The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-12-04
CZECHS DRASTIC IN GOVERNMENT
 OF ANCIENT CITY

BratisIava, SIovakia, Dec. 4.-(By The Associated Press. Ut is only on Czecho-SIovakin maps that this an cient Hungarian city of Pressburg can be located by it's new name. Ruled by Hungary for a thousand years it passed under the control of the new Czecho-SIovakian republic by the de- cisiOn of the Peace Conference and a large part of it's inhabitants do not take kindly to the new order of things. Its people are domfnantly Germanic or Hungarian.
 The street signs are in German and Hungarian characters and now to them is being added Czech. The old postal and telephone employees have be~n replaced by Czechs and Czech hiegh officers installed in the gov ernment. Slovak regiments on duty here have been replaced by purely Czech soldiers. In a city as old and conservative and routine as this, drifting through tAe centuries un- disturbed in it's socIaI customs these things have made feeling run rather high in certain social strata.
 Persons, regardless of sex, who have not acquired legal residence are being expelled. One man who told The Associated Press he had lived and done business here for forty years was expelled a few days ago. The list of those cited for expulsion is said to contain names of dead per sons.
 Some Hungarians do not hesitate to express their resentment over the employment of Czechs in government positions here formerly occupied by the Hungarians. Czechs and many SIovaks of the educated classes who hold office under the government, say this feeling is due to Hungarian and German propaganda and has no real strength or extent. Also they admit the necessity of Czech offfcfaIdo1n as S1ovaka has little or no educated class from which to draw executives of ability.
 It is hard tc upset rude1y the tra- ditions of ten centuries and talks with many persons. both in official and unofficial circles, would indicate that the antagonism displayed toward the Czechs is a natural condition of this period of transition and not deeply rooted. Probably it is stronger here in Pressburg than in the other parts of SIovkia where the change is not so apparent.
 The school question plays a very important part in the situation here. The government has abolished the German and Hungarian languages in the schools and this means a general busting of teachers and a reaction in households.
 Many slovakians and Germans now speak ostenta tiously in Hungarian as do the peasants of this immediate vicinity as sign of their feelings A political speaker dFIuding to this development said that the Czechs had accomplished in six months what Hungary had tried to do for fifty years.
 We'll informed s1ovaks, however, do not feel that the racial question will result in any serious develop ments. They sey that S1ovakia must hold to the republic and with new elections and an elected, instead of a nominated, National Assembly such as the present one, a more liberal Slovak representation in offices and the stabiIization of the economic sit uation, conditions cannot exist as an independent state and there is no other country than the Czecho-SIo- yak republic to which she can ally herself.