The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 1/Bazaars for Independent Bohemia
BAZAARS FOR INDEPENDENT BOHEMIA
This winter will be remembered among the Czechs in the United States as the season of big bazaars. In almost every large city the Bohemians either held their own bazaars, or participated in the Allied Bazaars as one of the races ranged on the side of the ten nations.
Of the more notable of these fairs, as far as they occupied the attention of the Bohemians, one ought to mention first the Allied Bazaar in Detroit, held in November; the Czechoslovak booth attracted much favorable comment and contributed materially to the financial success of the big fair. Bohemian artists from Chicago took part in the program. About the same time Bohemians in San Francisco, who number only a few hundred, held their own bazaar and made a net profit of three thousand dollars, a really remarkable result, when compared to the size of the colony that gave it.
From the financial point of view the greatest success was the bazaar given by the Bohemians in New York in the month of December. It netted $23,000 to the cause of Bohemian independence. When we consider that the great Allied Bazaar in New York, advertised by all the papers and patronized by the whole city and its countless millionaires, resulted in a profit of about half a million, the forty or fifty thousand Czechs in New York with the co-operation of a smaller number of Slovaks, among whom there are no rich people, proved that they possessed ample energy and generosity.
In January the two kindred races of Czechs and Slovaks participated in the Chicago Allied Bazaar. They were given two booths in the Coliseum and sold seven thousand dollars worth of goods donated by their own people. Through the Bohemian National Alliance nearly ten thousand advance admission tickets were disposed of. On the last day of the Bazaar, the Slav day, Bohemian artists furnished the greater part of the musical and cabaret program.
Chicago Czechs have now in preparation a large fair of their own, to be given on March 3 to 10. They aim to exceed the high goal set for Chicago by New York, a difficult undertaking, as each large Bohemian settlement in Chicago has already had its own fair and all helped to boost the Allied Bazaar. The proceeds will be devoted to the cause of independence of Bohemia.