The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 2/Some quiet workers

SOME QUIET WORKERS.

 

The main task of people of Bohemian descent in the United States, at least of all those who cherish tender memories for the land of their fathers, is to convince the people of the United States that the Czechoslovaks are entitled to freedom and that the weight of this country should back their demand for an independent Bohemia.

A few men, officers of the Bohemian National Allianc, give all their time to this work. But there are others who snatch what time they can from their regular duties to tell the citizens of their city and state about the Bohemians. Every Bohemian is proud of Aleš Hrdlička, curator of the Smithsonian Institute and the greatest living authority on the American Indian. Dr. Hrdlička, who by the way insists on having his name written with the diacritical marks of Czech spelling, writes learned articles and delivers lectures not merely about the Indian, but also about the Bohemian, and gains friends, wherever he goes, for the Bohemian cause. Thomas Čapek, president of the Bank of Europe of New York City, is one of the very few authors of Czech descent writing in the English language. All his leisure is devoted to presenting the Bohemian and Slovak cause to America in book form. Professor Bohumil Šimek of the University of Iowa, a man born in a mud cabin on the Iowa prairies, and with two sons in the American army, is as good an American as you can find anywhere among the state universities of this broad land. And yet he loves the land from which his parents came and is never weary of answering a call for a speech from social and business and learned organizations anywhere in the Mississippi Valley.

Another scholar of American birth, but Bohemian ancestry, is Miss Šárka Hrbková, professor of Slavic languages at the University of Nebraska. Miss Hrbková enjoys the distinction of being the state chairman of the Women’s Committee of the Nebraska State Council of Defense. In her many addresses and newspaper interviews she never forgets to speak a good word for Bohemia.

There are others, too numerous to mention, sound Americans all, yet eager to do what little may lay in their power for the race whose blood flows in their veins—men like Jeremiah L. Trnka of Hoboken, one of the original four-minute men, women like Miss Madeline Veverka, assistant superintendent of schools of Los Angeles. The Bohemian Review is proud of the fact that some of these little-known, quiet workers who have never seen the land whence their parents came, have been stirred up to do their little bit for old Bohemia through the columns of this paper.