Conflicts of Doctrines in Europe

Immediately following the seating of the head table guests, the President stated that it was the custom in Czecho-Slovakia to offer bread and salt to a guest upon entering another person's home. Thereupon Miss Margaret Hunter, dressed in Czecho-Slovakian costume, approached Mr. Masaryk, who partook of the bread and salt which she offered him.

THE PRESIDENT: My first word today will be one of cordial welcome to the ladies who have so kindly come to the hotel to see for themselves how the proceedings of the Empire Club of Canada are conducted.

(Applause) We also thank most graciously Dr. Russell Marshall who, at considerable inconvenience, has produced the lovely music to which we have listened.

Ladies, and Gentlemen of The Empire Club of Canada, only once in so often does a President have the privilege of introducing a man such as it is to be my pleasure to introduce today. We extend a most cordial welcome to our guest, Mr. Jan Masaryk, son of Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, the founder and the first President of Czecho-Slovakia. Mr. Masaryk was educated at Prague University and graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He came to the United States, and following the establishment of the State of Czecho-Slovakia, was the first Charge d'Affaires for the newly formed State at Washington. Later he returned to Prague to assist his father and Dr. Benes. For the past fifteen years he has been the Czech Minister to the Court of St. James. When his retirement was announced last year, he was acclaimed by the press as the most popular European diplomat in London. The English people loved him, and he was urged to take up residence in England. This he has done. He has come to the United States and Canada to speak for the cause of Democracy and he is devoting much time and energy in addressing audiences from coast to coast in both countries.

It is my proud privilege to present to you Mr. Jan Masaryk, who will speak upon the subject, "Conflicts of Doctrines in Europe." Mr. Masaryk. (Applause)

MR. JAN MASARYK: Ladies and Gentlemen: I am especially glad to be back in the British Empire and especially proud to be allowed to address your Club. I will make a confession to you. When I arrived here in this country--I came here not to speak, as a matter of fact, I came to rest but I have not done much of that--I was secretly hoping that The Empire Club would invite me. I had followed the activity of your Club for many years and many of my friends, both from England and elsewhere, had had the honour of being invited, and I was just a little bit jealous, so thank you very much for letting me come.

Before I go any farther I would like to dispel certain rather unintelligent talk that has been going around about Europe in general, and England, especially, as being down and out. I have heard that said on this side of the ocean since I arrived; and, having lived in England for fifteen years where I spent thirteen and a half very happy years and one particularly unhappy one, I assure you that it is all damned nonsense. England is a very vigorous democracy which sometimes, as is the prerogative of democracy, elects a government which occasionally does something which doesn't suit all the inhabitants; but that is why we have democratic institutions, so when we elect one that we don't like six months after the election we wait patiently for the next one. Other countries use other methods of disposing of political opponents. I pray God that in none of the countries belonging to the British Empire will that ever come to pass.

There is another thing very much on my heart, and when I say that I will try to get down to business. The co-operation of Great Britain and America is necessary. (I am not speaking of submarines or cannons or poison gases. I am not a specialist in those wares.) But the intellectual, the ethical and the moral co-operation between those two great democracies is essential if the civilization of the world is to be saved. As I put it the other day, people who read Shakespeare and the Bible must stick together--and it is more necessary at this moment than ever before.

In this connection I must say I am not a propagandist. I have lived in England long enough--I love England and they have been very kind to me--to have seen certain things that I didn't like altogether. Don't think I come here to spread propaganda for England or the United States. I speak on behalf of myself. I represent no government--nobody at all. I am what anyone would call in business "Jan Masaryk, Limited"--very, very limited!

Let us get a very quick survey of what has happened to us in the last twenty years. Just about twenty years ago you remember we went up and down the street and shouted that we had fought a war to make the world safe for Democracy. Look where we are today! I am standing before you, Ladies and Gentlemen, and pleading for all of us to unite to save what is left of Democracy for the world. In bringing the situation to pass that we are going through today perhaps you are as little to blame as any country--you Canadians--but nobody is altogether without blame.

In 1918, some people thought that they had won the war. You remember then that they were labouring under that impression, and for some years after the war, that they were the victors and the others were the vanquished. I am sure this misconception has been definitely evacuated from our brains and our hearts. There are no victors and there should be no victor if there were another war. Anyway the victorious nations (and ours was one of them, and therefore when I do speak against certain phases of the Treaty of Versailles I will sound a little ungrateful) met in Paris and we prepared that remarkable edifice, the Treaty of Versailles which, with its two little children, the Treaty of SaintGermain and the Treaty of Trianon, were responsible for CzechoSlovakia, such as it was in 1918.

