Robert Joseph Kerner

“ The solution of the Bohemian Question has become a vital American interest and should find a definite place in American policy. Once more may America stand up for democracy and the rights of small nations and, at the same time, help to destroy the ugliest dream of the ages—Pan-Germanism—and help to build a just federation for all the nations of the world. ”

“ In the words of President Wilson, “These are American principles, American policies. We could stand for no others. And they are also the principles and policies of for ward-looking men and women everywhere, of every nation, of every enlightened community. They are the principles of mankind and must prevail.” ”

“ These nations will see in France a leader as long as France does not desert the ideals which actuate them.
It has not been my purpose here to treat in detail the diplomacy of the moment in Central Europe, but rather to point out the ideals which actuate two powerful statesmen in that part of the world—ideals, which, it might be said, move in fact the entire nation. Much might be argued both good and bad about the bases on which these ideals must operate—I mean the treaties of St. Germain with Austria and Trianon with Hungary, and of Neuilly with Bulgaria and Riga with Russia. ”

“ Since Centralism, Dualism, Trialism, and Federalism have either been failures or are impracticable, make unstable the peace of Europe, and offer no permanent obstacle to Pan-Germanism, they are unacceptable from the American point of view. A just federation could alone give the nations of Austria-Hungary their chance to live, but the statesman who can mould the Danubian Monarchy into a federation has not yet appeared. ”

“ The political task of the democratic reconstruction of Europe must be attained and actually made possible by a moral reeducation of the nations—either democracy or dynastic militarism, either Bismarckism or rational and honest politics, either force or humanity, either matter or Spirit!—T. G. Masaryk: The New Europe (The Slav Standpoint) 1918.
Unless an unlooked for catastrophe intervenes, a new Europe should slowly rise from the ruins of the World War. It will in all probability not be a Bolshevik Europe. It will not be a reactionary Europe. ”

“ He did not want to Slavicize Austria and Austrianize the Czechs; he wanted each nation to retain its own nationality. If he shifted at all, he shifted to the left and though he started out with his own party insignificant in numbers, he soon influenced the spirit and ideals of all the parties. He was their political Tolstoi. And when the war broke out he was not only the recognized leader of a party, but he had the moral authority to lead the nation. His achievements during the World War made him the "little father" of his nation. ”

“ What is the aim of the German government, which officially denies Pan-German aspirations, but actually carries them out at each opportunity? It is certain, from German utterances, official and unofficial, that the least which the German government aims to do is to make the balance of power in the world favorable to herself. At most, she hopes to dominate the world. ”

“ These statesmen, therefore, want a progressive democracy in which the sound results of the social sciences are to be translated into legislation. They are not striving for any abstract equality which is unattainable. They hope to strike at exploitation wherever it may show itself; they seek to keep open the path of equal opportunity to all elements in their state, whether these be commoners or capitalists, Czechoslovaks, Germans, Magyars or Poles. They wish to raise the common life to a higher level by education and by training for the life of a democracy. ”

“ Nobody has better expressed their position than Beneš when he said.
To repeat the history of Old Austria, with its oppressed and disgruntled nations and classes, is for us to abdicate our great opportunity. We shall be done for, if we do it. We must find a new way. [33]
And translating Masaryk’s philosophy into practical advice, we find him telling his Parliament:
The only way to solve the problem of Bolshevism is to create an atmosphere of peace and to devote ourselves to pacific efforts, to economic and social reform. ”

“ It may safely be asserted that as long as Pan-Germanism is not crushed or a world state is not established and the Dardanelles are neither internationalized nor Russian, so long will Russia have a good reason for disturbing the status quo, in other words, for war. Russian expansion or yearning for an ice-free port is nothing else than a clear manifestation that Russia is organically incomplete. ”

“ Although the author meant to write a history of Serbia in the nineteenth century, he finally decided to cover the history of that country from its beginnings to 1914. He gives as his reasons that the "principles of strategy are eternal" and that geography has affected diplomacy in Serbia in a "strikingly similar way". ”

“ A federation is in principle opposed, therefore, by these three elements, thus far the lords of the empire’s destiny. It is certain that federal Austria-Hungary would be much weaker from a military point of view and hence would not be to Germany’s liking, which would employ all possible means to prevent a just federalism. The Slavs might at some crucial moment at least prevent a German alliance or assistance to Germany, even if they might not be able to have positive control of foreign policy. ”

“ All Austria is a bundle of small nations. This problem of the little nations is really only the political and international phase of the Social Question. We, Czechs, know well what a serious Social Question it is, if one nation is exploited by an another; political exploitation means cheap labor to the laboring classes. I emphasize this social significance of nationalism. [14]
With a healthy family and a healthy nation, as a satisfied individual in the great family of nations, he believed he had the lever of Archimedes to lift up humanity. ”

