Polish Americans

“ Today, as always, Americans stand in solidarity with the continuing Polish struggle for political, religious, and economic liberty. By advocating these precious freedoms so eloquently and forthrightly, His Holiness John Paul II and Lech Walesa have come to symbolize hope, justice, and human dignity to all Americans and to countless millions around the world. Their idealism, self-sacrifice, and devotion inspire us as we express our thanks to Polish Americans and our pride in our country's Polish heritage. ”

“ And from the scientific genius of Copernicus and Madame Curie to the brilliant work of artists such as Chopin and Paderewski, individuals of Polish descent have enriched not just America but the world with a wealth of talent and vision.
However, of all the gifts that Poland has given to the world, one of the most valuable and enduring is the example of her people, who have demonstrated extraordinary faith, courage, and resolve in their quest for freedom. Indeed, since the earliest days of our Republic, Americans and Poles have shared an abiding love of liberty and self-government. ”

“ The history of Polish Americans is an inspiring part of our Nation's heritage. The first massive wave of Polish immigrants came to America to flee the political and economic oppression thrust upon their homeland by the 19th century imperial powers of Eastern and Central Europe. ”

“ Our Nation owes an immeasurable debt of gratitude to the millions of freedom-loving Poles who have come to our shores to build a new land. Polish Americans can be justly proud of the vital contributions people of Polish descent have made to our Nation in the arts, the sciences, religion, scholarship, and every area of endeavor. ”

“ For Americans, Poland has been a symbol of hope since the beginning of our nation. Polish heroes and American patriots fought side by side in our War of Independence and in many wars that followed. Our soldiers still serve together today in Afghanistan and Iraq, combatting the enemies of all civilization.
For America’s part, we have never given up on freedom and independence as the right and destiny of the Polish people, and we never, ever will. ”

“ The dedication of Polish Americans from all walks of life to the ideals of freedom and independence, which Kosciuszko and Pulaski fought for in America and in Poland, and which their worthy successors within the Solidarity movement are struggling for in Poland today, serves as a model for all Americans. ”

“ In the years to come, both our peoples will continue to draw strength from the memory of Casimir Pulaski and from the courage and sacrifice of so many Poles and Polish Americans who have helped ensure the freedom, peace, and prosperity our two countries enjoy today. ”

“ The recent Polish immigrant is very circumscribed in his mental horizon, clings tenaciously to his language, which he hears exclusively in his home and his church, his lodge, and his saloon, and is unresponsive to his American environment. Not until the second and third generation is reached does the spirit of American democracy make headway against his lethal stolidity. ”

“ Polish settlements were made in Texas and Wisconsin in the fifties and before 1880 a large number of Poles were scattered through New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. Since then great numbers have come over in the new migrations until today, it is estimated, at least three million persons of Polish parentage live in the United States. [37] The men in the earlier migrations frequently settled on the land; the recent comers hasten to the mines and the metal working centers, where their strong though untrained hands are in constant demand.
The majority of the Poles have come to America to stay. ”

“ As Americans we feel a special affinity with Solidarity and the basic human values it seeks to uphold, in keeping with the long tradition of Polish-American friendship and freedom. President Wilson's advocacy of self-determination for the Polish people helped to bring about a rebirth of the Polish nation earlier in this century. America stands ready today to provide generous support and assistance to a Poland which has returned to a path of genuine internal reconciliation. ”

“ While these societies have always been divided upon political issues, and while there has been at times considerable bitterness in the antagonism between them, they have been able to unite their efforts in important undertakings for the general welfare of the Poles throughout the [202] United States. Common interest in the Polish cause during the war, too, has united them as never before, and there is every reason for the confident expectation that they will co-operate in any new projects undertaken for the benefit of the Polish community in America. ”

“ A century and a half ago the living body of Poland was torn in pieces, but her soul has not perished. It lives on in the hope that the hour of the renaissance of the Polish nation, of its fraternal reconciliation with Great Russia, will come. ”

“ America owes a debt of gratitude to the Polish nation. In the darkest days of our struggle for independence many brave Poles came to our assistance. The name of Pulaski stands among the most honored names of the Revolution. To-day we are on a most friendly footing and possess much influence with Russia. She is crushing Poland to the earth in a manner which is a disgrace to the nineteenth century. Shall we be silent when our voice might bring aid to a noble but unfortunate people, who generously assisted us in the hour of need? ”

“ Therein lie the strength and the future of the thing so strictly forbidden no farther back than two years or so, of the Polish independence expressed in a Polish State. It comes into the world morally free, not in virtue of its sufferings, but in virtue of its miraculous rebirth and of its ancient claim for services rendered to Europe. Not a single one of the combatants of all the fronts of the world has died consciously for Poland’s freedom. ”

“ They are unfit for the modern economic world for want of education and for Western society because of their habits and want of cleanliness. They are devoted to their strange old religion but as they grow rich their piety, as the Chief Rabbi told Capt. Wright, is destroyed by wealth and they take too little interest in their poorer brethren. No one who knows Poland can be surprised at the Polish attitude or the desire of the Poles to be rid of this corrupting influence. ”

“ You who love your country and liberty equally with the valorous nations of the south, you who have been compelled to suffer far more than others oppression and disdain; Poles, who, penetrated with the love of honour and of virtue, can endure no longer the contempt and destruction of the Polish name, who have so courageously risen against despotism and oppression, I conjure you grow not cold ”