The Treaty of Versailles was an honest document, made by people who understood their business. There were all kinds of experts and delimitation commissions, and if you compare the Treaty of Versailles with what has been called the Treaty of Munich, I would certainly say that Versailles would be a classic. But we in Europe very erroneously thought that Versailles was the end, that within and around Versailles, such as it was, we were going to build a happy existence for the nations of Europe. We were not. The mentality of the victorious nations was far too stringent, far too adherent to points that would have been better left alone.

The League of Nations in Geneva--where I was a delegate for several years and which I know intimately--with the best intentions tried to operate the Peace Treaty. There never was enough flexibility to make the so-called vanquished people realize that they could come into the League of Nations and the community of European nations in a decent and brotherly manner. Instead of that we talked of reparations. We thought Germany was going to pay for fifty or a hundred years. Really, it was a remarkable lack of the knowledge of psychology to believe that.

I remember myself, in 1932, when sitting in the Reparations Committee with the late Monsieur Briand, saying what I thought about reparations. I said, "I am sure they are not going to pay." I was then considered a very dangerous left-radical in Geneva. Look where we are today with reparations. Look where we are with the League of Nations. Look where we are with the Treaty of Versailles. We have ourselves--with the help of the dictators--literally dismantled the Treaty of Versailles and, unfortunately, we haven't put anything in its place.

When I speak of the Treaty of Versailles it has been responsible for the existence of .my real estate, but we have taken the roof away and the windows and the doors, and now it is cold and stormy, and Europe stands in this wretched edifice, shivering, while other people are progressing very rapidly in achieving what they consider the new European civilization.

Now, before I go any further, we must look at the two regimes facing each other, the two regimes as they met in Munich. I haven't come here to cry or to complain or to weep and be pitied. I dislike being pitied more than anything else in the world. Naturally, I have been badly hurt. My country has been treated in an unprecedented manner in history. We divided up AustriaHungary, not too cleverly, after an awful war of four years. But this has happened during peace time, and my little country, let us say, has been sold by its allies and deserted by its friends. You see the two regimes facing each other in Munich. On one side, the outspoken--perhaps a little too outspoken sometimes--dictators, with their remarkable banging on the table, and on the other side, the western democracies, quite dignified, protected against rain, but not able to stand up to the other side of the table.

Only yesterday, when I was speaking, a simile came to me which I make bold to repeat. You see, when you have a single message, as I have (it is the liberty of the human soul), you are bound to repeat. Let me repeat my simile. I compared the thing in Munich to a poker game. Some of you, with or without the permission of your wives, play poker, do you not? On one side were people who did all the bidding, and kept raising the ante all the time, and on the other side people who were not calling. It stands to reason the man who plays and isn't called is going to win. A third party was Czecho-Slovakia who supplied the chips for both parties. Whatever happened we were the losers. I say again, and I repeat, that Mr. Chamberlain did the best he knew how. He really believed at that time in this new invention called "appeasement" and Munich was to 'be a great foundation stone to achievement.

Well, I won't take Munich as a classical example, because the statesmen of the four governments assembled there had the not too difficult job of giving away something that didn't belong to them; the giving away of a small country which couldn't defend itself against the whole world, and it didn't need a special sagacity, statesmanship, or bravery to accomplish that fact.

But having said that about Munich, I will say that the theme on which I wish to elaborate my short talk isn't the result of Munich, which is terribly painful so far as we are concerned, so far as my countrymen are concerned, and which is perhaps not too good for Central Europe, but the methods employed frighten me. You see, we did have a thing called international law in Europe. I am sitting next to a great lawyer at this table. I think he will agree with me that the legal aspect of international intercourse has been disappearing very rapidly and it is that which worries me. We have, I don't want to say too quickly but quickly enough, an approach to the Middle Ages where the fellow who had the bigger stick got the bigger price. And it is the method of the thing that is worrying me. I say to myself, how long is this going -to Mast? There are a few other little places that these people could give away that don't belong to them. There are not too many. The situation is narrowing down. As I would say, it is getting close to "poppa's pocket" now. The day may come when they will be asked to give something themselves which is quite a different bag of tricks. When you see them giving away CzechoSlovakia--a lovely province down in Czecho-Slovakia--where the people were cut off after Munich without a minute's notice, it is a different trick than giving up Tunisia, or little Corsica or even Savoia.

But you see also at the same time the Far Eastern situation. You see the Mediterranean situation. It seems to me that these two regimes, the tired democracy on the one side, and the young and boisterous dictatorship on the other side, should come together and talk things over before it is too late.