“ He, therefore, emphasizes the geography of the home of the South Slavs and follows this admirable survey, based largely on Cvijić or Newbigin, by an account of the medieval Serbian states, borrowing heavily from Jireček, the best authority. Serbia is always the main thread of the story, although Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, and Dalmatia are brought in to secure a better horizon. ”

“ The Balkan peoples and the Turks boycotted Austrian goods, that is Bohemian goods, while the Czechs protested in vain against a foreign policy which could lead only to war. It is doubtful whether as an independent state Czecho-Slovakia would fare any worse than she has in the past. She has fought the wars of a German dynasty, which since 1879 has been the vassal of Germany, she has paid far out of proportion for all the costly wars of the empire, she has suffered economically worse than if she were surrounded wholly by German territory. ”

“ He foresaw that the greatest danger from without to Austria was Pan-Germanism which was pleased to see her become embroiled further and further in quarrels among the Balkan nations whose peaceful existence and relationship with Austria-Hungary he wished to see safeguarded.
In internal politics, he aspired to be the statesman who would put into practice the scientific results of the social sciences. He was more than a social philosopher. He was a statesman without portfolio. Born a commoner, he never lost his contact with the common man. ”

“ What the Allies are fighting is not the normal economic evolution—for they cannot prevent that any more than they can prevent the change of the seasons—but rather the political aspects, militarism and autocracy, which give this attempt on the part of Germany to wrest the economic leadership of the world its dangerous and destructive character. ”

“ For this, Jireček's wonderful study of medieval Serbian society and the works of Janitch, Kessler, Jovanovitch, Nestorovitch, Krikner, and the publications of the Serbian government should have been used. ”

“ If leaders who have a realizable vision and who are resolved to tread the path of sound social reform are found, the task will be accomplished. But can they be found? And having been found, will they have an opportunity to put their policies into practice?
It is the object of this article to examine in what way Thomas G. Masaryk, President of the Czechoslovak Republic, and Edward Beneš, Minister of Foreign Affairs, are qualified to be considered among the new leaders of a New Europe. They hold the fate of Czechoslovakia in their hands. ”

“ American exports are now preponderantly manufactured goods, and this preponderance will increase steadily with time. Therefore the freedom of the seas and open markets for manufactured goods—not markets closed by economic leagues—are a vital necessity to the United States. ”

“ In short, the obstacles to the formation of a state like a federal Austria which could encourage a durable peace would be insurmountable. They would be immense if each nationality were gladly willing to enter such a federation, but to form one against the interests of the vested elements in power would spell failure. ”

“ Not only has a democracy been established which is beginning to answer to these ideals, but it is making progress in reforms and is a good way on the road to solidification. And in foreign policy, [36] Beneš' success in constructing the Little Entente has been the beginning of a movement which will have as its object the inclusion not only of the original states, Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia, and Romania, but Poland, Bulgaria, Greece and perhaps even the Baltic countries and the Ukraine. ”

“ The dynasty, German by nationality, tenaciously holds to the property conception of the state—the state belongs to it. And the state is a medley of nations and races of which at least six are of vital importance in any attempted solution of the problem: the Czechs and the Slovaks, the Germans, the Poles, the Magyars, the Serbo-Croats, and the Roumanians—neither of which has a numerical majority in the whole state or in either of the two component parts, but whose total population is preponderantly Slavic. ”

“ He became filled with the idea that his own nation must learn from the West and not from the East; that like the West it must depend on realism—it must know how to do things, it must learn to observe, to analyze, to contemplate, sanely. It must not remain romantic as the other Slavs. [21]
After receiving his degree in law at Dijon in 1908, Edward Beneš returned to Prague, where the next year he took the degree of doctor of philosophy. He became thereafter a professor of political economy in the Prague Czechoslovak Academy of Business (about the equivalent of a junior college) . ”

“ It has been argued that the economic life of Bohemia will be stifled by the establishment of her independence, because now she is protected by the Austrian tariff and in the future would share in the tariff of Pan-Germany, if that were created. Those who argue in that way ignore the comparative wealth of the various parts of the empire. ”

“ Whether as individuals, or classes, or nations absolute equality was perhaps unattainable. But equal opportunity, abolition of exploitation of one kind or another, respect of the one for the other as human beings, all these he believed could be obtained. ”

“ If a socialist at all, he was not a Marxist. His strong religious and moral convictions, his great appreciation of spiritual values, his appraisal of scientific research, led him to seek progress by social reform based on the social sciences. ”

“ The British Empire, whose spinal cord is the trade route from England to India by way of the Mediterranean Sea, would be vitally menaced. Egypt and India would lie in the path of Pan-Germanism in its African or Asiatic extensions. ”