Conneaut High School - Tattler Yearbook (Conneaut, OH)

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at their hands. In Austria alone have the Poles secured the management of their own affairs, and that only after many a hard struggle. In Prussia, on the contrary, they are under the direct authority of Germany. There is no semblence of self-government for the oppressed. Every Pole must bend to the will of the Prussian, however cruel that may be. Think, there it is a crime to wear the national colors of Poland, a crime to use the Polish speech in the schools or even in public meetings. Assimilation of the Poles has ever been the aim of Germany. Up to now the Poles have successfully resisted this policy. Lately, however, the Germans have proposed to seize the Polish lands by condemnation. This would eventually force the Poles from their possessions and allow the German peasants to take their places. Whether this policy wll be adopted is yet uncertain, but if it is it can only be with detriment to the Kaiser and his advisers. But still more exacting is Russia's rule. Here the Pole cannot give his opinion on his own affairs, let alone deciding them. The Czar's officers are his task-masters who rule him without thought of justice. By the Royal decree Polish speech and Polish meetings are restricted to the theater. Even the freedom of the press is denied the Russian Poles. Before publication all literature must pass the rigid examination of a Russian censor. Moreover, in Russia the punishment of the Polish political prisoners is of the crudest kind. Upon the least offense, or even suspicion, the Pole may find himself in a Russian dungeon or on the road to Siberia. This is the fate every Russan Pole expects. It is the fate that fills his society with human wrecks who have spent the prime of their years in the reeking cell of an island fortress, or in the salt mines of Siberia. Thus for the last hundred years Poland has been ground between Prussia and Russia as between an upper and nether millstone. All those customs and privileges held dear by every civilized people are denied her. There is no way she may turn but that oppression confronts her. Before her stands the Russian Cossak, backed by the Prussian endarms, blocking her way to freedom. At her back yawns the deep and rocky chasm of final oblivion. Strive as she will for her coveted freedom she cannot overcome the might of her oppressor. At each attempt she is driven backward, still backward, until to our anxious eye she seems to disappear into the rocky chasm. But no, see, she rises again, torn and bleeding, but undaunted and untamed. She is Poland still. But each time she falls and rises there comes the question: How long will Poland last? But though Poland no longer appears on the map of Europe, though is bound hand and foot by her oppressors, the nationalty of her people continues as distinct today as ever. In this race preservation the 22

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Valeditory. POLAND, THE LAND OF OPPRESSION. History is always fact, never fiction. Still sometimes the annals of the past stir our feelings to a greater extent than has ever fiction’s greatest creation. These plots of history are all the more interesting because they often involve whole nations and because they are true. All along the path of civilization are strewn crumbling ruins, each of which mutely testifies to a tragedy in the history of mankind. But for all that in their darkest hours neither Egypt, Greece, nor Rome ever presented a more pitiable spectacle than does today a certain nation in Eastern Europe. That nation is Poland. Divided and oppressed, its people are enacting the greatest tragedy of the twentieth century. That part of Poland’s history which has to do with her oppression is embraced in the last hundred years of her existence. But behind that time lie a few facts that bring into bolder relief the injustice which the Pole has suffered. Never can the world forget Poland’s defense of Christanity during the medieval ages, nor her protection of the Jews in the time of their early persecutions. Still less can she put aside Poland’s action in 1683 when the Turks laid seige to Vienna. In the issue of that great struggle lay not the fate of Austria alone. For had the Turk once secured Vienna Prussia and Russia would also have soon fallen under the Sultan’s authority. Nor would it have ended there. All Europe would at length have bowed beneath the Turkish yoke. The flower of European civilization would have been plucked at its budding. At that crisis Poland alone dared to aid the besieged city. With one bold stroke she routed the Turk from the Austrian ramparts and sent him scurrying back to the protecting walls of Constantinople. For that deed Poland merited the deepest gratitude not only from Austria but from all civilized Europe. Yet what was her reward? By the irony of fate she had saved her bitterest enemies. Less than one hundred years later those same nations, whom she had benefited most, forgot what Poland had once stood for, what she had meant to them, forgot all except one frenzied desire to crush out the vital spark of life from the body of their deliverer and divide her remains among their own greedy selves. Thus it was that in 1795 Poland disappeared from the map of Europe, and in her place came the rule of Prussia, Austria and Russia. But if Poland did not deserve to be parcelled out among these three powers much less has she merited the subsequent oppression 21

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opression itself, Polish literature, and Polish religion are all important factors. Yet above them all comes that which throbs in the heart of every true Pole, his undying love for freedom. This is the lode stone of the Polish cause. Around it centers the one great hope of the Pole. He knows how in time past nations have risen to their zenith and then passed into oblivion. Yet never will he admit that to be the fate of Poland. His face is turned toward the future when once more the Polish eagle will spread its wings over the Poles as a united and independent people. This aim of the Pole is now but a dream. In itself it is nothing. In its influence on him it is everything. For its sake he is passing through the firey furnace of oppression. There all his dross is being driven out. This test is calling forth all that is manly and heroic in his nature. In his fight for liberty he must face oppression and even death. Yet gladly does he sacrifice all on freedom’s altar. His cause is more than that of a fanatic with but .an idle dream. Yes, tonight, as he raises his broken sword in the defense of his liberty, he stands as the highest type of a martyr. Whether his martyrdom will secure his independence the future alone can tell. Still one fact remains. Under the oppressor’s lash the Pole is developing into a man who will some day strike the shackles from his arms and boldly demand from the world his long denied birthright. It is not her own cause alone that Poland is fighting for, but the cause of all humanity. For at the present time the Russian Czar is the foremost representative of absolute power, and the German Kaiser glories in the force of his scepter. If Poland is finally crushed by these powers it will mean that our vaunted right of a nation to independence is but a deluding bubble. On the contrary, if the cause of Poland is successful it will again strengthen those rights of mankind fW which our own forefathers fought in the Revolution. Thus in all ages, Poland has stood as the exponent of liberty. Two hundred years ago her banner proclaimed freedom to Austria from the Turk. Since that time Poland has so widened her scope that now her tattered flag with its white eagle leads mankind in the greatest battle of all ages, the battle for universal freedom. Soon the last word will have been spoken, and we, the class of 1908, will retire from the activity of our high school life to join the ranks of the Alumni. Four years have passed and gone since first we first entered the halls of old C. H. S. During that time many a golden opportunity has been afforded us. But none has come as the result of our own toil. Each opportunity stands for the untiring work of the Superintendent and the Board of Education in our behalf. So then, it will be with the deepest gratitude towards them that tonight we receive the highest honor they can give us—that of graduation. 23