Antonie Kendrick et al.

“ But as a Moravian by birth I cannot understand how it is that for 46 years I have been a Čech and suddenly I find myself a Čechoslovak which means a Čech Slovak. I have always loved our Slovak brothers, but I object to the composite term. It seems to me that a Czechoslovak is either a Slovak who speaks Czech or a Czech who speaks Slovak or lives in Slovakia. Now that does not agree with similar terms. A Jugoslav is a Slav, a Little Russian is a Russian, and therefore Czechoslovak by analogy is a certain species of Slovak. ”

“ Is it not best to let the Americans wrestle with the č, ř, ž, and do the best they can? The average American will do as well with these sounds as he does with the German umlaut or such a generous German assemblage of consononts as in Zeuhlke, Schreibergardus, Wreichzel, Zeitmahl etc. Let us stand for the purity of the Čech language, not so much because it is patriotic to do so, but because language is the natural, logical and scientific development of the race which speaks it. It is a belonging of the race and fits it as a useful and comely garment becomes the person who wears it. ”

“ We have done violence to a good many foreign countries and provinces in settling upon them designations which are but the feeblest approximations to what they call themselves. From our standpoint, which might justly be less concerned with compliment than familiar historical geography, the natural Anglo-Saxon name for the new State would be Bohemia. We will concede that Jan of Hussynecz was a Czech, but John Huss was, and he will ever remain, a Bohemian, born and martyred in Bohemia (sic) . It seems a pity to draw the line so absolutely between the present and the past. ”