Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-12-19
Optimism in CzechO-SlOUdkia

GFrom the Philadelphia Ledger.l
There is so much of heart-rending
horror and misery attendant upon
the efforts of war bankrupted
Europe to pull itself. together that
when men like Charles r. Crane, our
minister in Prague. report that
zecho-Slovallia is politically the
healthiest and sanest place" in
Europe, this first rift of blue in the
stormy skies of the central European
world cannot but be a cheering omen.
There is every reason, too, why
Americans should rejoice in the fact
that the Bohemians and their allies
the Slovaks, are getting on an even
keel, since q great deal of the ex-
ports which are of special concern
to us and which stood to the credit
of Austria before the war and which
were even labeled Made in Ger
many" really came from Bohemia
That country was the great indus
trial center, the real workshop of
Austria-Hungary, since before the
war what is now the Czecho-Slovak
republic produced 90 per cent. of all
the manufactured products of the
dual empire. But it is not only be-
cause of our interest in their special
lied products that the new state is
of concern TO us, but because its con-
stitution is modelled on American
lines and that at present CZecho-
Slovakia is one of the bulwarks of
central Europe against BolsheVism.
1t is only recently that President
Masaryk in outlining his plans OF So
cial reform made an elaborate analy-
sis of Just how and why the Bo-
hemian plan of moderate Industrial
9, n.if 70 nf n
ism. For in this connection he
warned his own people not to expect
too much of industrial and social re-
! forms or any kind of state-supported
! industrial socialization. For, as he
put it. 1.-The worker in the first stages
of extreme socialiZation OF industry
may be worse off than under the so
| called capitalistic regime, since So
cialization demands sacrifice not only
from the capitalists but also from the
workmen." Consequently, Masaryk
| advocates a moderate series OF re-
| forms in all those matters that re
| late to industry and production, and
he has been careful to point out that
the new state should encourage that
| "creative spirit of enterprise, that
| ingenious utilizing of giving condl-
| tions, that results in the creation OF
new wealth. This is not a matter OF
the socialism of distribution but OF
the socialism of production" 1t was
| in contrasting the proper and friend
| ly relationship of capital and labor
working hand in hand that the
President pointed out how Leninism
| is ruinism and that Lenine and his
followers represent only the eco
nomic and social primitive ideas oi
the illiterate Russian muj'k."
1t is common-sense ideas of this
kind that is putting Bohemia on its
feet more rapidly than any other
country in Europe. While the doc
trinaries tried to stampede the coun-
try to radicalism in the troublou'
DAYS of early statehood the super
abounding patriotism and the devo'
ton of the Bohemians have brought
| about q new state of affairs that Is
| making all classes realize that the
! concern of one is the concern of all
and of the state, too. The homelS
common-sense philosophy that un.
derlies much of what Masaryl
stands for is summed up in hi:
phrase. "I can put up with the ma.
terialism of the hungry more easiI,
than with that of the overfed." 1t il
this spirit that is tiding Bohemia
over its trials and makes its expert.
ment in statecraft one after which
its neighbors to the north and east
especially in Russia, might well pat
tern.