Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-06-06

Polish Corridor; In Danzig or Marien-
werder, ont the German rim Of It; in
Pressburg Or Kassa, in Czechoslovakia !;
in Szeged, in Hungary, or Cradea, in
Rumania, to realize what, in the SIM
piest terms of the ordinary human be-
ing. life has become for ethnic minor
tiles.
Czechs Rule Hungarians.
How can one make such circum-
stances come alive" for an American
reading public? Once in the little city
of Komarom, in Czechoslovakia, tried
to devise an American parallel, and in
stinctively recalled my native VII
lage Of Concord, Mass. AS Concord
was the home Of Hawthorne and the
scene of the first battle of the Revo-
luton, Komarom was the birthplace Of
Joksi, the greatest Magyar novelist and
the Held OF one Of the most splendid
exploits of Hungarian patriotism.
Moreover, as Concord people are Amer
ican,. so with equal unanimity are the
people OF Komarom Hungarian.
Yet this town Is dominated by police
and officials who speak only Czech and
Slovak, and behind the police is a gar
rison Of several thousand Slavs. Al
though a native Slav population does
not exist, the Hungarian schools have
been closed to make room for the chill
dren Of the alien officials. Where
Hungarian is still permitted to be
taught, the children are allowed to
read, not their own poetry and story,
not the works of Jokai, but simply
translations from the Slav. Hungarian
newspapers may not circulate. Hun
garian colors may not be shown. To
cross the Danube into the western half
of the town, which remains Hungarian,
one must pass two inspections and pos
Sess two visas, obtainable only at much
cost and delay.
The very waterworks which serve both
parts of the town can be shut OF by
the Slavs at will and without warning,
and the MagyarS are condemned to pay
twice as much as the Slavs for their
supply. In the Slav portion all conceiv-
able tactics are employed to suppress
the Hungarian identity Of the 1nhab.-
tants. to coerce the older and assimilate
the younger. How would this condition
appear to the people of Concord, Mass.
II for example, the fortunes Of war had
turned them over, say. to a French
Canadian military domination?
Irony in Wilson Monument.
In the purely Magyar town Of Lo-
songe, also just within the CZechoslo-
vakian frontier, and as Hungarian as
Komarom, I encountered one OF the
most ironical testimonials. Here where
majority IS in the process Of violent
Standardization, where to all the per-
secutions possible within legal limits
there are added the others permitted to
power such as forcible sequestration OF
land and sudden arrest, is a square
which the conquering Czschs have
named after woodrow Wilson, the great
apostle Of self-6etermination For 1t was
fhr0Il0h his activities that KnrnQFnY1
like Losonge, passed to a foreign mas
ter, despite the will of its people, the
former to give the Czechs the strategic
advantage of the Danube frontier, the
latter to give them control of a railway
and highway of military value.
What a story might be written, II one
undertook to record in soberest phrase
all the unimaginable sufferings of all
the little peoples along all of these from
tiers. Of force and of injustice created by
the peace treaties alike in defiance OF
the ethnic and the economic realities!
What a chapter in human folly and
miscalculation would be set down If one
only tabulated the innumerable petty
prosecutions and physical violences
which are the daily story of life along
literally thousands of miles of bound
aries!
Again. what a moving tale could be
told by the historian who would under
take to describe the new migrations of
people resulting from the changes. Since
1918 several millions of people, aban-
doning home property, everything dear
and valuable under the pressure of force
or despair, have sought to escape the
intolerable circumstances of daily life
under an alien oppressor. Berlin, Vienna,
Budapest. together with border cities
everywhere in Central Europe. are filled
with such refugees, whose anisfortunes
recall those of the unfortunates who fed
before the invading armies of the World
War. But these are the refugees Of full
peace. a.rs
What one sees here Is not the exclu-