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.97 The party s cofounder, Karel Pergler, had beenMasaryk s assistant in America during the Great War and had wanted to bethe Czechoslovak ambassador to the United States after the war; Masaryksent his son Jan instead.StYíbrný s party joined Gajda s NOF to form theNational League just before the October 1929 elections.98 StYíbrný, Gajda,and Pergler won three seats in Parliament, funded secretly by the anti-Castleright wing of the Agrarian party.99In 1931, the Castle tried once again to use the courts to rid themselves ofthe Fascist irritant.Karel Pergler was found to be an American citizen andthus ineligible to serve in the Czechoslovak Parliament; he was expelled fromParliament and summarily deported.Gajda was convicted of libel and alsolost his seat.StYíbrný, however, managed to survive.Accused once again byStránský of corruption, this time during his tenure on the cabinet in theearly 1920s of which, historians have concluded, he was no doubt guiltyhe threatened to publish embarrassing information about his accusers.100He went free.The 1929 electoral victory remained StYíbrný s, and fascism s,most notable achievement between 1928 and 1934.Seríbrný remained loudlyaggrieved until the republic s very end: in the spring of 1938, Seríbrnýpublished TGM a 28.Xíjen (TGM and the 28th of October), reiterating hiscomplaints about Sv%1Å‚tová revoluce and Masaryk s alleged lies.101The 1926 Castle efforts against StYíbrný kept the National Socialists in theCastle camp, where they steadfastly remained through 1948.But Stránský scause célèbre against StYíbrný did not win him the Castle s trust.His con-tinuing desire to best Castle enemies frequently exceeded that of the Castleleaders, and sometimes his own abilities.In late summer 1926, for example,just before the StYíbrný trial, Stránský accused Milan Hod~a of corruption.Here, too, Stránský could not make his case stick; this time, a court forcedhim to print a lengthy apology to Hod~a along with a correction.When thisran in Lidové noviny, presidential chancellor PYemysl `ámal told Masarykthat many in Prague thought the NLP had been weakened by Stránský sactions.The president responded tersely that he had never hidden hisopinion: Dr.Stránský did not have the qualities necessary to lead a politicalparty.102 A year later, Masaryk noted in a letter to Benea that he had spokenwith Karel apek and Antonín `vehla about the possibility of creating acooperative that would take over Lidové noviny, limiting Stránský s influence Battles of the Legend Makers 119on the paper.103 In April 1928 Masaryk wrote Benea, That Brno professorwho works for you is polit[ically] naïve and, I hear, impossible tactically.You re going to have to choose someone else. 104The significance of StYíbrný s trial, and his ongoing public antipathy withStránský and the Castle, lay in the trial s outcome and arguments.The judgepublicly supported the Castle and Stránský s effort to eliminate StYíbrnýfrom national politics.StYíbrný accused the Castle of deception and theft,implying that Benea had stolen documents or created false ones.Stránský,meanwhile, accused StYíbrný, and by implication the rest of the men ofOctober 28, of outright collusion with Austria during the war.Stránský alsotried on the role of Castle knight, tilting at the domestic resistance in thename of ensuring the Castle leaders historical legacy.The Husbandman: Masaryk s Leader CultDuring his lifetime and long after, Masaryk was one of the most famousCzechs in world history.He was nominated at least twice for a Nobel Prizeand lionized by noteworthies across the globe.However, that esteem paledcompared to the adoration expressed for him at home.During and afterhis lifetime, Masaryk was held up for Czechs as the embodiment of moralrectitude, cosmopolitan erudition, and democratic egalitarianism.By theend of the 1930s, Masaryk s association with the state he had helped foundwas impressively total.But it was not accidental.Many different groups andfactors conspired to position Masaryk as the only man capable of supersedingCzechoslovakia s ethnic and political divisions, a devoted democrat to leadEurope s self-styled ideal new democracy.In fact, admiration for Masaryk rapidly became a complex and expansivepersonality cult.The cult, intended to integrate Czechoslovakia s diversenationalities and to legitimate the young state, also constituted a central ele-ment of the national mythology crafted by Masaryk, Benea, and other Castlepersonalities.The Masaryk cult, like the Castle s version of the Czechoslovaknational myth, was a useful political tool both at home and internationally.Public devotion to Masaryk strengthened his political position, and that ofthe Castle, particularly against the leading Czech political parties.Abroad,the cult situated Masaryk as the quintessential representative of his state andthe values it supposedly manifested, such as a love of liberty, dedicationto truth and justice, and adherence to Wilsonian democratic ideals.Hisinternational reputation in turn greatly strengthened his hand at home
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