20,000 members. They also have numerous benevolent lodges with an aggregate membership of over 100,000 in the United States, which manage insurance systems on a most democratic and safe basis. This management in almost all cases includes women in exact equality. The same thing is true of the Sokol or gymnastic society which is organized in all Slavic countries. In the numerous deliberative meetings of Bohemians that I have attended the women have shown themselves quite the equal of the men in debate.
The ultimate democracy must include universal suffrage, which we see has its roots in the Slavic institutions. The Bohemians have the arguments of the Germans about the place of women, but their practice is more subtly democratic than they are aware of. Until it was confused with the prohibition question Bohemians have consistently advocated equal suffrage, before it became generally popular. The Germans have as consistently opposed it.
Whatever the outcome of the war the Slavs will jnevitably become an increasing influence in the world’s progress because of their higher birth rate and because they possess the richest natural resources in the world. It is perhaps an occasion for gratitude that in the midst of the apparently insoluble problems about the exploitation of