“ In the places of many of the old Polish cities, it is said, that dense forests have now sprung up; that the traveller, as he makes his way through their interminable shades, finds the pavement of streets and the relics of deserted towns in the midst of a lifeless solitude. And now, that the sum of evils may be full, the nation of the Poles seems destined to a fall, from which there will be to them no further resurrection.
Yet the former history of Poland hardly palliates the position which the sovereigns and states of Europe have assumed towards her. ”

“ The most special characteristic of the Polish people, wherever they may be, has always been a loyal and courageous passion for faith and freedom. Poland's devotion shines so brightly through the centuries, in years of peace and in times of hardship, war, and occupation, that it inspires the people of free nations to a deeper appreciation of their liberty and the people of captive nations to a higher plane of hope. ”

“ Yet this is precisely what Russia did, in order to assimilate the insurrection of Poland with our own rebellion, representing it as originating in the desire to support feudalism, in the very face of the first words promulgated by the Polish Committee, January 22, 1863: “All the sons of Poland, without any distinction of faith or race, descent or station, are free and equal citizens of the country.”
Strong and startling are the contrasts between the United States and Poland. ”

“ Small tradesmen, petty farmers and professional men organize themselves into bodies to which individual interests are intrusted whenever German methods become intolerable. But the greatest asset of Polish nationality in this fight against annihilation is its high birth rate. This has also led to the emigration of Poles to the industrial districts of Westphalia, the coal districts of the Lens basin in France and to America. This flow of Poles comes mainly from the provinces of Posen and West Prussia, where sandy inert soils cannot accommodate rapidly increasing numbers. ”

“ Under such circumstances, what must be thought of the discoveries and conclusions of writers who assert that 'the Polish nation is a mere chimera'? As no individual, mighty as he may be, can by a blasphemous word suppress the existence of the Eternal Father, so neither passion nor love, favor nor animosity, interest nor purpose of the most talented or ambitious, can erase at pleasure a nationality which has a history of over a thousand years of existence, a nationality proved by the last hundred years of incessant struggle for independence with three giants. ”

“ Poland has given humanity much through the genius of such giants as Copernicus, Madame Curie, Henryk Sinkiewicz, Joseph Conrad, Chopin, and Paderewski. Poland has likewise given America much-through patriotism like that of Pulaski, witness like that of John Cardinal Krol, and the innumerable contributions of generations of Polish immigrants and their descendants. ”

“ For the Polish people as a whole this city is certainly a spiritual centre of their nationality. Here the national characteristics find their expression in every department of life, here the national language, literature, and art live and develop; and all this, and what goes with it, influences the spirit of the Poles, binds them, wherever they may be, to the centre, and prevents the spark of nationality in the individual from becoming buried and extinguished. But an economic centre of the nation? ”

“ Poland was much too wary and fearful that the sections under her rule would be the first to be taken away from her and that the minorities which form fifty percent of the Polish state might cause its disintegration.
If all ruler nations would cease from oppressing their minorities they would go far in establishing permanent peace. Why don’t they learn to take as an example the freedom America allows her citizens who form a vast, happy melting pot of nations? ”

“ Like most English writers, I receive a considerable amount of printed matter from various schools of Polish patriotism, and wide divergences of spirit and intention appear. A weak, divided and politically isolated Poland of twelve or fifteen million people, under some puppet adventurer king set up between the Hohenzollerns and the Tsardom, does not promise much happiness for the Poles or much security for the peace of the world. An entirely independent Poland will be a feverish field of international intrigue--intrigue to which the fatal Polish temperament lends itself all too readily ”

“ For the crime of patriotism Poland was decimated, thousands of its noblest citizens being transported to the Caucasus and Siberia. The remnant of separate existence possessed by Poland was overthrown, and it was made a province of the Russian empire. Even the teaching of the Polish language was forbidden, the youth of the nation being commanded to learn and speak the Russian tongue. As for the persecution and suffering which fell upon the Poles as a nation, it is too sad a story to be here told. There is still a Polish people, but a Poland no more. ”

“ The success of renewed life for that nation whose fate is to remain in exile, ever isolated from the West, amongst hostile surroundings, depends on the sympathetic understanding of its problems by its distant friends, the Western Powers, which in their democratic development must recognise the moral and intellectual kinship of that distant outpost of their own type of civilisation, which was the only basis of Polish culture. ”

“ No nation with a thousand years of history behind it could be expected to rise to such heights of self-abnegation.
The wide dispersion of the Polish race, the divergence between what is ethnically Polish today and what was historically, and still is in part culturally, Polish; the lack of adequate data as to the ethnic makeup and political gravitation of so many of the border populations; the lack of clear-cut, natural frontiers—such are some of the difficulties in the way of defining Poland’s proper boundaries. ”

“ The partition of the Polish kingdom is nearly a hundred years old. But it will not allow the three powers that accomplished it to be at peace. Even now it demands great efforts to establish it as just and right. It is not enough that they have caused the history of the world to be written as if all the blame were on the side of this old Poland. It is not enough that what among other people is counted as virtue or duty—love of one's country, its memories and language, hatred for its enemies and detractors—is branded and punished when professed by a Pole. ”

“ They have taken advantage of the high prices, consequent upon the sales of the land which the government has forced on them, to buy new estates. Thanks to the high rate of birth among Poles, the proportion of Poles living in German Poland to the rest of the population remains stationary, in spite of German immigration or Polish emigration. Coöperative associations of farmers, of traders or industrial operators, present a united front in all dealings of their members with Germans. In the field of education, children are taught Polish in spite of German opposition. ”