In
studying any group of "strangers within our gates," it is necessary to
know its preemigration history. These people, who call themselves
Czechs, are a principal branch of the Slav family and one of the large
constituents of the Austria-Hungarian empire, numbering 6,318,697 in
1901. At home they are chiefly agriculturists. In 1900 there were in
this country 325,400 persons of Bohemian parentage, of whom 156,991 were
born in Bohemia. Since 1900 above 50,000 more have come. Three fourths
of them all are in the north central states of the Mississippi Valley,
with Chicago as their great center. Cleveland has about 15,000, New York
about the same number; while in agriculture there are in round numbers
16,000 in Nebraska, 14,000 in Wisconsin, 11,000 in Iowa, and 9,000 in
Texas.
[Sidenote: Stormy National Struggle]
As to their history in the old world, the Bohemians have had such a
stormy national struggle, and the bitterness of it has so entered into
their lives, that it is impossible rightly to judge them apart from it.
It has some instructive lessons for us. These are the conditions, as Mr.
Nan Mashek, himself a Bohemian, states them:[65]
[Sidenote: John Huss and Jerome of Prague]
"For two hundred and fifty years they have been oppressed by a
pitilessly despotic rule.
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