They have some laws on the statute books, but they never enforce them. They have those laws on the statute books in order that they may refer to them when the occasion arises, in order that they may be able to deceive somebody by claiming that they have such and such a law.

The astounding statement was made here yesterday that their constitution is akin to our Anglo-Saxon constitution. I ask you gentlemen, what do you think of such a statement, in the light of the fact that they for instance do not know what the writ of habeas corpus is? I ask you what you think of that statement when you consider the fact that no editor over there has ever been safe who dared to defend the rights of his nationality, but almost without trial, under the guise of a trial, was sent to jail time after time, and that newspapers have been fined so that their financial resources were exhausted, so that they would have to stop finally from sheer exhaustion? I ask you what you think of calling that constitution akin to an Anglo-Saxon constitution, when a nation like the Slovaks, comprising about 3,000,000 souls, were only able to send four representatives to the Diet at Budapest, and were only able to do it once when they used all the power that they could summon together in order to bring about a proper campaign? I ask you what do you think of a situation concerning electoral laws under which one-sixth of the population are graciously permitted to elect about 4 representatives when they ought to have about 50?

And that situation also pertains to the Roumanians. What do you think of the "highly chivalrous" Magyar nation that officially flogs little schoolboys because they dare to recite a poem entitled “I Am Proud that I Am a Roumanian," and does it in the name of saving the State. Then these gentlemen come before you here and try to tell you, and have the effrontery to tell you that the Magyar Government over there they say Hungarian Government, but it is the Magyar Government-is trying to bring about a situation in Hungary akin to that in the United States where we try to show our immigrant peoples that they ought to know the English language. Over there they are trying to tell the Roumanian, who has occupied those hills of Transylvania from a time long before the nomadic Magyar came onto the Danubian Plain, that he must forget his wonderful romance language and that he must learn that language which resounds in Turkey and in Finland, but which resounds in only a few parts of the world. They are telling him that he must cut off his intellectual relationship with the Italian and the Spaniard and the Portuguese and the French, and, if you please, with the Englishman, and that he must limit himself to the barbaric language which cuts him off from intellectual relationship with the greatest and best in the world, past as well as present? What do you think of these men who have the effrontery to come before you and claim that it is perfectly proper for them at Budapest to tell the Slovak, "You must not learn the Slovak or any other Slav language, but you must learn the Magyar language, and you must at once sever your intellectual relationship with almost 200,000,000 people in this world, and with literatures which run back for 20 centuries, that you must cut off your intellectual relationship with literature which runs back to Cicero and Virgil, and you must learn this language of ours which affords you intellectual relationship with practically 10,000,000

people only"? Those are a few of the things that we protest against here.

I know, gentlemen of the committee, that I am taking up considerable of your time here. I want to be as brief as possible and yet hurriedly cover the ground in order to reply to certain statements that have been made here. I am coming down to most recent events. We were told yesterday that Hungary had no control of her own foreign policy and her army. Gentlemen, you recall a certain Dr. Dumba who was once the minister of Austria-Hungary in the United States.

The CHAIRMAN. Ambassador.

Mr. SVARC. Ambassador. I mention Dr. Dumba as an example of how far the Magyar controls the diplomatic situation in the dual empire. Dr. Dumba was a Magyar, and I want to say right here. and it can not be successfully contradicted, that it was the policy of Austria-Hungary to fill her diplomatic and consular posts with Magyars. I have just come from the other side, and the common complaint over there was that nobody had any opportunity to serve Austria-Hungary abroad unless he was a Magyar. That accusation was made by Germans as well, and if you will look up the rest of the representatives of Austria-Hungary to the United States, both in diplomatic and consular positions, you will discover that almost invariably they have been Magyars.

Senator KNox. What about Baron von Hengelmueller, who was here for so many years representing Austria-Hungary. Was he a Magyar?

