Page:Bohemia under Hapsburg misrule (1915).pdf/29

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A PLACE IN THE SUN
25

It may not be uninteresting to note, as indicative of the position held by Bohemians among the Slavs, the number of newspapers circulated in Slavdom.[1] The Lusatian Serbs, a remnant of a once populous Slavic branch in Germany, support 11 publications; Slovaks, 53 (4 of which are dailies); Slovenes, 110 (5 dailies); Bulgars, 300 (19 dailies); Serbo-Croatians, 350 (37 dailies); Poles, 600 (78 dailies); Bohemians, 1,400 (34 dailies), and Russians, 1,800 (315 dailies). From this statistical fragment it will be seen that a little country like Bohemia takes very favorable rank when compared with the great Russian Empire.

At home the Bohemian is looked upon as a progressive agriculturist, and American tourists who have traveled in the country have been favorably impressed with the orderliness of the farms and the high state of cultivation of the land. In the great agricultural belt formed by the States of Wisconsin, Minnesot, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas there are large settlements of Bohemians (about one-half of the Bohemian population in the United States devoting itself to farming), and their farms are known to bear favorable comparison with the homesteads owned by landtillers of Scandinavian and Teuton ancestry.

The fact that a particular faith was denied him

  1. “The Slavdom: Picture of Its Past and Present,” Prague, 1912.