Fraternity-Testvériség, 1952 (30. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1952-04-01 / 4. szám
TESTVÉRISÉG 15 The greatest living authority on Hungary, Oxford professor C. A. MacCartney, discussing Hungary’s Nationality Law of 1868, has this to say: “Every writer from either camp, who discusses this law, gives it fullest praise. It is certainly one of the best nationality laws that have ever been drafted. The League of Nations Minority Treaties, which have drawn very largely upon it for inspiration, fall short of its generosity.” 15) A clear idea of the generosity of the Magyar’s treatment of their nationality groups can be formed from the data given in professor Eugene Horváth’s work on the Diplomatic History of the Treaty of Trianon, according to which: “In Transylvania, the adjoining Bánát and other Hungarian territories the Rumanians took over 5899 elementary schools, which included, under Hungarian rule, 1369 state schools, 476 municipal schools, 1536 maintained by the Greek Oriental Church, 1119 by the Greek Catholics, 501 by the Calvinists, 474 by the Roman Catholics, 276 by the Lutherans, 43 by the Jews, and 29 by the Unitarians. In 3025 the language of instruction was Hungarian.” 16) In other words, almost half of the schools of the territory taken over by the Rumanians (48.73 percent) were nationality schools in some of which Magyar instruction was not given at all, as only schools receiving state grants were required to provide instruction also in Magyar language. It goes without saying that conditions in the rest of Hungary were exactly the same in all areas inhabited by nationality groups. Count Albert Apponyi, “the Grand Old Man of Hungary’, relates in his memoirs that on his second American tour, which was occasioned by a call from a number of prominent Americans, among them Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia University and Andrew Carnegie, his visit in Chicago was marred by a untoward event. Owing to the wide interest shown in his lecture there, a public auditorium was selected to hold his audience. At the instigation of the Czeh inhabitants of the windy city, Chicago Slavs raised an uproar in opposing this move. Accusing Count Apponyi of the crime of closing down the nationality schools of Hungary, they called on the members of the City Council, demanding that the permit for the Count’s appearance be revoked. The city fathers, not knowing the facts in the case, were terrorized into submission, and Count Apponyi was forced to deliver his address in a private club. The facts in the case are as follows. Count Apponyi, as Hungary’s minister of education, was responsible for the enactment of the so- called Apponyi School Law, a revolutionary development in Hungary’s educational system, prescribing free primary education in all Magyar schools. One stipulation of the Apponyi law was that all schools receiving state aid were to provide also Magyar language instruction. Up till that time even that provision had not been prescribed for the schools of Hungary, and any language was allowed to be used in nationality schools, which is a further proof of the generous treatment of that country’s nationality groups. Count Apponyi was a man of pronounced democratic views, and an ardent apostle of international peace. As such, he was given the privilege of addressing the joint session of the Congress of the United States on Febr. 9, 1911, an honor bestowed by that august body on only another Magyar, Lajos Kossuth. President Theodore Roosevelt entertained him at his Oyster Bay residence, and remained in constant correspondence with him. The Czehs of Chicago, however, knew better. Their propaganda mills were working full blast by that time, and no falsehood was too vile for them if it could be put to use for anti-Magyar purposes. (12) In one of his addresses, delivered in America, Lajos Kossuth observed: “Russian propaganda is a subterraneous power, slippery like an eel. And when it has to come out in broad day-light, it watches to the left, when it looks to the right.” (Pittsburgh Festival, Jan. 26, 1852). Running true to form, Czeh propaganda follows closely the same pattern. Shunning direct attack, it prefers to lie hidden like the proverbial snake in the grass. In the ready-reference volume “Information Please,” for the year 1952, the reader is given the following piece of information about Hungary: “Fascist-minded militarists and greed for more territory lined up Hungary with Germany and Italy just before World War II.” 18) This statement, in which Czeh propaganda can be smelled from a mile, is one hundred percent wrong, as facts will conclusively prove it. Three sentences from former ambassador J. F. Montgomery’s book “Hungary, the Unwilling Satellite” will suffice here: “It is an undeniable fact that Hitler’s best collaborators in the second World War were the Czehs, the Slovaks and the Rumanians. Hungary held out the longest, until the spring of 1944.” 19) In another chapter of his book, entitled “Hungary, a Refuge of One Million Jews”, Mr. Montgomery observes the following: “Most submissive to German demands were, as in every other respects, Czehs and Slovaks. Even under Mr. Benes, one year before Hitler marched into Prague, Austrian Jews were turned back by Czeh constables and handed over to the Gestapo — among them Robert 15 16 17 18 19 15) C. A. MacCartney, Hungary and Its Successors, Royal Institute of Internaional Affairs, Oxford, 1937, p. 20. 16) Eugene Horváth, Diplomatic History of the Treaty of Trianon, pp. 208, 209. 17) Andor Clay and Walter Kamprad, The Visitor Speaks, Washington, D. C., Williams & Heintz Co., 1950, p. 28. 18) John Kiernan, "Information Please" The MacMillan Co., New York, 1952, p. 513. 19) J. F. Montgomery, Hungary, the Unwilling Satellite, p. 21.
