MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
93 
Bohemian freethinking is altogether too general to be philosophical, 
but is an expression of the historical protest against catholic Austria, 
and as such differs in no respect from catholic Poland and Orthodox 
Russia, or catholic Ireland and protestant England, dust as the sight 
of a Russian church makes a Pole pious so the sight of any church 
makes a Bohemian a freethinker. In the city of Chicago a year ago 
there were 27,000 Bohemians who made a quarterly payment for the 
support of schools on Saturday and Sunday to teach the Bohemian 
language and freethought. 
A larger and more comprehensive movement than these I have men- 
tioned is the rapidly developing pan-slavic feeling. Last summer I at- 
tended an international Slavic gymnastic meet in Prague. More than 
twenty thousand persons took part, at one time eleven thousand men 
speaking several different languages were doing calisthenic exercises 
together. With the exception of the Poles who would not compete be- 
cause Russians were invited, there were representatives of all the 
Slavic divisions : Slovaks, Slovenes, Serbs, Oroatians, Bulgarians, Monte- 
negrins, Ruthenians, Moravians, Bohemians and Russians. The key- 
note of every speech was ‘“Slavic, Slavic,” and when it was uttered 
the crowds would go wild. There were quarter of a million visitors in 
the city, and the illustrated reports of the exhibitions went to the ends 
of the Slavic world. I saw some of them pasted on the wall of a 
peasant's factory in the back district of Moscow. But the German 
daily which was the only one I could read ignored the meet completely, 
and no self respecting German could attend, just as my cousin cannot 
now visit Norway. The streets were everywhere decorated with flags 
but never did one see the Austrian flag. Those whose judgment I accept 
told me that the meet indicated a very rapid development of the pan- 
slavic feeling over a very few years ago. 
At the recent outbreak of hostilities in the Balkan states there was 
a pretty general fear that there might be wars, especially between 
Austria and Russia, and Austria and Servia. The latter seemed very 
imminent at one time. We were given to understand that diplomacy 
had reached a high plane and held the wars off. We did hear that 
there was a great socialist meeting to protest against making workmen 
of one country fight workmen of other countries. Some of us, I am 
sure, believed that this demonstration helped the diplomats make their 
decisions even though the reports of the socialist proceedings were 
censored in Austria. But I suspected that we were not getting all the 
possible news from Vienna, and I inquired from my Bohemian friends. 
I had said that I did not believe it would be possible for Austria to 
make war on Servia as almost two-thirds of the population of Austria 
is Slavic. My surmise had been correct for I learned that when the 
Bohemians were being entrained from their garrisons for mobilization 
on the Austrian border they were singing the Slavic song which a 
few years ago was forbidden throughout Austria. Any man who might 
be appointed a diplomat would know enough to take this fact into 
consideration, as well as the socialist attitude. Much Hie same feeling 
exists toward Russia, though ihe average Russian soldier has not yet 
reached the point of feeling anything at all in. the matter. However, 
the military future of Europe must take all this into account just as 
it must reckon with the brotherhood idea of socialism. When a war 
