CONCLUSION. To resume, we have established by the foregoing the following facts: 1. Hungary has existed as a State and a nation for over a thousand years in a territory where no other race had been able to establish and maintain a permanent political organization. Surely, possession of such length and the demonstration of such political capacity ought to secure a clear and undisputable title. 2. No other country has any claim on any part of Hungary that could be based on "historical rights." 3. The distribution of the various races in Hungary positively prevents any territorial readjustment, by which more homogeneous conditions could be created than existed till now. 4. Hungary has always been the land of religious liberty and tolerance. Roumanian and Serbian rule over large parts of Hungary would disrupt the Hungarian Protestant Churches and threaten protestantism with extinction in the east of Europe. 5. Hungary is a natural geographhic and hydrographic unit, to disturb which could not possibly help in stabilizing conditions. 6. Hungary is also a most distinct economic unit, all parts being interdependent. Separately they can not exist, together they are a self-supporting organism. 7. Not only would the cause of peace not be promoted by the partition of Hungary, but a new Balkan, or Macedonia, would be created right in the heart of Europe and become the source of permanent strife and complications. 8. Should the foregoing facts and circumstances be considered as of insufficient force and importance to bar the claims of neighboring nations, it certainly ought not to be permitted to have any part of Hungary placed under a new sovereignty without giving the peoples of such parts an opportunity to exercise the right of self-determination by plebiscites under fair conditions. 9. Hungary ought not to be dismembered in punishment because this would not be warranted by Hungary's acts and deeds before and during the war. Not only was she not able to keep out of the war, but developments since the armistice justified Hungary's claim that her existence had been in constant peril. We feel that Hungary can be saved from destruction only by America, as the United States are the only powerful country which has not been a party to the immoral secret treaties upon which the claimants of Hungarian territory are pressing their claims. In voicing our protest, therefore, against the proposed partition of Hungary as contrary to the demands of justice and incompatible with the requirements of a just and lasting peace, we respectfully ask the Senate of the United States to refuse to have our country become a party to the annihilation of a civilized nation. Respectfully submitted. CLEVELAND, OHIO, September 1, 1919. HUNGARIAN AMERICAN FEDERATION, APPENDIX A. EXCERPTS FROM STATEMENTS OF AMERICAN AND BRITISH PUBLIC MEN. In June, 1849, when Hungary, under the leadership of Louis Kossuth was battling heroically against fearful odds for freedom and independence, President Zachary Taylor appointed Ambrose Dudley Mann, of Virginia, "special and confidential agent to Hungary," and instructed him to report on conditions in that country with the view of acknowledging its independence. However, the dispatching of the American agent was of no assistance to Hungary which, abandoned by the Western Powers, had to succumb to the combined attacks of the two greatest military powers of the age, Austria and Russia. In his message, dated March 28, 1850, transmitting the correspondence relating to Mann's mission to the Senate, President Taylor wrote as follows: My purpose, as freely avowed in this correspondence, was to have acknowledged the independence of Hungary had she succeeded in establishing a government de facto on a basis sufficiently permanent in its character to have justified me in doing so, according to the usuages and settled principles of this Government, and although she is now fallen, and many of her gallant patriots are in exile or in chains, I am free still to declare that had she been successful in the maintenance of such a government as we could have recognized, we should have been the first to welcome her into the family of nations." As Congressman Henry J. Steele, of Pennsylvania, recently said in a public speech, had Hungary then not been abandoned to her fate, the development of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe would have taken a different turn, and it would not have been necessary in 1917 "to make the world safe for democracy" by a sanguinary war. The American agent sent to Hungary also felt that the abandonment of Hungary at that critical juncture was a fatal mistake. In his report to Washington, dated Vienna, September 27, 1849, he said: "In not formally expressing her disapproval of the policy avowed in the manifesto of Nicholas of 14th May last, Great Britain either misconceived the nature of the obligations imposed upon her as the most liberal and enlightened of the European powers or was ignorant of the principles and interest involved in the issue. Had she proclaimed in emphatic language within 24 hours after this manifesto reached Downing Street that she was prepared to resist an armed intervention by any power adverse to Hungary, the Czar would scarcely have had the termerity to march his army across his frontiers. The deplorable omission of such duty changes completely the relations of power in European States." Autocracy having been victorious, Louis Kossuth, the champion of European democracy, was interned in Asia Minor. In 1851 he was liberated, mainly through the efforts of Daniel Webster, and brought to the United States in a national vessel as the guest of the nation. Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State for the second time, whose celebrated Hülsemann letter had nearly led to war with Austria on account of Hungary, was the principal American speaker at the congressional banquet tendered in honor of Kossuth in Washington, January 5, 1852. "It is remarkable," he said in the course of his speech, "that, on the western coasts of Europe, political light exists. There is a sun in the political firmament, and that sun sheds his light on those who are able to enjoy it. But in eastern Europe, generally speaking, and on the confines between eastern Europe and Asia, there is no political sun in the heavens. It is all an Arctic Zone of political life. The luminary that enlightens the world in general seldom rises there above the horizon. The light which they possess is at best crepuscular, a kind of twilight, and they are under the necessity of groping about to catch, as they may, any stray gleams of the light of day. Gentlemen, the country of which your guest to-night is a native is a remarkable exception. She has shown through her whole history, for many hundreds of years, an attachment to the principles of civil liberty, and of law and of order, and obedience to the constitution which the will of the great majority have established. That is the fact, and it ought to be known wherever the question of the practicability of Hungarian liberty and independence are discussed. It ought to be known that Hungary stands out from it above her neighbors in all that respects free institutions, constitutional government, and a hereditary love of liberty. * * * * * "Gentlemen, my sentiments in regard to this effort made by Hungary are here sufficiently well expressed. In a memorial addressed to Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston, said to have been written by Lord Fitzwilliams and signed by him and several other Peers and members of Parliament, the following language is used, the object of the memorial being to ask the mediation of England in favor of Hungary: 'While so many of the nations of Europe have engaged in revolutionary movements, and have embarked in schemes of doubtful policy and still more doubtful success, it is gratifying to the undersigned to be able to assure your lordships that the Hungarians demand nothing but the recognition of ancient rights and the stability and integrity of their ancient constitution. To your lordships it can not be unknown that that constitution bears a striking family resemblance to that of our own country.' "Gentlemen, the progress of things is unquestionably onward. It is onward with respect to Hungary. It is onward everywhere. Public opinion, in my estimation at least, is making great progress. It will penetrate all resources, it will come more or less to animate all minds, and in respect to that country, for which our sympathies to-night have been so strongly invoked, I can not but say that I think the people of Hungary are an enlightened, industrious, sober, well-inclined community, and I wish only to add, that I do not now enter into any discussion of the form of government which may be proper for Hungary. Of course, all of you, like myself, would be glad to sce her, when she becomes independent, embrace that system of government which is most acceptable to ourselves. We shall rejoice to see our American model upon the lower Danube, and on the mountains of Hungary. But that is not the first step. It is not that which will be our first prayer for Hungary. That first prayer shall be that Hungary may become independent of all foreign power, that her destinies may be entrusted to her own hands, and to her own discretion. I do not profess to under stand the social relations and connections of races that may affect the public institu tions of Hungary. All I say is that Hungary can regulate these matters for herself infinitely better than they can be regulated for her by Austria, and therefore, I limit my aspirations for Hungary for the present to that single and simple point. "Hungarian independence, Hungarian control of Hungarian destinies, and Hungary as a distinct nationality among the nations of Europe." But let us turn to more recent utterances of authors still living. Mr. Archibald R. Colquhoun in his book entitled The Whirlpool of Europe, published by Dodd, Mead & Co. in 1914 (which is by no means too friendly to Hungary), wrote under