Evening star., 1923-08-30
BIZ THE MARaUIsE DE FoNTENoY.

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Prof. Masaryk, when he visited the
United States, during the great war.
to win over its government to the
idea of restoring to Bohemia her
medieval national sovereignty. on
the disme memberment of the dual en-
pire, which, it was already then fore
seen. would inevitably follow the vic
tory of the entente powers. made an
excellent impression everywhere on
this side of the Atlantic. Indeed, it
was the popular sympathy which he
aroused here, in behalf of the cause
which he had at heart. that led Presi-
dent Wilson and his fellow delegates
at the congress of Versailles to COM
nit their nation to the acknowledge
ment Of the independence of Presi-
dent Masaryk's native land, which, in
stead of styling itself Greater Bohe-
mia, which would have recalled the
glories of its old-time history, when
1t took so leading a part in the ar
tistic and scientific movements of the
age. and in the progress of civiliZa-
tion generally adopted the unfamiliar
title of CZechoslovakia. which has a
jarring sound to American ears. In
due course. the republic was pro-
claimed at Prague with Prof. Thomas
Masaryk, now in his SeVenty-third
year, as president.
American good will for this new re-
public, a sort of godchild of Uncle
Sam, was still further promoted by
the agreeable and clever people whom
it sent from Prague to Washington
% ;% To-, ,~@I~ to aoit-
The favor of foreign countries for
Czechoslovakia was yet further de-
veloped by the visits paid to the
various capitals of Europe by DR..
BeneS, the CZechoSlovakian minister
of foreign affairs, a remarkably able
statesman, possessed of singular pow
ers of persuasion.
The friendship which President
Masaryk and DIR. Benes have man
aged to win by their personalities for
their country is not likely to last
very long if the single chamber par
lament, at Prague. is permitted to
pursue SO socialistic, one might al
most say communistic, legislation
with regard to property, and if the
government of which President
Masaryk and DR.. Benes are the two
most important and powerful men,
bers continues to enforce these stat
utes, which SAVIOR of bolshevism, with
the brutality ana TulHleSSHeSS WHICH
have been displayed by their officials.
X * X X
1t was all very we'll for the republi-
can parliament at Prague to enact the
abolition of all titles of nobility, to
render their use penal and to deprive
the mobiles of whatever civic and mill
tary prerogatives they had inherited
from long lines of ancestors. 1t was
all very well for the parliament at
Prague to enact laws providing for
the seizure of the crown lands of the
former Hapsburg monarchy. But
there was no excuse for confiscating
the private property of the members
of the former reigning family in Bo-
hemia-leaving many of the former
princes and princesses of the house
which so long exercised sovereign
sway over the dual empire, and, in
particular, the young widowed en-
press and her young children, to be-
come objects of charity of neutral
monarch, such as the chivalrous King
of Spain. despite engagements which
had been made with regard to her
private property. There is even still
less excuse for the confiscation OF
the ancestral lands of the former
mobiles of Bohemia, on the plea that
no one shall own more than rev
hundred acres and that all the re-
IYmainder of an estate shall be conf1s-
Gated, without compensation, for the
benefit ofsthe state.
The CzSchoslovakian republic Is