Lee and Davis

Gallant lost causes leave sad aftermaths, and one of the saddest is the plight of the broken leaders. London last week was the temporary refuge of a Robert E. Lee and a Jefferson Davis of the late Republic of Czechoslovakia. They are Eduard Benes and Jan Masaryk, two men who devoted 20 years of their lives to a cause which no longer exists. Like Lee and Davis, they did not know what to do next.

The University of Chicago has provided a professorship for Eduard Benes--as Washington College at Lexington, Va. provided one for Lee-- as soon as Czechoslovakia's last President will take it. But the tired little man was seriously ill. His ears were being treated for an ailment which has affected his sense of balance.

No steady job was found for Jeff Davis, and none has yet been found for Jan Masaryk, for 15 years Czechoslovakia's Minister to Great Britain and the strongest pleader for his country in western Europe. The Nazi tied government of his homeland is now busy tearing down statues and paintings of Jan Masaryk's father, cofounder with Eduard Benes of Czechoslovakia. Soon after Munich, Minister Masaryk's Legation in London, ordered to remove resigned President Benes' portrait, complied. A second order, requiring removal of a portrait of Jan's father, was not immediately obeyed. At last Jan himself volunteered, silently lifted his father's picture from the wall, bowed, left the room. Last week there was no longer a place for able Jan in the diplomatic service. On January 1 he will move out of the Legation in Grosvenor Place, has no other plan than a projected two-month trip to the U. S.

Last month the name of Czechoslovakia was officially changed to Czecho-Slovakia. This week the hyphenation was made significant when the autonomous Slovak Government took occasion to discharge Czech (and Jewish) professors and officials in the Slovak area. "Slovakia for the Slovaks," was the slogan of a campaign which marked another big fissure in the disintegration of the State of Eduard Benes and Thomas Masaryk pulled but could not hold together.

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