I see that yesterday, or the day before, I think, the House of Commons has voted an additional pittance of £400,000,000 sterling ($2,000,000,000) for armaments, which means that automatically the other side is going to try to make it $2,100,000,000, because, as I said before, they do believe in raising the ante!

If we concentrate on piling up armaments there is only one way out. Somebody, somehow, somewhere, will find a match, and then I fear for our civilization.

I would like to say one word about the economic situation. I know there are a great many in the room who know infinitely more about economics than I do, but I have kept to the political aspect of the situation. And I will come back to politics. Europe was divided into national groups. For instance, Czecho-Slovakia was a small country, but there are countries much smaller. There is Latvia, Esthonia, Lithuania-countries with a million and a half and two million inhabitants. Giving them national independence was well and good. Czecho-Slovakia was an historical necessity. If there hadn't been a war we likely could have got along with Austria and perhaps have attained some sort of autonomy; but once the war started there was absolutely no chance of saving Austria-Hungary. We have been blamed for having broken up Austria. It is not true. When Emperor Francis Joseph died in 1916 it was doomed. The only thing that would have saved Austria was a victory of the Central Powers, in which case it would have then become a little appendix of Germany. Anyway, we cannot stop the nations in Central and Eastern Europe claiming their own independence, nationally. The great mistake-and we all were involved and CzechoSlovakia is as much to blame as all the other countries-is that all of these people were made economically self-sufficient or they tried to be economically self-sufficient. I give as an example our own neighbour, Hungary. Before the war Eastern Czecho-Slovakia sup-plied all of the Balkans and a great part of southern Russia with textiles. After the war our Agrarian Party, quite justified from their point of view, began to build up agriculture to such an extent that in several years agriculture was practically self-sufficient in every country in meat, cereals and all that sort of thing. Before that we used to get these things from Hungary. Our textiles were paid for with industrial products. Well, due to the so-called self-sufficiency drive in Europe, the Hungarians couldn't buy our textiles. The result was that I, myself, was instrumental in dismantling many factories in Bohemia and transferring them to Hungary where they started an industry really not to their liking and took away something from us. Things of that sort Europe is full of. The idea of economic self-sufficiency, the building of economic barriers which still exist in Europe and from which no country is altogether exempt are just as much to blame for the general situation in Europe as the political difficulties, because if people cannot buy and sell, if the exchange of goods stops, the political situation ipso facto becomes more complex and the feeling of distrust and hate arises.

Now, I think that this is being seen by the rulers in Europe, all of them. I think when they stop and consider the situation they realize in which way their salvation lies. And I must say another thing which is apt to be controversial, and before I do so let me state very emphatically, on my honour, I am not a Bolshevik. I have absolutely no use for the regime in Russia and I am perfectly horrified to think that in the year of our Lord, 1939, we can have a regime which puts up against the wall people who disagree with them. Nevertheless, I feel that if Europe is to be saved we have got to take Russia into consideration and I hope when a Conference comes that Russia will not be left out of it. Let me repeat, there is no person in this room who dislikes the regime more than I do. I have seen it with my own eyes and I think it is a terrible thing. What we have been doing is establishing the Four Power idea in Europe, leaving Russia out. Russia, after all, and whatever the regime, is a very great Empire, extremely rich, as you know. I am told by my friends in the Bank of England that Russia is going to have a bigger output of gold this year than the British Empire. They have untold national resources and I think it would be wise not to disregard them. When we hear the world Russia, w should not close our eyes and ears, as many of us are in the habit of doing.

I think His Majesty's Government in Great Britain is rather of this opinion, because I saw only yesterday in the paper that my friend, Mr. Hudson, the Overseas Trade Secretary, is on his way to Russia to talk of a closer commercial tie between the Empire and Russia. I see that at the moment there is a very important German delegation in Moscow, negotiating an agreement on a rather extensive basis. I submit, respectfully, that if Mr. Hitler can send a delegation to Moscow, I don't see why all the rest of us shouldn't be able to do the same.

But please don't think I have come here to pains, propaganda for Russia, Moscow, or any other political doctrine.

Now, let us face the two opposing regimes in Europe. In that connection I must say a few words about the magnificent propaganda of the dictatorial powers. I have made a rather detailed study of that and believe me, specifically, the German propaganda machine is one of the outstanding, perhaps the outstanding achievement for disseminating information. I submit respectfully that most of the information is not true. Nevertheless, the way it gets to people is remarkable and I only give you one example, not to bore you. I could give several examples, but I think this is to the point.