Mr. SVARC. Yes. In the statement which these gentlemen presented to you here yesterday in the form of a brief they ridiculed the idea of the empire of Svatopluk, and said it was probably a myth. The fact is that the Slovaks have occupied Slovakia since before the Magyars came, and have preserved their language and nationality and are endeavoring to preserve it to-day, and will preserve it because they are going to be free. Yet these Magyars have been telling us that the empire of Svatopluk was a myth. I do not care if it is a myth. On the other hand, I think their own kingdom of Arpad is a myth, for "Arpad" in Magyar means a leader, and their history has been made to suit the occasion. But, gentlemen. we are dealing with modern facts. The fact is that the Slovak nation is there, and in their own Magyar advertisement they say the Slovak nation is a compact body which numbers 76 per cent of upper Hungary. Now if 76 per cent of the population of upper Hungary are composed of Slovaks, then I think there is a Slovak nation there that is to be reckoned with, and that Slovak nation, under our idea of what constitutes self-determination, ought to have the right of self-determination.

The CHAIRMAN. You are not including the Czechs?

Mr. SVARC. No; just the Slovaks there."

Senator POMERENE. How many in number would that 76 per cent be?

Mr. SVARC. It is hard to say, because the statistics over there are quite deceptive. I want to speak in this connection about Magyar statistics.

Senator KNOX. That, I understand, is predicated on the statement made by Count Aponyi, is it?

Mr. SVARC. Yes; Count Aponyi also made the same statement. Senator KNOX. I was told that in making that statement he had reference to 4 or 5 counties in Upper Hungary, and not to the 18 or 19 counties which compose the entire upper section of Hungary. Do you know how that is, as a matter of fact.

Mr. SVARC. Yes. We shall present a brief here which will contain statistical data, with comments on the sources of our statistics, in order to show you how the various counties of upper Hungary or Slovakia are constituted with regard to population.

Senator KNOx. That is how all of them are constituted.

Mr. SVARC. Yes.

Senator KNOX. So that we will have before us the proportions of Hungarians and Slavs in Upper Hungary, all of it?

Mr. SVARC. Yes. Now, they themselves admit in this article that in Slovakia or Upper Hungary 76 per cent of the people are Slovaks. I suppose they knew what they were talking about, though I sometimes doubt it.

Right here, in regard to the question of population and the proportion of population of Magyars and Slavs, let me touch upon the question of a plebiscite. It was stated here yesterday that these gentlemen are wonderfully anxious that a plebiscite should be taken in Hungary in order to determine the question where these people want to belong. In a country that usually held elections under the presence of gens d'armes and the military forces, in a country where it was perfectly proper to get the population drunk with whisky in order to get the right expression of suffrage, in a country where there was no such thing as a secret vote, where a man comes to the polls and shouts out the name of his candidate, in a country where a meager portion of the male population, subject to a certain property requirement, are permitted to vote, in a country that always did violence to the expression or probable expression of the voters, or those who may have been voters, in a country where the elections were the scandal of the entire world, in a country where a few feudal magnates practically ran the entire country to the exclusion of the popular masses-in such a country, I ask you, is it not queer that suddenly these representatives come here and appeal to us that these people, the common people there, should be permitted to vote, a thing they never did in their lives, in order to determine their own destiny? I will tell you why they want it done. You can imagine the condition of education in the country where the ruling element has tried to rob these people of their own tongue, of their national traditions. The first step in such a process is to stultify these people. The process of stultification comes even involuntarily, because when you seek to rob a person of his mother tongue, you can easily imagine the result. Put yourselves in the place of that person. Suppose that now to-day you were suddenly ordered that you must learn the Magyar language; that you must not talk English. Suppose you are prevented from reading English books, from subscribing to English newspapers. Suppose that the road to you is closed to public preferment; in other words, you are a pariah, you are a stranger in the land of your fathers. Under that condition, I ask you, what sort of intellectual outlook does a nation develop? A very sad and a very bit

ter one.

Senator POMERENE. Do you mean to say that those are the conditions that prevail there?

Mr. SVARC. Those were the conditions when the armistice was entered into, and those were the conditions in Hungary when the armistice was entered into-worse than that, because they were under a people who tried to oppress them. Not only that, but they sent a lot of carpetbaggers into the country, strangers, because the Slovak communities did not know a word of Magyar, and they had to have Magyar officers in there in order to make this "homogeneous" nation which they are claiming. In addition to these carpetbag officials they sent in there, they proceeded to rob the church, and when I say the church I mean the Protestant Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Uniate Church. The Greek Orthodox Church or the Russian Orthodox Church they would not tolerate at all. They said they are pan-Slav churches, and the churches in this land were reduced to a condition of handmaids of Magyar politics, and no priest was permitted to preach in a parish if he was not patriotically correct, and that meant that he had to be a traitor to his own people; that he had to stifle within his breast his own patriotic ideals and his own duty, and in that way they corrupted the word of God so that they made nothing but slaves of those who ought to have been divinely ordained and divinely inspired leaders of their nations.