the caption Slav and Magyar, as follows: "Although modified in appearance, in customs, and in character by the people they have assimilated, the Maygars have retained, throughout all vicissitudes, an extraordinary homogeneity. Hungary has been a sovereign nation and a kingdom since 1000 A. D., and has never owed allegiance to any monarch who has not been affirmed and crowned by her estates. Moreover, the Hungarian is the only complete nation under the Austrian crown. Even Bohemia, claiming similar historic rights, does not occupy the same position. Her people are not intact; Czechs are living under Prussian rule, Czech territory has been reduced by the conquest of neighboring states. Moreover, there is within Bohemia a second nation, the Germans, with equal rights to the Czechs. Their position is, therefore, constitutionally different from that of Hungary as a free sovereign state and nation. The rest of the peoples under Austrian rule are detached fragments of nations, remnants of ancient states." In the chapter on Hungary and the Hungarians, Mr. Colquhoun continues: "The Magyars, as said already, occupy a unique position in the dual monarchy, not only politically but racially, because they are an entire and homogeneous nation. The undeniable fact that they are by no means a pure race, but have assimilated other peoples, and have undergone physical and mental modifications in consequence, does not detract from their position. Like the United States (on a much larger scale) this little nation has been strong enough to stamp its individuality on alien peoples." "It is stated that it is better for a stranger to address the middle and lower class people in French or English first, not with the expectation of being understood, but as a passport to favor, after which he may get the desired information in German. Although this is mainly the result of a policy of Magyarization, there is an element at work in producing it which is more than mere State policy or compulsion. It is agreed by many foreigners living in Hungary that there is a contagion about the nationalist aspiration which is almost irresistible. In no country in the world are there to be seen so many divers races making one (despite local jealousies) in their support of Hungarian national tradition, and all are as vehement in their advocacy of Hungarian independence as the Magyars themselves. Jews and Germans swell with patriotic pride over their "ancient constitution," and more than one instance could be cited of Hungarian patriots (some well known as the exponents of the Magyars to Europe) who have not one drop of Magyar blood. "The contagion, the attraction, are in Magyar people themselves, and surely in this magic quality lies the secret of their success. The magnetic force they exercise is doing work which mere coercion or maneuvering could not accomplish. Elements of weakness, of unevenness, and of danger there are, but the core of the matter, the character of the true Magyar, is not only sound, but is displaying that most valuable and intangible of qualities-the power of attraction and assimilation." But the standard book on Hungary is the Political Evolution of the Hungarian Nation, by the Hon. C. M. Knatchbull-Hugessen, published in two volumes by the National Review office, London, in 1908, which no one who wants to judge the case of Hungary intelligently can afford not to know. German scholars have a reputation for thoroughness in research work, not even the most insignificant details escaping their attention in collecting material. But it takes an Englishman (or a Frenchman) to sift the essential from the nonessential and present the often contradictory evidence in a way which will not confuse the reader. It is this rare gift of clear vision and sober judgment which makes the work of the Hon. C. M. Knatchbull-Hugessen so valuable. The following quotations are from the last chapter of his book: "British public opinion has apparently arrived at the conclusion that the Magyars are consistently guilty of the employment of methods of barbarism in their treatment of subordinate races. Trial by newspaper, condemnation without investigation, are such labor-saving processes that their employment is naturally popular, more especially when the means of forming a considered opinion are not easily accessible. The Magyars are themselves largely to blame for the fact that judgment has been allowed to be passed on them on the ex parte statements of self-interested agitators and of humanitarian philosophers and that they are left to console themselves with the conviction that the abuse of which they are made the target is begotten of ignorance of actual facts, of past history, and of the vital considerations of national expediency. The problem presented by the persistence of minor nationalities is not confined to Hungary, but affects a large part of Europe, from Ireland to Bessarabia, and the measure of the abuse lavished by the spectator of the process of absorption, which is going on as slowly and as surely