You all remember, Ladies and Gentlemen, about three years ago you suddenly began to hear the word "Sudeten Germany." Is there one person in this world who five years ago had heard the word "Sudeten German"? Certainly the whole world has since reverberated with the wrongs inflicted on the Germans by my father. Suddenly, it was the Czecho-Slovaks, of all people, who were oppressing the minorities. While the shooting was going on in Russia with great zest, while the Jews were being treated in a manner in Germany also without precedent in the other countries-the minorities there were not being treated with silk gloves!--suddenly it was disregard them. When we hear the world Russia, we should not close our eyes and ears, as many of us are in the habit of doing.

I think His Majesty's Government in Great Britain is rather of this opinion, because I saw only yesterday in the paper that my friend, Mr. Hudson, the Overseas Trade Secretary, is on his way to Russia to talk of a closer commercial tie between the Empire and Russia. I see that at the moment there is a very important German delegation in Moscow, negotiating an agreement on a rather extensive basis. I submit, respectfully, that if Mr. Hitler can send a delegation to Moscow, I don't see why all the rest of us shouldn't be able to do the same.

But please don't think I have come here to paint propaganda for Russia, Moscow, or any other political doctrine.

Now, let us face the two opposing regimes in Europe. In that connection I must say a few words about the magnificent propaganda of the dictatorial powers. I have made a rather detailed study of that and believe me, specifically, the German propaganda machine is one of the outstanding, perhaps the outstanding achievement for disseminating information. I submit respectfully that most of the information is not true. Nevertheless, the way it gets to people is remarkable and I only give you one example, not to bore you. I could give several examples, but I think this is to the point.

You all remember, Ladies and Gentlemen, about three years ago you suddenly began to hear the word "Sudeten Germany." Is there one person in this world who five years ago had heard the word "Sudeten German"? Certainly the whole world has since reverberated with the wrongs inflicted on the Germans by my father. Suddenly, it was the Czecho-Slovaks, of all people, who were oppressing the minorities. While the shooting was going on in Russia with great zest, while the Jews were being treated in a manner in Germany also without precedent in the other countries-the minorities there were not being treated with silk gloves!--suddenly it was found that Czecho-Slovakia was the one country that treated its minorities very badly! I submit that no country treated its minorities better than we did. But we made a mistake. Anyway, suddenly, even in Whitehall, in London, people, right honourable gentlemen began to worry about the fate of the Sudetens under the ruthless heel of the Masaryk Government. The result was when Munich approached some of that mentality was prevailing among some of the people who took part in Munich. Now, it was our fault. We should have at once made a claim against it. The point I am now trying to make to you is that propaganda has to be answered. I am not for propaganda as such. I think propaganda the way it is being done-going to other people's houses, disrupting family life, ruining all institutions-is a sin against God; but I feel that if someone accuses us of something we know is not true, we must stand up and say it is not true and we must answer propaganda by truth. Otherwise we may all begin to believe that black is somewhat white. I feel if we do state the truth, in the end the truth will conquer.

I will give one example. You know there is a gentleman in the United States called Father Coughlin, a well-known radio speaker. Well, he chose about two weeks ago to say that explosions in London had nothing to do with Ireland but they were perpetrated 'by Czechoslovakian anarchists who came to London to blow up public buildings to make Mr. Chamberlain's situation difficult. I read that on a train and I had the honour, later, to speak to about four thousand people in Cleveland. I said, "Every gentleman knows that is a willful untruth." Well, I haven't heard from his lawyer up to date. At that, their propaganda is magnificent.

Now, let me make a short comparison of the two regimes. Your Government, my Government, as it was--and I hope we will be able to save some of it--was based on individual liberty. Every one of our souls is something very sacred in my nation and the soul of every child is something sacred, and it is up to us who are grown up, our teachers, our clergy, to lead this soul to its salvation in a manner in which it can expand and use its own resources.

On the other side we have the absolute negation of the individual. The individual, de facto, doesn't exist. There is the state represented by one man and of late these individuals have been practically deified. I have seen prayers to all three dictators. In a magazine that I bought only yesterday coming here--I think it was either Mercury or the Readers Digest--there were printed verbatim prayers to the three dictators.

There is another difference there and I feel unless we realize ourselves what our liberties mean, what our liberties are, how much our liberties are worth, we will not be able to cope with the European situation. I am trying to say this, and I don't want to teach anyone how to run their country. It isn't up to me to tell the dictatorships that Mendelssohn's music or Wagner's music is not altogether Aryan, or that Heine's poetry is the most beautiful poetry in the German language. They must choose only literature that is Aryan. I insist on listening to Mendelssohn and I insist on reading Heine's "Lorelei." And when I have so chosen it is answering propaganda by truth. If you take a piece of music the greatest genius in music wouldn't discover the nationality of the man who wrote it, whether he had a Gothic or a Roman profile. It is the inroads on individual liberty that frighten me. I say that it is up to us democrats to make democracy a little more attractive. Let us say we must give it another coat of paint.

