The Man Farthest Down: A Record of Observation and Study in Europe

by Booker T. Washington; Robert Ezra Park

"If it is good for the Magyars to preserve their language, customs, and racial traditions," say the other races, in effect, "why is it not just as important for us that we preserve ours?"

The reply of the Magyars is, in effect: "You have no language, no history, no tradition worth keeping. In short, you are an inferior race."

Naturally the argument does not end there. The other nationalities reply by founding national schools and colleges to study and preserve their peculiar language, traditions, and customs, while these nationalities who have previously had no history proceed to make some. Thus the doctrine of superiority of the Magyar race, which has been so valuable in stimulating the Magyars to heroic efforts in behalf of their own race, seems to have been just as valuable in stinging into life the racial pride and loyalty of the other races. And thus, on the whole, in spite of its incidental cruelties, the conflict of the races in Hungary, like the struggle of the white and black races in the South, seems to have done less harm than good. At least this is true so far as it concerns the races which are down and are struggling up, because oppression, which frequently stimulates the individual or the race which suffers from it, invariably injures most the individual or the race which inflicts it.

Most of the "acts of violence" of which the subordinate nations complain are committed in the name of what is known as the "Magyar State Idea," which seems to be little more, however, than the idea that the Magyars must dominate, although they represent but 51 per cent. of the population in Hungary proper and 45 per cent. of the total population, including that of the annexed territory, Croatia-Slavonia.

So far is the Magyar race identified with the Government in Hungary that it is punished as a kind of treason to say anything against the Magyars. Most of the persons who are persecuted for political crimes in Hungary seem to be charged either with panslavism, which is usually little more than a desire of the Slavs to preserve their own national existence, or with "incitement against the Magyar nationality."

On the part of the Magyars it does not seem to be any crime to speak disrespectfully, or even contemptuously, of the other races. I have observed that those writers who have sought to defend the "Magyar State Idea" refer quite frankly to the Roumanians and the Slovaks as "inferior races," who are not competent to govern themselves.

There is, likewise, a saying among the Magyars to the effect that "a Slovak is not a human being," a notion that seems to spring up quite naturally in the mind of any race which has accustomed itself to the slavery and oppression of another race.

It is, however, all the more curious that such a saying should gain currency in Hungary in view of the fact that Kossuth, the great national hero of Hungary, was himself a Slovak.

One hears strange stories in Hungary of the methods which the dominant race has employed to hold the other races in subjection. For example, in the matter of elections, bribery, intimidation, and all the other familiar methods for exploiting the vote of ignorant and simple-minded people are carried on in a manner and to an extent which recalls the days of Reconstruction in the Southern States.

In order to maintain the superior race in power, newspapers are suppressed, schools are closed and the moneys for their support, which have been collected for educational purposes, are confiscated by the Government.