Page:America in the Struggle for Czechoslovak Independence (1926).pdf/51

RV 47 of the Near East Division of the State Department, Dr. A. H. Putney, within whose competence Czechoslovak matters came, asserting that no solution continuing Hapsburg sovereignty could be acceptable to the Czechoslovak people, and indicating that the war-ardor and sacrificial spirit among the Czechoslovaks should in no way be weakened by state papers not always clearly understood by the public and tending to create fears of a possible compromise with the Dual Monarchy. It is understood that this letter formed a part of a report to the President, prepared by the official referred to, and that thus it reached him.

On December 12, 1917, an interview by the Washington Post with the same spokesman, expounded the same view, and this interview was brought to the attention of the President by the Secretary of the Interior, Franklin K. Lane.

President Masaryk, coming from Russia, landed in Vancouver on April 29, 1918, and when he arrived in Chicago, a few days later, a welcome was accorded to him which in American history is probably without a parallel. At least one hundred thousand Czechs and Slovaks greeted him at the Northwestern Station in that city, thus proving the perfect functioning of the Czechoslovak organization and giving Dr. Masaryk prestige which