Bohemians.
Chicago Tribune, Aug. 9, 1877
A second meeting of the Bohemians was held last evening at the Bohemian Hall. The meeting was quite large and composed of better material than such gatherings usually are. The object of the meeting seemed to be to calmly discuss the result of the late riots and to better unite the lumber-shovers, and give some expression in defense of the Bohemian nationality from the aspersions cast upon them in the late troubles. Numerous speeches were made accusing the papers of blamming them for the riots and censuring them as a class, which charges the speakers resented with great earnestness. They maintained that the Bohemians are peacable, law-abiding citizens, and that of the 25,000 in the city a smaller portion had been convicted of crime than any other class. Resolutions were adopted denouncing the papers for accusing them of leading and promoting the riots of two weeks ago. The meeting was devoid of enthusiasm, but from remarks not incendiary -occasionally dropped by a hot-headed speaker, it was evident, that the leaders of that nationality, at least, were ready to resent imaginary evils of any kind at any time, and to join the lumber-shovers or any other class, in a strike, let the consequences be what they may. The following resolution then was adopted.
2"Resolved, that we protest against those calumnies thrown upon us Bohemians in Chicago during the past riotous days by our large dailies, the Tribune and the Times. We refer every fellow-citizen to the criminal statistics of the city of Chicago, which show that the Bohemian Nationality being represented here by at least 25,000 inhabitants, furnish proportionality the least contingent of criminals and transgressors to the prisons and jails. And by these statistics we prove that those calumnies were base affronts to all the best citizens of Bohemian extraction, and we pronounce them a base lie.
