Part 25

My impression of New Prague is that it is neither “tough” nor infidel; it is true that it has saloons and too many of them, that the Continental Sabbath is the type of its rest-day, but in outward decency and in the degree of intelligence among its professional and business men, it rivals any other town of its size with which I am acquainted. It is surrounded by Irish and American settlements, the first of which it surpasses in order and decency, and is not far from the other in enterprise and an unexpressed desire to establish the kingdom of God upon the earth.

Unfortunately the saloon holds an abnormally large place in the social life of the Bohemians, and beer works its havoc among them socially and politically. The lodges, of which there are legion, are above or beneath saloons, and all societies down to the building and loan associations are in close touch with them. It is the pride of Bohemian Chicago that two of its greatest breweries are in the hands of its countrymen, and brewers and saloon-keepers control much of the Bohemian vote. I asked one of the politicians whether that element was active in politics, and he replied, “Oh, yes; we have five aldermen and the city clerk.” The fact is that they have given Chicago a poor class of officials and have placed their worst infidels in the city council and on the school board. There is not a little avowed Anarchy among them, and a great deal more of Marxian Socialism, one of the daily papers advocating the latter political faith. Just as there is much dangerous half-knowledge on religious subjects, so there is on politics, and the worst and yet the most eloquent arguments I have heard on Socialism, have been by these agitators.

Though the Bohemian is very pugnacious, he is easily led, or rather easily influenced, and in times of political excitement I should say that he would need a great deal of watching. He is much more tenacious of his language and customs than the German, and I have found children of the third generation who spoke English like foreigners. An appeal to his history, to the achievements of his people, awakens in him a great deal of pride, which he easily implants into the hearts of his children. This does not make him a worse American, and in the Bohemian heart George Washington soon has his place by the side of John Huss, and ere long is “first” with these new countrymen.

The Bohemian is intelligent enough to know what he escaped in Austria, and thus values his opportunities in America. Undoubtedly too often he confuses liberty with license, but in this he is not a sinner above others. His greatest sin is his materialism, and he stunts every part of his finer nature to own a house and to have a bank account. Children are robbed of their youth and of the opportunity to obtain a higher education by this hunger after money, and parental authority among the Bohemians has all the rigour of the Austrian absolutism which they have transplanted, but which they cannot maintain very long, for young Bohemia is quickly infected by young America, and a small-sized revolution is soon started in every household. It is then that the first generation thinks its bitterest thoughts about this country and its baleful influence upon the young. In fact, the second generation is rather profligate in “sowing its wild oats,” which are reaped in the police courts in the shape of fines for drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and assault and battery.

The Bohemian is among the best of our immigrants, and yet may easily be the worst, for when I have watched him in political riots in Prague and Pilsen, or during strikes in our own country I have found him easily inflamed, bitter and relentless in his hate, and destructive in his wild passion. He has lacked sane leaders in his own country, as he lacks well-balanced leaders in this. The settlement and missionary workers in Chicago find him rather hard material to deal with, for he is unapproachable, not easily handled, and repels them by his suspicious nature and outward unloveliness, although he is better than he seems, and not quite so good as he thinks himself to be, for humility is not one of his virtues. He develops best where he has the best example, and upon the farms of Minnesota and Nebraska he is second only to the German, whose close neighbour he is and with whom he lives in peace, strange as it may seem. The Bohemian is here to stay, and scarcely any of those who come will ever stand again upon St. Charles bridge, and watch their native Moldava as it winds itself along the ancient battlements of “Golden Prague,” as they love to call their capital. America is their home, “for better or for worse”; they love it passionately; and yet one who knows their history, every page of it aflame with war, need not wonder that they turn often to their past and dwell on it, lingering there with fond regret.

Some years ago, while I was in Prague, Antonin Dvorák, the composer, celebrated his sixtieth birthday, and the National Opera-house was the scene of a gala performance and a great demonstration in his honour. They gave his national dances in the form of a grand ballet, and to the notes of those wild and melancholy strains of the mazurka, the kolo, and the krakovyan, came all the Slavic tribes in their picturesque garb, and all were greeted by thunderous applause as they planted their national banners. At last came a stranger from across the sea, and in his hand was a flag, the Stars and Stripes, while to greet him came Bohemia, with Bohemia’s colours waving in her hands; and these two received the greatest applause of that memorable evening.

