New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 480 pages of information about New York Times Current History.

New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 480 pages of information about New York Times Current History.

During the coming struggle the Kingdom of Poland will be the marching ground of various armies, we shall see temporary victors assuming lordship for a while; but change of authority will follow, and inevitable retaliation; this several times, perhaps, in the course of the campaign.  Therefore every improvident step will meet with terrible revenge.  By holding firm through the present conflict you best can serve the Polish cause.  In the name of the love you bear your country, of your solicitude for the nation’s future, we entreat you, fellow-countrymen, to remain deaf to evil inspirations, unshakable in your determination not to expose our land to yet greater calamities, and Poland’s whole future to incalculable perils.

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POLISH AMERICAN OPINION.

Kazinirz Jaworowski, Manager Polish National Alliance, New York, Aug. 16.

The Poles are treated better in Russia now than they are in Germany.  Although Russia has done its best to Russianize Poland by crushing the Polish national feeling, imprisoning Polish patriots, and attempting even to suppress the Polish language, Germany has gone still further in its efforts to Germanize its Polish territory.

Bismarck’s idea was to force German civilization upon the world and the most extreme measures have been taken to enforce this policy in German Poland.  Taking advantage of every possible pretext, the Germans have dispossessed the Poles of their land and handed it over to Germans.  The Russians have not gone so far as this.  They, as a general rule, have allowed the Poles to keep their land.

For my own part, I would do anything to defeat Germany, and I think the Poles of Germany and Austria for the most part wish to see France and Russia successful The Poles are Slavs.  The fight is between the Germans and the Slavs.

I hope that if the Czar is successful, he carries out his promises to reunite Poland and grant it autonomy.  That would not mean Poland would be free, but it would enjoy more freedom than now.  The Czar would be the King of Poland and the Government of Poland undoubtedly would be carried on largely by men appointed by the Czar.  However, if Poland got the right to have a share in its Government, even if the Czar remained supreme, the country would be greatly benefited.

Autonomy would mean that efforts to suppress the Polish language, the Polish national spirit, and the Polish traditions would be at an end.  Under a despotic government in Russia and under more despotic governments still in Germany and Austria, the Polish race has existed under the most crushing of burdens.  Reunited and granted partial liberty and the right to live under fair conditions, it would flourish and again take its place as a great race.

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RUSSIA AGAINST GERMANY.

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New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.