Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1984. július-december (38. évfolyam, 27-48. szám)
1984-10-18 / 39. szám
10. Thursday, Oct. 18. 1984. AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZO Memorializing the "Hungarian De Tocqueville" Jimmy Breslin : Listen to what he says Last May Tom Lantos, the Hungarian born congressman from California, delivered a moving address in connection with the 150th anniversary of the publication of BŐló'ni Farkas' "Journey in North America". We are pleased to bring it to the attention of our readers. Mr. Speaker, 150 years ago, Sándor Boloni Farkas (1795-1842) published his excellent book "Utazás Észak- Amerikában - Journey in North America." The volume, published in the Transylvanian city of Kolosvár (Cluj) in 1834, is an exellent study of 19th century American democracy, which he termed "the new miracle in world history." I wish to note, Mr. Speaker, that Farkas' book was published 1 year before French author Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" appeared. Farkas toured the United States as secretary and companion of his friend Count Ferenc Beldy, a reform-minded Hungarian from Transylvania. The two left Europe in July 1831. During their stay in America they met with many of our country's intellectual and political leaders, including President Andrew Jackson. They also had the opportunity to meet de Tocqueville and the other French commissioner studying the American penal system at the time. When Farkas' volume was published upon his return to Transylvania, it was so popular that the first edition sold out quickly and a second edition was printed soon after the appearance of the first. The work's admiring statements about the democratic institutions and the great achievements of the United States were overlooked initially by the Austrian censors, copies of the later printing were ordered confiscated by Prince Metternich. Some copies, however, escaped confiscation. The Library of Congress has one of the copies that has survived. Although plans for publication of a German language edition of the book came to naught because of Metternich’s opposition, the Hungarian work did exert great influence upon the political leaders of Hungary. It was awarded the grand prize of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest and many of Hungary's reformist leaders - including Count Stephen Szécheny, founder of the Academy, and Louis Kossuth, leader of the Hungarian struggle for independence in 1848-49 - became admirers of the United States in part thanks to this volume. Mr. Speaker, in commemoration of the publication of this important volume, the special display in the European Reading Room of the Library of Congress has been prepared and will be open through September of this year. Beers bring home the golds Seven beers brewed in Hungary have clinched gold medals at this year's international qualification in Madrid, where the products of several hundred breweries of 70 countries were qualified by an unpartisan jury, under sponsorship of Monde Selection Institute of Belgium. Subcribe to Hungarian Mercury ONE OF THOSE who helped build the first atomic bomb was LI. Rabi, who is 86 now and lives on Riverside Drive in Manhattan. In 1945, as a physicist from Columbia University, he was in a bunker at Alamagordo, N.M., where he viewed the world's atomic explosion. In the same bunker were such people as Fermi, Teller and Oppenheimer. The men who had built the bomb had a dollar pool on the size of the blast. Rabi put his dollar into the pot and said that the atomic blast would be equal to 18,000 tons of TNT. He was the vinner. After the explosion, he picked up a roll of money from the Fermis, Tellers and Oppenheimers and stuffed it into his pocket. "It was a big roll, over $100", he said yesterday. "There were no credit cards in those days." Rabi was found in his apartment on Riverside Drive yesterday. If he was smart enough to take money from Fermi on an atomic bomb, then his thoughts on America today, where people talk about nuclear weapons as if they are ice cream cones, might be meaningful. I.I. Rabi said yesterday that he does not think this country is strong enough, physically and particularly emotionally, to get through a nuclear attack. To begin the discussion, Rabi said: "You're a Queens Catholic. Get on your knees and pray." He then said: "Nuclear weapons are entirely beyond the people in our government today. It doesn't take much to know that. The offhand remark by the President about bombing Russia in five minutes tells you that. He doesn't have his marbles." Rabi was referring to Reagan's heartwarming bantering about blowing up Russia while he was waiting to begin a radio show. "I have never heard anybody who knew anything about a nuclear weapon talk like Reagan did." AN IMPORTANT EXHIBITION! The ceramic creations of one of this world's outstanding ceramic artists, Eva Zeisel, will be exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum (Eastern Parkway). It is a comprehensive and representative show of breath-taking beauty that should not be missed by anyone interested in ceramic creative art. Ms. Zeisel is the outstanding moving spirit behind the worldwide fame of the Zsolnay Porcelain factory of Pecs, Hungary. The museum is open daily, except Tuesday. The exhibition will end on November 16th. Some of Ms. Zeisel's work. Rabi then brought up Jimmy Carter's remark in the 1980 debate, in which Carter quoted his young daughter as being concerned about nuclear weapons. Carter said that he had asked Amy what was the most important issue in the world and she said it was nuclear arms. "The newspapers said it was stupid. I never did. It was the little girl who was going to be killed." Rabi feels that the Reagan remark this year is an expression of a government that is ignorant. "There is a lack of imagination in our government about nuclear weapons, and a lack of pity for the United States. This government only thinks of the harm it can do to the Russians. "In Washington, they never think of what could happen to the American people. I'm sorry for the American people. "This country is a democracy and therefore it is very fragile. We've never had anything happen to us. We are kept together with strings. "But the whole dream of this wonderful place would go up in smoke. You don't have to be a nuclear physicist to see this. You just have to love America." Rabi, who retired from Columbia in 1967 with every award there is in the world, thinks that his country shouldn't have a President who is much over 60, particularly when there are nuclear weapons around. "He scares me. Are we being run by elected people or nonelected people? I'm sorry for the American people. The government acts as if it were on drugs. A high. "They talk about what they can do to Russia and they forget us. I pay our government to worry about me." In 1983, on the 40th anniversary of the first work on the atomic bomb, Rabi gave a speech at Los Alamos, N.M. He said: "Nations are now lined up like people before the ovens of Auschwitz, while we are trying to make the ovens more efficient." He then said of the bomb he had helped to build: "We meant well, but we gave the power away to people who didn't understand it. Now it's out of our hands." He lives up on Riverside Drive, and we intend to visit with him many times between now and the national elections, because this man makes more sense to me about the times in which we live than all of the imbeciles reporting on television and in the newspapers. (Reprinted from the N.Y.Daily News.) ■■■iiiWj .1 — 1 ..ini mii..... in, I»....... Economic ties with India Current two-way trade and ways of boosting it were considered at the meeting here on October 1-5 of the trade subcommittee of the Hungarian-Indian joint committee for economic, technological and scientific cooperation. The head of the Indian delegation was received by István Hetenyi, the finance minister and co-chairman of the committee, and Tibor Melega, deputy minister of foreign trade. BEATIFUL-that is a conclusion drawn by sight and endorsed by the other senses. Emó Osvát, 1877-1929. Hungarian critic and magazine editor
