The first Bohemian settlers were of the most intelligent and more prosperous classes. They went West, chiefly to Wisconsin, where their farms are among the finest in the state. In Kewaunee County they constitute over one third of the population, or 6,000 out of 17,000. They have developed into an excellent type of American citizenship, have looked well after the education of their children, many of whom have gone to college, and are in every way progressive. Read thoughtfully what Mr. Mashek says:
[Sidenote: Easy Assimilation Through Religion]
"In the country the assimilation of Bohemians is not a problem which offers difficulties. The public school is everywhere so potent an Americanizer that it alone is adequate. There is, however, one other influence which if brought to bear, especially in the large communities, would be helpful. _I refer to the Protestant faith._ For the most part Bohemians conversant with their history as a people are naturally hostile to the Catholic Church, and when the restraints which held them in their own country are removed by emigration, many of the more enlightened quietly drop their allegiance, and, through lack of desire or opportunity, fail to ally themselves with any other. So strong is this non-religious tendency among the Bohemians--especially in the cities--that it has resulted in active unbelief, and hostility to Church influence. _This spiritual isolation_, with its resultant social separation, _is doing great harm in retarding assimilation_. Aside from this matter of religion, the Bohemian falls into American customs with surprising readiness."
Thus a member of this race points out to Protestants their opportunity. Here is a people with inherited Protestant tendencies. They have been driven in Bohemia by an enforced Roman Catholicism into antagonism to the Church as they know it.
In Chicago, where over 100,000 of them make of that city the third largest Bohemian center in the world, they have a strongly organized Freethinkers' Society, with three hundred branches, which issues an atheistic catechism, and has it taught in its numerous Sunday-schools, as they are called. But there are thousands who do not belong to this cult, and who are open to the gospel. The same is true of the Bohemians in New York, Cleveland, and elsewhere who have not advanced to the Chicago infidel standpoint. Their character has not been well understood. They possess excellent qualities for the making of good Americans. Christianity in pure and true form is all they need.