now as in the past, is in inverse proportion to the magnitude of the absorbing nation. What Russia had done with impunity would have evoked the thunders of Exeter Hall if perpetrated by a weaker country. Wreschen passes almost unperceived, while a petty Slovak village earns European notoriety through the disturbances resulting from the dismissal of a disorderly priest. The Irishman and the Pole have a recent historical basis for their claims to independent existence, as well as the justification of antiquity, which is wanting in the case of the fragmentary nationalities of Hungary. "The aboriginal population of what is now Hungary-scattered incohesive tribes incapable of resisting Magyar arms or, later, Magyar civilization-died out or was absorbed by the superior race. The process of civilization was purely Magyar. The development of governmental institutions proceeded along purely Magyar lines and bore hardly a trace of either Slav or, save for the fact that Latin was the literary medium, of western influence. As we have seen, the mass of the existing nationalities was imported or filtered into the country long after it had received a permanent Magyar stamp-desirable or undesirable aliens, who in most cases repaid the hospitality they received by lending themselves to the disruptive policy of the Hapsburgs. The disappearance or absorption of the aborigines was due not to fire or sword or violent compulsion but to the essential superiority of the Magyar nation; so convinced of that superiority that it never saw the necessity of Magyarizing races which in the early days, having no conscious feeling of individuality, would have been as wax to receive the permanent impress of Magyar nationality. The gates were opened wide to European culture from the time of St. Stephen, whose maxim, "regnum unius linguae uniusque moris debile et imbecille," show shis recognition of the fact that the only language and civilization which had hitherto counted for anything in Hungary was the Magyar, as well as his appreciation of the benefits derivable from contact with the west. There is no approximately pure race in Europe except the Basque, the Jews, and the Gypsies, but there are many countries in which the factors have existed which produce the fusion of heterogeneous elements into a single nationcommon recollection of dangers surmounted, common religion, and common civilization. Such factors were largely wanting in Hungary. The dangers surmounted were surmounted by the Magyars, who alone did the fighting, the bearing of arms in defense of the fatherland being the privilege of the nobility. There was no common history, for history was made solely by the Magyars. There was no community of religion, as St. Stephen turned to Rome for the national religion instead of to the Eastern Church, thereby, in all probability, saving the Magyars from degeneration to the level of the Balkan races and from ultimate absorption in the ocean of Slavdom. "Civilization, such as it was, was purely Magyar, and all governmental institutions were directly developed from the germ evolved by the Magyar national genius before the great migration westwards. The races imported into Hungary at a later date arrived too late to alter accomplished facts even if they had possessed a far higher degree of civilization than any of them had in fact attained. What they chiefly cared for was freedom to exercise their various religions, and such freedom they received at the hands of Hungary, the land par excellence of religious tolerance. The better class aliens received the rights of nobility or became fused in the Magyar nation. The inferior elements remained apart, in a condition neither better nor worse than that of the great mass of Magyar peasants, and had little or no consciousness of distinctive nationality, or power to resist a deliberate policy of magyarization, had such a policy ever entered the heads of the predominant race, which, unfortunately, it never did. Unfortunately for the reason that successive Hapsburgs were enabled to utilize the forces of ignorance for the purposes of their traditional policy of divide ut imperes of centralization and absolutism. For the existence of hostility to the Magyar idea, tentative and embryonic before 1848, the Magyars have to thank, in the first place, their own consciousness of a superiority which made deliberate magyarization superfluous, and, in the second place, the Hapsburg connection. There never has been any recognized citizenship in Hungary but Magyar citizenship. Though from time to time the Hapsburgs encouraged the separatistic tendencies of the Serb, the Croat, the Saxon, and the Slovak, the fact remains that from the time of St. Stephen to the present day there has been and is no territory in Hungary but the territory of the Sacred Crown. Austria made a last attempt to produce, a mongrel federalism in Hungary in 1861, and now itself suffers from the poison of particularism of nation alistic antagonism which the Hapsburgs so long tried to infuse into Hungary