As an illustration of the lengths to which Hungary has gone in order to maintain Magyar domination, it is said that when the Catholic clergy, seeing the ravages which drink had made among Slovaks, attempted to organize temperance societies among them, the Government suppressed these organizations on the ground that they tended to foster the sentiment of panslavism and so were in opposition to the "Magyar State Idea." It is known, however, that the chief complaints against these societies were from liquor dealers.
Apparently it is just as easy in Hungary as in America for selfish persons to take advantage of racial prejudice and sentiment in order to use it for their own ends. In fact, all that I saw and learned in regard to the relation of the races in Hungary served to show me that racial hatred works in much the same way, whether it exists among people of the same colour but different speech, or among people of different colour and the same speech.
If there are some points in which the relations of the races in Hungary and the United States are similar, there are others in which they differ. While Hungary is seeking to solve its racial problem by holding down the weaker races and people, America is seeking to accomplish the same result by lifting them up. In Hungary every effort seems to be made to compel the so-called "inferior race" to give up their separate language, to forget their national history, traditions, and civilization—everything, in fact, which might inspire them, as a people, with a desire or a proper ambition to win for themselves a position of respect and consideration in the civilized world.
In America, on the contrary, each race and nationality is encouraged to cultivate and take pride in everything that is distinctive or peculiar, either in its traditions, racial traits, or disposition. I think I am safe in saying that there is no country in the world where so many different races of such different colours, habits, and traditions live together in such peace and harmony as is true in the United States. One reason for this is that there is no other country where "the man farthest down" has more opportunity or greater freedom than in the United States.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Charities Publication Committee, 1910.
[2] Quoted by Miss Balch in "Our Slavic Fellow Citizens," p. 116.