These two are in the heart of this stranger. Faithful to the old, he will ever be loyal to the new. How to be loyal to this flag in times of peace; at the ballot-box, on the streets of Cleveland during a strike, as a citizen and alderman in Chicago, is the great lesson which he needs to learn, and we need to learn it with him. He will remain a Bohemian longest in the agricultural districts of Minnesota and Nebraska, where he holds tenaciously to the speech of his forefathers; but, in spite of that, I consider him a better American than his brother in the city. He needs to find here a Christianity which will satisfy his spiritual nature and which will become the law of his life, a religion which binds him and yet will make him truly free; and that we all need to find. Above all, he has to resist the temptation to make bread out of stone, to use all his powers to make a living and none of them to make a life; and that is a temptation which we must all learn to resist, for neither men nor nations can “live by bread alone.”

XVI

LITTLE HUNGARY

The initiated New Yorker knows half a dozen restaurants at the edge of the great Ghetto, where eating and drinking are a pleasure bought for a modest price, and where the fragrance of fine cigars mingles with that of better wine, and good fellowship reigns supreme. Some of these restaurants are splendidly furnished, and cater to the lucrative trade of those Americans who have had a taste of the social life of Southern Europe and who like to lapse into its mild sins every once in a while.

One of these places, now so fashionable that the real Hungarian rarely darkens its doors, where the popping of champagne corks is heard in the early morning hours, and where the oyster and lobster have almost entirely supplanted the native Gulyas,--is one of the pioneers among them, and in its early days served as a boarding house for the Hungarian Jews who, for one reason or another, had exiled themselves from the gay boulevards of Budapest. Here they tried to find consolation in food cooked Magyar fashion, and in playing for a few hours at “Clabrias,” their social game of cards, which could also occasionally degenerate into gambling. The keeper of the place whose Semitic name of Cohen had been changed into the Magyar, Koronyi, recovered the fortune which he had lost in the Old Country, but in spite of the fact that his bank account grew larger every day, he still kept the boarding house as he had always kept it, with his wife as the cook and himself as the waiter.

In stentorian voice he would call out: “Harom Lövös” (three soups) or “Harom Gulyas” (three Hungarian stews). Into the kitchen and out of it he would rush with full and empty plates, in evident enjoyment of his hard task.

The reputation of the place travelled as far as Broadway, and great was the day when rich clothing merchants came to eat his twenty-five cent dinner with evident relish; but still greater the day when their Gentile customers were brought thither to taste of the fleshpots of “Little Hungary.”

With increased speed he would run to the kitchen calling: “Harom Lövös,” returning with three plates of soup upon his outstretched arm, unburdened by a coat sleeve; and his bank account grew and his children also.

Two sons, boys still, helped the father call out the orders, until they came to a realization of the dignity of the business and the size of their father’s bank account. It was a sorry day for Simon Koronyi when bills of fare appeared upon his tables. They were there only after a bitter struggle which cost him many a sleepless night. With the bills of fare came waitresses, leaving the old man no occupation but to stand silently, and receive the quarters which were heaped in great piles in the till, while he grew daily more silent and morose.

The sons had caught the enterprising spirit of this country; they bought a lot on a street a few blocks nearer Broadway and built a house with a suggestion of Hungary in its style. The dining-room was frescoed in Hungarian scenes, with mottoes in the Magyar tongue, and was soon transformed into a fashionable resort.

Simon Koronyi, the founder of “Little Hungary,” moved into the house reluctantly. Stormy scenes followed the introduction of American dishes into the bill of fare, and when as a last straw a cash register appeared on the counter, the old man’s heart almost broke. Hesitatingly, his gentle old fingers moved over the keys of the machine, but he was pushed rudely aside by the hurrying hand of his younger son. Thus dishonoured in the sight of his guests, Simon Koronyi, tottering like a drunken man, went to his apartments up-stairs, and there remained until the “Chevra Kedisha,” the Jewish Funeral Society, carried him to his last resting place.