for their own purposes. "Nothing can be more misleading than the majority of the maps which purport to show the geographical distribution of the constituent races of Hungary. The broad, uniform smudges of color which indicate that this part is Magyar, this Roumanian, this Serbian, this Slovak, and so on, and serve as a text for the disquisitions of the prophets of federalism, obscure the fact that the various races are so intermingled in all parts of the country, and so interspersed with Maygars, that it is impossible to effect clear-cut geographical subdivisions for federalistic purposes such as are possible in Bohemia, where the country is peopled by only two races, the Germans and the Czechs, between whom the lines of demarcation are comparatively easily drawn. A glance at the map appended to the recent book of Mr. Ernest Baloghy (A Magyar Kultura és a Nemzetiségek, Budapest, 1908) would do more to disperse erroneous notions as to racial distribution than many pages of statistics. Minute squares of color, showing the interpenetration of the nationalities, replace the familiar broad smudges, and the result bears as much resemblance to the ordinary ethnographical map of Hungary as a pheasant's plumage does to the tricolor. The great central plain of the Danube and the Tisza is almost solidly Magyar, as is the eastern part of Transylvania; elsewhere, except in the Serbo-Croatian district south of the Szava, the patchwork diversity of color points an unmistakable moral-the impossibility of a territorial subdivision for purposes of local autonomy, which would not result in the subjection of Magyar and German intelligence to inferior types, whose sole claim to political differentiation lies in the fact that they speak a bastard variety of the languages of more important races. The Magyar element is wanting in not one of 413 electoral divisions; the German only in 37. Slovaks are absent from 211, Roumanians from 235, Croatians 344, Serbians from 351. Ruthenes are to be found in 57 divisions, and fragments of other races in no less than 360. As regards the 18 divisions of what Brote and other agitators regard as Roumania irredenta-Transylvania and Hungary up to the Tisza-the Roumanians are in an actual majority in only 11. Magyars and Germans form over 37 per cent of the population; and in no single district in which the Roumanians are in the majority is there an admixture of less than 11 per cent of other nationalities. Though the Magyars constitute no more than 541 per cent of the whole population of Hungary proper, they are more than three times as numerous as the numerically strongest nationality, whereas the German population of Austria forms no more than 383 per cent of the inhabitants of the hereditary Provinces. Between the subordiante races there is no cohesion or solidarity; the Magyar is the only binding element. Panslavism, Pangermanism, and Panroumanism have alterated from time to time, and in every case the source of agitation was to be found outside the limits of Hungary. Roumanians and Slovaks have nothing in common. The Roumanian hates the Serbian, and the Serbian the Roumanian." APPENDIX B. ROUMANIA'S TERRITORIAL CLAIMS. [From a treatise entitled "Roumania in Hungary," by Eugene Pivany.] Roumania's claim to Hungarian territory is based in the first place on the principle of priority of occupation. It is not disputed that the Hungarians had conquered Hungary a thousand years ago, Lave built up a state there and have held the country for a thousand years. It is claimed, however, that before the migration of nations Transylvania and other parts of Hungary had been the home of the Daco-Romans, and it is further claimed that the Vlachs or Vallachians-these are the appellations by which the Roumanians had been known until recently-are the descendants of those Daco-Romans. Apart from the fact that the theory of the Daco-Roman origin of the Vlachs has been proved to be false, the principle of the priority of occupation has never been defined in the Law of Nations. How many years of occupation is required to establish a valid title to a country? One hundred years, or five hundred years, or more? If occupation for a thousand years is not acknowledged to be a valid title to a country, then we may be called upon some day to relinquish our title to Texas, and California, and other parts of the United States in favor of Mexico, or Spain, or the Indians, and the whole map of Europe may have to be made over, too. And it is certainly the height of absurdity to go back for a title to a country to a period before the migration of the nations even if the continuity of the race dispossessed by several subsequent conquerors could be proved, which in the case of the Vlachs or Roumanians can not be proved. The theory of the Daco-Roman origin of the Vlachs was conceived in the mind of Bonfinius, an Italian humanist, living at the court of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, who was one of the greatest patrons of the sciences and arts in the fifteenth |