CZECHOSLOVAKIA 



129 



not only much softer when new, but 

 which fade into mellow tones no chem- 

 ical dye can duplicate. 



Factories are calling the women from 

 the farms, where they utilized the winter 

 months in working out the designs traced 

 by the village designer or in evolving 

 their own. Thus, gradually the arts of 

 the past are being lost. 



the decadence of native costumes 



City girls and foreigners, whose sense 

 of art is inferior, have conceived a great 

 liking for these peasant costumes, with 

 the result that there is a market, not only 

 for the product of months or years of 

 loving labor, but also for hurried work, 

 devoid of imagination and machine-like 

 in its mediocrity. The value of a fine 

 costume runs into thousands of crowns, 

 and cheaper ones have to be supplied. 

 The result is deplorable. 



Not only are hideous color combina- 

 tions displayed and machine-made rib- 

 bons used in place of better ornament, 

 but the costumes, donned by those to 

 whom they are only a type of fancy dress, 

 lack the dignity which is never lacking 

 when they are used by the real peasant. 



Where soft leather boots should be 

 worn, with just a glimpse of knee clad in 

 an honest, heavy stocking, the town girl 

 puts on high-heeled slippers and the 

 sheerest of silk hose ; so that a thor- 

 oughly modest dress becomes a thing of 

 scorn, and on the street one sees gro- 

 tesque shapes with the heads of city 

 women, the bodies of peasants, and the 

 limbs of a midnight frolicker. 



Even from the tiny Slovak villages 

 3 r oung girls are going to the cities. They 

 have no time nor energy to work on deli- 

 cate needlework of their own, and the 

 small savings from their wages are not 

 sufficient to supply such splendid cos- 

 tumes as their mothers wore ; so they are 

 coming more and more to wear white 

 hats with wide, diaphanous brims, spot- 

 less white dresses, and white stockings 

 and slippers. Although charm is main- 

 tained, all individuality is lost. 



Peasant art, which gained an enviable 

 reputation for Austria-Hungary, is being 

 sacrificed for money which buys almost 

 nothing, and the lovely costumes of 

 Czechoslovakia will soon be seen only in 



museums, along with roc's eggs and the 

 molar apparatus of a whale. 



One crosses harvest fields to picture 

 scenes of peasant life only to be ad- 

 dressed in the accents of Cleveland and 

 Youngstown. A sturdy worker bends to 

 lift his fork of grain, and I ask him 

 whether he will take a slightly different 

 position. 



"You from America? Sure Mike, you 

 take any kind of picture you want." 



However much we may rejoice in 

 matchless landscapes, it is convenient to 

 be whisked about the country in a Czech - 

 made motor car whose chauffeur speaks 

 three languages. 



One enters the huge Skoda works with 

 resentment at the prosaic monotony of 

 the buildings, but discovers there the 

 long-prophesied miracle of a munition 

 plant turned into a locomotive works and 

 factory of. printing presses, and realizes 

 that not only are pruning-hooks and 

 plowshares and car wheels more useful 

 than siege guns, but that here, in a place 

 where one would least expect it. the pen 

 and the press are displacing the sword 

 and the death-dealing monsters of mili- 

 tarism. 



The song of romance will not be stilled, 

 and even in the whirring shuttles of 

 Liberec the melody of a modern hymn of 

 joy and freedom is slowly taking shape. 

 The day is bound to come when the white 

 coal of countless streams will wash clean 

 the atmosphere which the fumes of coal 

 have soiled, and the Caliban miners thus 

 released can once more rise to fullest 

 stature beneath the dome of out-of-doors. 



The River Vag (Waag) alone could 

 drive dynamos enough to make Slovakia 

 the dwelling-place of light, and many 

 another stream rushing toward the sea 

 will sing a more industrious song when 

 harnessed to its task. 



SLOVAKIA, THE "WILD AND WOOLLY 

 EAST END" 



In Prague they speak of Slovakia as 

 a Xew Yorker speaks of Idaho or Ari- 

 zona — a sort of distant relative with un- 

 questionable charms, but not quite versed 

 in the latest freaks with which great 

 cities try to console themselves for the 

 lads of wide open spaces under heaven's 

 blue vault. 