I have had the great pleasure and honour to speak to youngsters. I enjoy that immensely. I go to schools and to universities. Last year I went to West Point where 1 saw the future American officers-peace officers, I hope. I said to these children, "Look at your lovely uniforms. How nicely you march past. In the morning you get up as a citizen of a free country." I must say I had a response there. I am not especially conceited, but I thought that some of the children did realize I was telling them something worth while. It applies to all of us. We must realize that a democracy as such gives us certain prerogatives. It gives a prerogative to make mistakes. That is one of the things we all do. Czecho-Slovakia has made mistakes. But it is the proud prerogative of democracy, if you make one, acknowledge it like a man and try to correct it. In the dictatorial countries they are not allowed to make mistakes. A dictator cannot make a mistake. The minute he does he loses the most important part of his body, which is his face.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I do not think that war is imminent and I do think that the regimes that I have very briefly described to you can live alongside each other, but I .do submit and I am absolutely convinced, there is no chance of mixing the two. There have been very honest efforts, taking a little bit of this and a little bit of that and trying to mix into something palatable. It can't be done. They will not mix. The whole foundation, the whole structure is absolutely different. We, on one side, claim that it is the right of the individual to express himself, especially, let us say, in art. I submit to you, in all humility, beautiful art of whatever sort can only be the outpouring of a free soul. You could not write lyrical poetry-Dante could not have written what he wrote if he had been restricted as to what paper he was using or what ink he was using. It could not have been done. That is getting the inroads into our souls that I object to.

The other day I happened to find a saying by one of the dictators. I don't think we have to mention any names-it doesn't matter. It will show you what I think is dangerous. This is what he says: "The plain truth is that men are tired of liberty and that the restless and hardy youth of today want to pass over the decayed corpse of the goddess of liberty to hierarchy, war and glory."

I happen to be a proud owner of a fountain pen and I wrote under this, and I would like to submit my version: "The plain truth is that men are longing to get back to individual liberty and that the restless and hardy youth of today by a little enlightened leadership would like to gather around the goddess of liberty and protect her proudly against hierarchy, war and the shocking glory .of a wholesale slaughter."

The days of glory on the battle field are passed. A relative of mine-this story may make you laughwent to China about sixty-five years ago. He went into a part of China where no white man had been. He took an interpreter and some servants and in a small rice field they saw an old Chinaman with a very big stick in his hand. He was interested in what the old gentleman was doing. He saw that the stick was too big to chase the birds away. He approached the old Chinaman through his interpreter and said, "Would you pray tell us what you are doing?" The old man said, "Certainly. There is a war around here between the two chieftains of this district and I was told there was going to be a battle this afternoon. They certainly are not going to have a battle on my field." Those were the days of heroes. Nowadays the destruction of war will affect the whole community, and if for nothing else, we people who believe in individual liberty, in the sacredness of the soul, must unite, not to die for our souls, but to live for them, to work for them and really to make this world fit for our children and their children to live in. And I am convinced if the two great democracies, Great Britain and America, co-operate that we will have gone a very long way toward achieving this goal.

I am a small unknown soldier, but I am devoting the rest of my life to what I have been talking to you about. I have had very good offers, as you may imagine, but I have decided to remain a missionary, a missionary of love instead of hate, a missionary of truth, a missionary of truth instead of lies, and I am convinced that we will see Europe-she is a worried old girl now-turn the corner, and it is up to your great country and your great neighbour to help. I repeat, that will not be by coming and getting entangled in all kinds of little troubles in Europe, but by holding fast to the principles for which your fathers gladly died and for which all of us must live.

Thank you and God bless you.

(Applause--prolonged)

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Masaryk, as an evidence to the Club of the sincerity of your remarks I am going to quote a very short paragraph from an interview given by you in New York upon your arrival. This is what you said: "I have resigned my post as Czecho-Slovakian Minister to the Court of St. James, after fifteen years service in my beloved England and I shall live in exile. I am in America and I am a free and happy man. Free, you understand! I wonder if you know what it means to be free in this world today?"

Mr. Masaryk, I cannot too strongly express to you our sincere thanks for coming and giving us this wonderful and sincere picture of conditions as you see them, and as you believe them to be. I assure you, Sir, we recognize in you a high authority upon the subject upon which you have spoken and the words which you have expressed cannot fail to leave their mark, not only upon those whom you see in this room, but on those who have been listening to you over the air. Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned. (Applause)