So they murdered the education, they murdered the nobility of the work of God, they reduced political office to a thraldom, and then stop and think what it means to a nation after you have cut off the opportunity for that nation to gain a free education, after you have cut them off from the advice, from the leadership of its spiritual leaders, when you make the appointment of a bishop contingent upon the fact that a man is the greatest traitor that can be produced in a nation; and when you send special envoys to the Pope at Rome, demanding that no priest shall be sent to the United States to a Slovak community unless that priest is patriotically correct, you gentlemen can imagine the situation. In this brief that we are going to submit, if you will permit us, because it is going to take a few days to get the document, we will bring you a document from the ministry at Budapest, which sought to fasten on the Slovak communities in the United States, composed of immigrants from Hungary, only such priests as the high politicians in Budapest would permit, and that came out as an order some years ago.

Senator POMERENE. That came out as an order to whom?

Mr. SVARC. This order was an order of the Hungarian Government to certain bishops of the church in Hungary, that when they sent priests to the United States they should select certain men for these positions, that in this manner they should cooperate with the Austro-Hungarian consuls. Mind you, that they should cooperate with the Austro-Hungarian consuls in regard to getting proper information about the situation in these parishes in the United States. If there ever was a blow struck at religion, if there ever was such a thing as degradation of religion, what do you think of an AustroHungarian consul, irrespective of the religion to which he belongs. informing the officers of the church abroad as to certain political conditions in the United States, so that those people abroad may be guided in the selection of proper priests for these positions? They

went so far as to have a Uniate bishop appointed for the United States. Gentlemen, the truth has not yet been half told about the dastardly work they have been carrying on here. We talk about a paltry $6,500 for these advertisements that they have inserted in the newspapers. In all the years that have gone by, even prior to this war, they have spent a great deal more. They have tried to corrupt our electorate in the United States in order that it should serve the interests of Hungary, because all this was being done by Hungarians, and I am talking now of government of Budapest. They sent a flag over here inscribed "Magyar, be ever loyal to your fatherland," and with this flag they sent also some soil from Hungary, and they had that flag traveling throughout the communities in the United States.

I ask you who represent this great and glorious country of ours what do you think of the force which seeks to divide our citizenship along such lines, which seeks to make those men who have entered into our American citizenship loyal only to the country of their birth. We have been talking about divided citizenship, about the dangers that threaten our country, and for years these people have been doing it. That has been the propaganda which they have been spreading here, and it is on a par with the German propaganda. There is only one loyalty that American citizens should know, and that is loyalty to the United States.

Senator HARDING. Was the purpose of all that to prevent Americanization?

Mr. SVARC. Yes; this was the real purpose of it.

Senator HARDING. Why was the priesthood employed?

Mr. SVARC. Because the priesthood was the only element that could reach these people. It was political. In other words, everything that they have done has been for one purpose, and that purpose has been the Magyarization of the country; it has been the impression of that chauvinistic imperialism which tried to make this its nation, as Hungarian-Magyar, and they have used all of these means. They do not know where to stop. In other words, they get insane about it.

The CHAIRMAN. I want to suggest that it is nearly 12 o'clock, and that at 12 o'clock we shall have to stop.

Mr. SVARC. Very well, Mr. Chairman. May I ask that these advertisements become a part of the record, with your consent? The CHAIRMAN. Certainly.

Mr. SVARC. Mr. Koreff is here as my colleague and he wants to be heard.

The CHAIRMAN. We will hear him for 10 minutes.

Senator SWANSON. And they can file additional briefs?
The CHAIRMAN. Oh, certainly.

Mr. SVARC. Just a few words and I shall close. I think we are all agreed as to the great principles for which America entered this war. We have loved liberty over here, we have loved truth, we have loved righteousness. If anything disgusts the Americans it is when we discover that we have been overreached, that we have been wilfully deceived, that people have misrepresented things to us, that they have distorted the truth. Under these conditions I know there must be a revulsion of feeling. We who have come from the other side, or whose fathers and mothers have come from the other side,