* * * * *

A few blocks north of these fashionable “Little Hungarys,” the real Hungary begins, and hither come the “Magyars” as the ruling race in Hungary is called. If you call them Slavs they will reject it as an insult.

The Magyar has not the slightest relation to the Slavs, unless it be that of ruling a portion of them with a rather iron hand, and hating all of them proportionately. The Magyar’s closest relation is to the Finns on the north and to the Turks in the east of Europe, and he is classed anthropologically as a Ugro-Finn. In his development he has leaned closely to the west, having a Germanic culture while still retaining a somewhat untamed Asiatic nature, which manifests itself in nothing worse than a love of fast horses, fiery wine, and the wild music with which the gypsy bewitches him, and draws the loose change out of the pockets of his tight-fitting trousers.

In that strange conglomerate of races and nationalities called the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Magyar has gained a dominant influence, and although numerically among the smallest, he has gained for himself the greatest privileges, and practically dictates the policy of the Empire. Upon those rich plains by the Danube and the Theis, he has been a plowman who enjoyed the fruits of his toil as long as the marauding Turk would let him, furnishing wheat and corn for the rest of Europe, and gaining not a little wealth since his arch-enemy has been driven back into peace. What he has made of his country in the last forty years of internal and external peace, how he has created for himself a capital which surpasses Vienna, and built factories and railroads unrivalled anywhere, forms a glorious page in the history of Europe.

From this comparatively wealthy country; from its freedom, its broad prairies and its picturesque village life, there have come to America one hundred thousand men and women who are hard to wean from this Magyar land, but who, like all others, finally lose themselves in the national life, bringing into it fewer vices and more virtues than we ever connect with the Hungarian as he is superficially known among us. In Little Hungary rosy-cheeked maidens with bare arms akimbo, stand in many a doorway while their swains court them on the street as they were in the habit of doing at home. Nearly every second house advertises “Sor-Bor” or “Palenka” for sale--the wine, beer, and whiskey to which the Magyar is devoted; everywhere one hears the sound of the cymbal, that unpromising instrument which looks more like a kitchen utensil than anything else, but out of which the gypsy hammers sweet music. Little Hungary has but a small domain in New York; it ends abruptly with more restaurants in which gulyas, the favourite stew of the Magyar, lures the appetite; close by is Little Bohemia, and finally the big Germany which overshadows every other nationality.

The Hungary of New York, however, is only a stopping place,--is more Jewish than Magyar, and consequently does not promise a good field for observation. In Cleveland some twenty thousand Magyars live together round about those giant steel mills which send their black smoke like a pall over that much alive but very dirty city. Although street after street is occupied solely by them, I have not seen a house that shows neglect, and the battle with Cleveland dirt is waged fiercely here, judging by the clean doorsteps, window-panes, and white curtains which I saw at nearly every house. A large Catholic church, with its parochial school dedicated to St. Elizabeth, the Hungarian queen, shows that the Magyar does not neglect his religion. There are also a Greek Catholic church and a flourishing Protestant congregation. A weekly newspaper keeps the Hungarians in touch with one another and with the homeland, although it does not represent the Magyar spirit either by its contents or through the personality of its editor, who has no influence among his countrymen. I looked in vain for a Hungarian political “boss,” for no party can claim these people exclusively. Social Democracy has made great gains among them, which is due in no small measure to the fact that they come from a comparatively wealthy country, from conditions which are not unbearable, and from something of ease and comfort; and so, finding the work in the iron-mills hard and grinding, they soon grow dissatisfied, which means--Social Democracy. A sort of pessimistic philosophy is developed, and the happy Hungarians grow melancholy, dejected, and homesick. They cling with rare tenacity to the fatherland, in which they have a just pride, and whenever the opportunity offers itself they show how much they love it. The erection of a monument to Louis Kossuth by men and women of the labouring classes, the enthusiasm with which it was dedicated, the festivities which recalled by speech, song, and dress the greatness of the man whose memory they honoured, speak much for their idealistic and loyal love of country.

