Senator Charles J. Hokky : Ruthenia

Immediately after the take-over in 1919, the local administration of Ruthenia was dismissed and a new administrative staff was sent directly from Prague. Professor C. A. MACCARTNEY has aptly observed in his book, Hungary and Her Successors", on page 266, that this new set of Czech officials turned Ruthenia into an occupied colony. According to MACCARTNEY, the Czechs were not only the ruling class, but also a foreign one which stayed aloof from the "natives" and maintained their own exclusive clubs, coffee houses, shops and theaters. In many respects the position of the Czechs in "liberated" Ruthenia reminded MACCARTNEY of that of the British in India.

Mr. Michael YUHAS, Sr. , President of the Rusin Council of Defense in the U. S. A. during the war, who was a native of Ruthenia, gave a similar account in his book, "Wilson's Principles in Czechoslovak Practice", pages 20-21. According to Mr. YUHAS, the country was completely ruled by the Czech intruders who had no roots at all in the rank and file of the native population. They occupied the offices they owned the factories, and they owned the banks. They also kept for themselves every position that could offer a decent livelihood. Their chauvinism was most intolerant.

Despite the written agreements of the treaties, according to which the Ruthenians were supposed to have priority rights in their own country, they were demoted to the lowest level of administrative positions. Hungarians were not represented in the administration at all, in spite of the fact that in 1930, more than ten years after the ruthless Czech occupation, they still numbered, even according to the Czech statistics, 109,472 souls compared to the 33,961 "Czechoslovaks", of which more than 20,000 were Slovaks and not Czechs.

The autonomy promised to Ruthenia never materialized. Like the right to self-determination through plebiscite, this promise was drowned in the muddy waters of Czech authoritarianism, according to Mr. YUHAS.

The power structure of the Czech colonial administration in Ruthenia, as well as in the other territories seized after World War I, was based on a well organized ruthless police force which ruled the land, especially the villages, in unprecedented brutality. Rusins and Hungarians were beaten to death. Women and children were tortured, in order to supply needed "confessions" of crimes which never occurred, but were essential to furnish some explanation for the mass purges which were carried out with the sole purpose of reducing the number of the Hungarian population on one hand, and on the other hand of eliminating those dissatisfied Rusin elements who kept insisting on the materialization of the Wilsonian promises.

On September 13,1928, Dr. Joseph Gathy, M.D. , openly questioned the Minister of the Interior at a joint session of the Parliament in Prague, in regard to certain police-brutalities which had occurred on September 8,1929, in the village of Boronovo, Ruthenia. The news media "Swoboda" described the happenings at Boronovo in its November 6, 1929 issue as follows: "A squad of 18 policemen descended upon the village, and using whips made of heavy wire, beat the peasants, not only men, but women and children, also. Thirty-four of the victims had to be rushed into the distant city hospital, among them a seven month old baby. "

During the investigation that followed, in order to pacify foreign press correspondents, police and administration declared that they were "Searching for communists in the village of Boronovo. " In the same time however, there were 40 communist delegates and 20 communist senators in the Czech Parliament, officially representing the Communist Party, and a government subsidy of 40,000 crowns per year was granted to the Communist Party of Ruthenia. (M. YUHAS: "Wilson's Principles in Czechoslovak Practice" page 33-34)

Volumes could be written on the police brutalities suffered by the people of Ruthenia at the hands of the ruthless Czech administration, but it is not the purpose of this work to dwell upon such distasteful matters. Those wishing to gather further information in this respect will find ample corroboration in the following two publications: "Wilson's Principles in Czechoslovak

Practice" by M. YUHAS, and "The Tragedy of Trianon" by Sir Robert Donald.

These two books clearly prove that during the entire period of the Czechoslovak Republic police terror, spying on the citizenry and the use of agentprovocateurs were rampant. Search warrants were issued by simple edict of the police. School buildings were confiscated without any legal procedure. District officials were dismissed without pensions if they refused to obey their Czech masters. Judges had to face the same fate if they made "wrong" decisions, in their attempts to do justice to the people against the administration.

The main offensive of the Czech administration centered against the two greatest strongholds of Ruthenian national bulwarks, namely the Church and the School. The persecution of the Greek Catholic Church, to which the great majority of the population belonged, grew into unprecedented proportions. The Czech government favored the Pravoslav religion, which was represented only by a very small minority, mostly foreign elements of the population, artificially planted into the land by the Czech government. Their leaders were, (according to Mr. YUHAS, page 26), swineherds-men, woodfellers, tramps and other uneducated people who were filled with fanatism, bigotry and hatred. Their preachers were imported From Macedonia, the land of the blackest spiritual darkness in Europe. With the official blessing of the Czech administration, these Pravoslavs took away more than fifty churches from the Greek Catholic Ruthenians by brutal force and terror,

Mr. YUHAS also states that the Pravoslav terrorists were the trailblazers for the Bolshevism in Ruthenia. They fell upon the established churches like a pack of wolves, killing priests, beating loyal church members, apparently with the full approval of the administration. "The atheistic tendency of the Czechs is clear. Their obvious plan is to tear down the mightiest stronghold of the Ruthenian national feeling. " (YUHAS: "Wilson's Principles. . . " page 28).

Public education went through the same trials and tribulations. Parochial schools, which formerly had enjoyed the full support of the Hungarian government, were confiscated. The Czech language was introduced in all the elementary schools, even in towns and villages with

no Czech population whatsoever. To illustrate the undemocratic tendencies of this action, we shall quote from the "Zpravy St. Uz Statistichehe", volume 1933, the nationality figures of Ruthenia, fifteen years after the Czech occupation.

"Ruthenians; 450,925; Hungarians: 115,805; Jews: 95,008; Gzechs: 20,719; Slovaks: 13,792; Germans: 13,804; Romanians: 12,777; Gypsies: 1,442; Polish: 610; Others: 193".

In spite of these ethnic figures, the entire public education maintained by the Czech government in Ruthenia, on Ruthenian taxpayers money, was in favor of the Czech language thus serving a 2.9% a minority group "Master Race", and discriminating against the rest of the population.

Detailed references concerning the Czech attitude in Ruthenia toward schools and churches can be found in the following w o r k s of high scholastic value: M. YUHAS: "Wilson's Principles in Czechoslovak Practice"; Sir R. Donald: "The Tragedy of the Trianon"; Professor MACCARTNEY: "Hungary and Her Successors"; and L. Steiger: "Ungarns Vergewaltigung".

All the obtainable data of this historical p e r i o d clearly shows that the Czechs, under the disguise of "democracy", have for twenty years practiced the most brutal colonization policy to which Ruthenia has ever been subjected. It can also be proven that by the breaking down of moral and spiritual strongholds of the country and forcing the populace towards atheistic attitudes, the Czechs must be regarded historically as the forerunners of the Soviet Union in the total Bolshevization of this country.

Senator Charles J. Hokky : Ruthenia