Then the Slavs
in Europe, this year of 1916 are over 6OOO,-
900; and of these 55OOO.oOO are subjected to
Germanic rule (The figures are those OF
Prof. Lubor Niederle, of the University of
Prague)
These little nations, scattered and subju-
gated, form the rest barrier to Germanic ex-
panson toward the east and south. For
hundred years they have presented a steady,
substantial and race-sharpened opposition to
the German advance. They and they alone
have made possible Russia's "southwesterly
strides" toward ice-free coasts And If for
hundred years Sultans have been allowed to
rule in Europe it has been only because they
held the great Balkan highway, which links
the East and the West. Geographically tho
balance of power has oscillated between the
Slav and the Teuton; the liberation of the
Slavs means the end-so far as territorial
conquest goes-of the "Drang mach Osten."
The Poles Tragic Bulwark
Further to the north the Poles have been
for ages tragic bulwark, It was not until
1870 that their darkest period began. The
census OF that year proved how steadily the
subjugated Poles were increasing in wealth
and number. Then Bismarck began his vio-
lent attempt TO "deraoinate" the Polish ma
ton
AS Prof Nederle says: "The Poles were
not wholly at their ease in Russia, but Rus
sia had never taken measures so violent and
so subtle in their cruelty as those imagined
by the Prussians."
Unquestionably this world war has given
the Poles chance for liberty-or the next
best thing, which is to rejoin their Slavic
brothers. The latest ethnographic map
shows the true Polish State should run far
east Of Posen and Warta, and should include
evnn the old Wend colonies now isolated in
Germany. The Wends form little group OF
slavs which has had history as gloomy as
that Of the Poles, though It has not been so
picturesque. Their little colonies in saxony
and Prussia stin persist, though many thou
m.