Of all foreigners the Hungarians are among the most tolerant towards the Jews, who live in large numbers in Hungary, while Hungarian Jews in Cleveland love to be known as Magyars and are treated as such by their fellow countrymen. The Magyar’s good nature is also shown by his treatment of the gypsies, who have followed him in large numbers to America, and are really a sort of parasite, being supported by the easy-going and pleasure-loving Magyars, who dance the czardas to the fiery notes of fiddles and cymbals whose owners finally possess the largest portion of their patron’s wages.

The Hungarian gypsy boy, who is supposed to choose between the violin and the penny, must in most cases take the two, for in Hungary as in America he is both musician and thief with equal adeptness. One gypsy in Cleveland keeps a saloon which is a combination of the Hungarian “czarda” (inn) and its American namesake, the saloon, and it combines the evils of both institutions. The regular bar is supplemented by rickety chairs and tables and a clear space for the dancing floor, without which the Hungarian czarda does not exist. On Saturday night, the soot of the week washed away, the Hungarian is found here in all his native glory. His moustache, twisted to the fineness of a needle-point, is his most prominent national characteristic, unless it be his small, shining eyes which barely escape looking out into the world from Mongolian openings. A small head and prominent cheek-bones are also characteristic, while the colour of the hair is dark brown and black, the blond being almost unknown. He differentiates himself from his neighbour the Slav by his agility of both temper and limbs, and to see him dance a czardas, to hear him sing it and the gypsy play it, is as good as seeing that other acrobatic performance, a circus. When the gypsy inn-keeper knows that his guests have pay-day money in their pockets, he has ready a band of gypsies, who look shabby enough, and very unpromising from an artistic standpoint; the leader, who plays the first violin, tunes it with remarkable care and tenderness, the second violin scrapes a few hoarse notes after him, the bass-viol comes in grudgingly, and the cymbal-player exercises his fingers by beating cotton-wrapped sticks over the strings of his strange instrument. One patriotic youth, who has had just enough liquid fire poured into him, now lifts his voice and sings a song of the puszta (the Hungarian prairie), of the horses and cattle which graze upon it, and of the buxom maiden who draws water from the village well. Slowly, pathetically, almost painfully melancholy, the notes ring out as if the singer were bewailing some great loss, the musicians follow upon their instruments as sorrowful mourners follow a hearse; but all at once the measure becomes brisk and the notes jubilant, the singer and the musicians are caught as by a fever, faster and faster the bows fly over the strings, the cymbal is beaten furiously, and the bass-viol seems in a roaring rage.

From Roumania to the sheep farms of the west is a long journey. Those who make it, form a most useful element in the development of the country.]

Sunday morning finds the dancers sobered and reverent on the way to church, most of them going to the Roman Catholic church, in which a zealous priest blesses, but is not blessed by them. Seldom have I found among foreigners such frank criticism of the priest and yet such loyalty to the Church. The Hungarian Catholic is not narrow; he is much more liberal than the Slav or the German Austrian, and a bigoted priest may hold him to the Church but will not win him to himself. It is always hard to judge of a priest or preacher from the reports of disgruntled members of his flock, but the Catholics seldom speak ill of their shepherd unless there is much hard truth to tell. The following, which I heard from trustworthy sources, is characteristic. At a meeting of one of the lodges the motion was made to have a mass said on a certain memorial day; the priest arose to second the motion, and said, “We have two kinds of mass, the five-dollar and the ten-dollar one, and I would not advise you to have the cheap one.” True or untrue, the fact remains that this priest has built a fine church and a magnificent parochial school. He is a good financier, and I doubt not that he is such for the glory of his Church and not for his own enrichment; I can testify to the fact that he has done much good, that he has quieted much turbulence, that he is not a friend of strong drink, and that he is a narrow but exceedingly careful shepherd of his flock.

The Greek Catholic priest in Cleveland was driven from the church by his independent parishioners, who found him not only a good financier, but a bad man, a “peddler in holy goods,” as they called him, who was ready to dispense his blessing to man and beast for money, large or small, or for a drink more often large than small. The Protestant church is shepherded by a young man from the Oberlin Theological Seminary, who is in touch with the American life and its interpretation of the Christian Church and ministry.