Evening star., 1919-05-06
FIUME. STRATEGICAL POINT
OF EUROPE, MEDLEY OF RACES
Claimed by Both Italians and Jugoslavs
Adriatic Port Is Now Storm Center
at Peace Conference.

tion has been so systematically down.
trodden that the third element, the
] Italian frnInigrat.an, has outgrown
the native Slav population, both in
numbers and in local prominence. The
italian language gradually took the
! italian business interests became the
dominating factor of the city.
! Strangely enough the very Slavs
! who have emigrated from Fiume and
: the surrounding hlnterland to the
United States. and who have made
lean melting pot. have. at the
same time. served to weaken
Fiume and Croatia by leaving there.
/ Hundreds of thousands Of Slavs have
emigrated from Croatia and slavonia
| to the United States in recent years,
and the ports of Trieste and Fiume
have carried on an enormous emigrant
traffic over the several Austro- Hun
| garian, British and other lines of
steamers sailing from those two ports.
Regarding this 1T Is safe to say that
there are as a result of the Slav
emigration at least several thousand
American citizens now living in
Croatia and Slavonia. particularly in
the former. So many male members
of Slav families have emigrated to
New York and to western sections of
the United States that there are parts
of Croatia near to Fiume where al
most every other person is Ameri-
| can in nationality, or else has a
fairly. good claim to American citi-
Zenship. Such towns as Delmico.
Lokve, Praputnik, Ogulin and Mar
kopalJ (all near Fiume) have given
the larger part of their male popula
ton to America.
Claim American Citizenship.
AS result the children or wives in
Croatia of these male emigrants have
for the large part very substantial
claims to American citizenship, as
their fathers and husbands have
| since coming to this country. So
| many of the Slavs returned to Croatia
and married girls of their child
hood days and settled down in their
native province. When their money
gives out the male members of the
to America to recuperate their for
tunes. Almost invariably they head
for the mines or steel mills in towns
like Great Falls. Mont: Gary, Ind.
Joplin. Mo-: Youngstown. Ohio, or Nc
Keesport and Bessmer, Pa.
Although some of the slavs from
Fiume emigrated to the United States,
the emigrants at the present day
come mostly from the nearby hinter-
land within a short distance Of Fiume.
The hinterland behind Fiume ts prac-
ttcally all Slav. They are hearty.
quiet, thrifty. hard-working peasant
folk. with no end OF red corpuscles in
their veins. They are for the most
part farmers. Their women folk have
demonstrated that they are practical
ly as capable of working on the
farms as are the men themsslve.
Most Of the peasants own their small
farms. With most Of the men away,
4 1,n H. n fo . <hny
selves during the war, till taxes. ex-
penses and other difficulties made 1t
futile for them to continue in their
endeavors to make ends meet.
Many Come to q. 8.
During the war farming conditions
in that region have been diflcult
Things got to such a pass that most
of the women, who heretofore had
not cared much to emigrate to Amer
lea, began to leave the farms in
and sons in the United States. Those
who could establish their American
citizenship and obtain American pass
port were successful In leaving Aus
tria Hungary.
Many found that they were ex-
patriated. through technicalities and
pranks Of citizenship and foreign
residence. Some families found that
half Of the members of it were Amer
leans. while the other half were still
spective dates of their birth and the
date of the naturalization of their
respective relatives. Some of the
women and many Of the men speak
English. It Is. therefore. not sur
prising to hear more English spoken
in the rural districts OF Croatia, not
far from Fiume. than Hungarian. and
yet Croatia was q Hungarian state.
Few people in Croatia speak Hun
grian, as q matter of fact. This con-
dition 10 different In Fiume. Although
italian il the predominant language
rible Fiume dialect Of the real Ian
guage. The Hungarian and Croatian
languages are likewise extensively
used in this ancient city.
Language; L. Like Serbs.
When one speaks OF the Croatian
language they mean slav. as the
Serb tongue and the Croatian tonge
are one and the same. A Serb can
talk without the slightest diMculty
to a Croat or q Slavfne. The Serbian
language Is written differently from
the Croatian. az the Croats adopted
whereas tho Serbs stick to the old
characters Of their racial language.
which. to the iayman. suggest Rus
AZ a matter Of fact. the Serb char
actors are very similar in appear
ance to those in the Russian alphabet.
The Cyrillic IL different. being very
much Of the appearance of the Ro-
man, but with q few variations to
comply with the racial dipthongs.
The Bosnians and Herzegovinans and
the Montenegrins likewise speak the
Slavic lan1uaHA
In Fiume there are q number OF
newspapers. but they are small af-
fairs and quite insignificant when
compared with the journals Of other
newspapers in Fiume. and those of
| the largest circulation, are printed In
the Italian language. However. those
printed in Croatian ana those in Hun
garian have considerable circulation
considering the sise Of the city and
newspapers in Budapest such an the
pester-Lloyd Tin Germany and the
Pestt-Hrlap in Hungarian) and the
papers OF Trieste. Gras and Vienna,
all OF which show rather progressive
tendencies. have wide circulation in
Plume and its environs.
Few Write Hungarian.
Although the schools in Ffume un-
der the Hungarian governmental pa
tronase always have favored the Hum
earian language. 1t Is said to be dit
hcult to ind school children or clerks
who write properly the Hungarian
language, while on the other hand
Italian and Croattan are written by
all. Most Of the governmental au-
thorities in Fiume, as we'll az the civic
ofnciale. are Hungarian, and they nat
uraliy speak the language Of tho
race.
In Fiume there waA under the Hun
garian rule a royal governor appoint