The sun. [volume], August 10, 1919, Page 6, Image 6

About The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920

Image provided by: The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundation

                
Nation
REAL
HUNGARY
L t
To the
American
FACTS
ABOUT
The Hungarian situation has reached a stage of such a'cute
ness that the Peace Conference and the home governments of
the principal allies as well are greatly disturbed. Ultimatums
hurriedly telegraphed to Rumania demanding !a 'modification,
of the severe terms imposed on the Hungarians have proved
futile. " 4 '
Because of the obdurate attitude of the Rumanians the
transportation system of central Europe has been upset, mak
ing it impossible to forward s'upplies to, the starving popu
lations. Mr. Balfour, the Foreign Secretary of - England, in the
strongest possible terms condemned the Rumanian invasion of
Hungary's capital and according to cable dispatches the 'Peace
Conference unanimously demanded the withdrawal of the
Rumanian troops from Budapest and did not recognize Ruma
nia's ultimatum to Hungary.
And -now that it has been so fatefully demonstrated that
an ally of the Allies may commit deeds that are wrong the
"American Committee for the Relief of Hungary" would like
to state a few facts which will-show that the demands of Hun
gary's neighbors for territory are wrong, as well, and while
based upon racial grounds, are clearly imperialistic. '
The American people had so little opportunity to hear
Hungary's side Of the story that this information should be
welcomed by every fair-minded citizen of this country.
. .... .,To begin with, thousand year bid Hungary has been in
Jthe course of its historyawgreat poweror good. ' The consti
; . tutiph of Hungary is as oIcMs its history) - Nextto the English,
the Hungarian constitution, is the oldest In Europe. Then it
must be remembered that Hungary .has. aj ways been the classical
land of religious liberty. . As "far back, as 1B54 the Traiisylvanian
Diet at Torda enacted the ; legal equality of all denominations
then known there. That Hungary for a century and a half has
been fighting the Turks and preventing them from extending
their rule over Western Europe is a known historical fact. Hun
garian music, Hungarian literature and art as well as' Hungarian
scholarship have contributed to a large, extent to the World's
knowledge, enjoyment and enlightenment. Hungarian culture
has an individuality all its own. Shall it cease now, shall Hun-,
gary be dismembered, vivisected, annihilated?
The neighboring nations want to dismember Hungary on
racial grounds, but what are the facts?
Thousand year old Hungary does not possess any provinces
conquered by the sword. Her f rontiers have not changed for ten
1 centuries. The country is inhabited by the Hungarians or Magy
ars, who established themselves there in the 9th century, and
by .other races which immigrated there in later times. Most of
the Germans immigrated as colonists. In the Eleventh century
the ancestors of the Slovaksof today were admitted from the
upper valleys of the Moraya, Odera and Vistula. In the 14th
century Ruthenians ma'de a habit of crossing the mountains in
the Northeast to pasture thejr cattle in those tracts of Hungary.
In the middle of the 13th century the Hungarians permitted
Rumanian shepherds from Wallachia and Bulgaria to settle in
the Southern parts of Hungary. The number of the Rumanians
and Servians increased when many thousands of those races came
to Hungary in order to find' there an asylum where they would
be safe from Turkish rule. The Hungarians welcomed them and
made them feel at home in their country.
It is therefore an outstanding historical fact that those
parts of Hungary which today are inhabited by various nationali
ties did not belong originally to those races sbut have been popu
lated by the ancestors of the Slovaks, Ruthenians, Rumanians,
Servians and Germans through immigration.
The other outstanding fact is that not only has Hungary within her present
limits been a political unit for more than a thousand years, but her territory is
perhaps the finest natural geographic unity in Europe, as a glimpse at the map
will show., Economically her parts are interdependent, northern Hungary hav
ing iron, wood, water-power; central and westerriN Hungary having wheat, corn,
pasture 'grounds; southeastern Hungary (Transylvania) coal, salt, oil and natural-gas.
Each section apparently is economically speaking-a cripple; to
gether they constitute a fine; 'self -supporting organism. Belonging to the same
river system, they communicate easily with each other. History has been the
interpreter pf nature, .when she created -and preserved the .political union of
Hungary's present territory.
Life and time mingled the various races in Hungary incessantly. Other
minglings were accentuated during the 18th century, and as one finds there now
side by side Protestant, Catholic, Jew and Orthodox, similarly there are in Hun
gary in the same region members of five or six nationalities. If we except Central
Hungary, which is wholly Magyar (85), and northern Hungary, which is in
deed almost entirely Slovak (76), the races are so intermingled that you can
not cut out an unbroken territory from any of them. Every such attempt creates
new mixed territories with no clear racial majority in them.
A fair solution of the problem in Hungary, therefore, must be one which con
ciliates the laws of geography and political economy and the deep rooted result
of history with the just demand of race.
Of course imperialism manufactures its own apparently just reasons to ex
plain its unprincipled pretensions. Hungary's neighbors claim that the nation
alities in Hungary have been oppressed. There is no space available, to refute
here this accusation. But what sort of an oppression could it.have been that made it
possible for all these races to increase in numbers, to keep their language and
natioriaHndividuality during seven or eight centuries? Poes this fact not show
rather that Magyar rule was not only not oppressive, but on the contrary liberal
and generous? Other countries in Europe have during the past centuries forced
their population of many races to melt, together and become one nation. Hun
gary permitted all of its inhabitants to keep theirnationality, asking them; only to
be good Hungarian citizens.
And the majority of these nationalities, the Slovaks, the Rumanians and the
Serbs, do not want to cease to be Hungarian. It is the land hunger of -the neigh-
boring nations, their imperialism, which urges not only the i dismemberment of
Hungary, but demands territories where the Magyar ra,ce is in majority on the
ground that some of their own nationality live there, thereby intending to sub
ject millions of Hungarians to foreign rule.
Now, Hungary's problem, if a lasting peace is intended,
can be solved only in accordance with the principle of national
self-determination. It would violate this principle to permit
- that territories should be shifted from one state intp another
without the consent of the people who live upon those territories.
Indeed the dismemberment of Hungary would be as great
an injustice as that of Poland was, and would be a cause of
economic troubles and never ceasing hostilities. It would
create a Magyar irredentism much worse than any irredentism
known heretofore, because the oppression and subjugation of
the Magyar 'people 'would take place at 'the very time when
justice to the nationalities has been recognized as a fundamental
principle of world politics.
We respectfully appeal therefore to the President of the
United States, to the United States Senate, to the House of Rep
resentatives and to the American Nation for justice to Hungary.
AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR THE RELIEF OF HUNGARY
ARNOLD SOMLYO, Corresponding Secretary
665N5th Avenue, New York City
BERT ALAN BARNA, Chairman
(