Fraternity-Testvériség, 1958 (36. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)

1958-10-01 / 10. szám

4

FRATERNITY

“A SYMBOL OF /WAN’S ETERNAL STRUGGLE AGAINST OPPRESSION”

ADDRESS BY

POSTMASTER GENERAL ARTHUR E. SUMMERFIELD LAJOS KOSSUTH STAMP CEREMONY WASHINGTON, D. C. — SEPTEMBER 19, 1958

We welcome you to this dedication ceremony in which the United States Post Office Department pays tribute to one of history’s most revered leaders in the fight for liberty and justice.

This third United States “Champion of Liberty” set of postage stamps honors the memory of Lajos Kossuth and his deeds in behalf of the liberty of his beloved Magyar people and their native land of Hungary.

Lajos Kossuth was born 156 years ago in Monok in the northern region of Hungary. His ancestors, on both side of his family, had for generations been in the forefront of the struggle to liberate the Magyar people and to establish Hungary as an independent nation.

Kossuth’s life, in turn, was to become a stirring example of dedication to those very principles which were his heritage.

As a brilliant and patriotic young lawyer, an outstanding and fearless newspaper editor, Deputy in the National Diet, Finance Minister, and, finally, as Governor of a free and independent Hungary, Lajos Kossuth became, in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “freedom’s angel”.

Kossuth’s espousal of the sovereign rights of his people caused his arrest on May 5, 1836, and his imprisonment as a prisoner of the state for four years in József barracks in the city of Buda.

Citizens in all walks of life protested this injustice, and the government, faced with a continuing and accelerating protest, was compelled to release him on May 10, 1840. During his term in prison, Kossuth became highly proficient in the use of spoken and written English, accomplishments which were to serve him well in later years.

On April 14, 1849 — eight months after the start of Hungary’s war of independence — Deputy Kossuth electrified the Diet,