In the tiny Bohemian village of Lany last week a man of good will was buried. He was intelligent, industrious, tolerant, futile. His life & death was a parable for his tragic time.
Over Jan Masaryk's open grave, a huntsman raised his horn and blew out into the chill spring the wistful air of the Czech national anthem Kde Domov muj? (Where Is My Home?). Because he was never quite sure where his ideological home was, Jan Masaryk had been hunted to his death by men who were very sure of theirs.
In Prague, a few hours earlier, Masaryk's coffin had rested on a black bier in the black-draped, vaulted pantheon of the National Museum. Stretching beyond its doors, through 3½ miles of Prague streets, perhaps 500,000 people waited with flowers, babies, and tears for a glimpse of the coffin. In the museum, partially lighted by four guttering candles in tall silver sticks by the bier, two speeches were made.
Of Hate & Love. One was by an old soldier, onetime comrade in arms of Jan Masaryk's great father, Thomas, who won for Czechoslovakia her twice-killed independence.* The veteran spoke of love: "When Thomas Masaryk died, Jan told us, 'I have always loved you. Today I must love you even more to make up at least partly for the love of my father.'"
The other speech was by Czechoslovak Prime Minister and Communist Boss Klement Gottwald; it was filled with cynical distortions and unconcealed hate. Said he: "I can prove to you that Jan Masaryk clearly and without compromise agreed with the action program of the new government. . . . This was his unforgivable sin in the eyes of the enemies of the republic. We have seen for ourselves how the press of the West started an organized campaign against Jan Masaryk. . . ."
But the best obituary of Jan Masaryk had been composed years before, by his father. Thomas Masaryk had written :†
"Modern man . . . staggers between belief and disbelief, revolt and humility, anarchy and obedience. . . . The people of our age are restless, excitable and fatigued. . . . Many fall into despair and cast themselves of their own will into that post-mortem darkness. . . . [Modern man], in his equality with God, either becomes a tyrant or joins the army of the despairing and dying."
Of Books & Girls. As a youth, Jan Masaryk was a bright but inattentive student. He was good at cards, but he usually passed on the money he won to needier friends. At 20 (1906) he left Charles University and came to the U.S. where he spent seven years. He worked in an iron foundry, played the piano in a nickelodeon, managed an iron works. The seven U.S. years he summed up: "I set out to become a captain of industry but that was a great shipwreck. Making money meant nothing to me. Of course, I didn't like to be without it. If I saw a book I wanted, I liked to be able to buy it. If I saw a pretty girl, I liked to be able to buy her a lunch."