Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-01-20

YHlLE Jnere is Superrclal
.\A/ justification for the general
wv tendency to see in Southern
Slav events the further
spread of the principle of
dictatorship at the expense of democ-
racy, the actual fact is that 1t is not
the system of democracy, but of self
determination, which has proved made
quate.
AS far as democracy IS concerned
there has never been any considerable
amount of it anywhere in the Balkans,
but there has been an almost incalcu-
liable amount of racial nationalism No
where in the world have fractions of
one people striven with greater deter
mination or at greater cost to the world
and to themselves, to arrive at indie
pendence and unity.
But while the CroatS, the Slovenians
and the Serbs. as long as they were
forcibly separated, were able to cher
ish vast illusion of common racial
sympathy, based upon common hatred
of the Austrian and the Magyar, self
determination had not procured them
freedom and unity for many months
before they began to hate each other
The old joke of the American Pilgrims
who first fell upon their knees and
then upon the Indians" has been dupli-
Gated by the Southern Slavs. They
first attacked their oppressors and then
each other.
Reason for Quarrel Simple.
The reason for the quarreling between
the various fractions of the Southern
Slavs is simple. The stronger fraction,
numerically as well as militarily, name
ly, the Serbs, are the least civilized.
While they have played a noble role in
all history, struggling CALAMITY against
the Turks through long centuries and
confronting the Hapsburg monarchy
with equal courage in later years, they
| have continued to live under conditions
primitive beyond eXaggeration.
| If the City of New York, for ex-
| ample, had been subject to an alien
| country and had been suddenly freed
| by the gallantry of Western cowboys, in
| the days when the old frontier still
existed, something of the Balkan situa-
ton would have been reproduced. Then
| If the liberators had undertaken to con-
| duct New York City in accordance with
| cowboys ideas and practices, one would
have parallel for the Serb supremacy
| in Southern Slavdom.
| BY contrast with the Serbs, the Croats
and Slovenians have lived for long
| centuries within the Hapsburg mon
archy. They have adopted the GUS
| toms and methods of Western Europe
! the manners of living, the system of
| doing business. And this is also meas
urably true even of the Serbs of Bosnia,
| who came under Austrian administra-
| ton nearly half century ago.
The Serb of Serbia and Montenegro
on the other hand. continued to live
| the primitive life, which had antedated
| the Turkish invasion. The mass of the
population lived on small farms, their
| customs we're those of the Middle Ages
| their methods of doing business were
/ equally ancient. and their political
morals were poisoned fatally by the
| double vices of corruption and of vio-
| lence. Magnificent as fighters, the
Serbs were and remain totally ignorant
| of all Western method and manners.
First Broke Turkish Yoke.
Thanks to their capacity as fighters,
the Serbs first freed the old Serbian
state from Turkish rule, Snatched
Macedonia from Bulgaria and finally,
in the World War, precipitated by the
murders Of Serajevo, liberated all the
Southern Slav subjects of the Haps-
burgs and brought about their union
in Jugoslavia. What Sardinia did for
AtoAJ 0CAOAd dC4AACNCA 4OA OLdNSs
But having freed their race breth-
rem. the Serbs undertook to rule them.
And in practice that meant the control
OF civilized and progressive elements by
backward and primitive fractions. The
| Serbians were fighters and farmers, but
the CroatS and SlovenianS were men of
affairs, in the modern sense. To see
their national business run in accord
ance with ideas which were at best
| obsolete with the collapse of the Turk
was naturally intolerable.
And the CroatS, who have a proud
tradition and certainly represent all
that is most progressive and educated
| in the JugoSlav state, naturally under
took at once to resist a domination
conducted from Belgrade. which treated
Croatia as conquered province.
The Greats do not want independence
! They recognize the futility of cutting
loose from the Southern Slav kingdom
and thus exposing themselves on one
side to the Italian dangers and on
| the other to Hungarian reconoueSt