Page:America in the Struggle for Czechoslovak Independence (1926).pdf/65

RV 61 chusetts and the Senate of the Iowa assembly. In the United States Senate the Czechoslovak problem makes its first appearance on May 25, 1917, when Senator, now Judge, W. S. Kenyon introduced a resolution reciting the age-long oppression of the Czech nation by the Hapsburgs and declaring it the sense of the Senate that Bohemia should again become an independent state and that at the future Peace Conference the United States insist upon Czechoslovak independence as a part of any really democratic settlement making for permanent peace.

Of course, Senator Kenyon’s resolution never came to a vote, yet to the Czechoslovaks it had obvious value, reaching, as it did, every member of the Senate and having been reported by the Associated Press. Also, it was noticed in diplomatic circles, as was ascertained by Dr. M. R. Stefanik, Vice-President of the Czechoslovak National Council and later General in the French Army and first Czechoslovak Minister of War.

A year later, May 31, 1918, Senator W. H. King, of Utah, introduced another resolution, similar to the one presented before him by Senator Kenyon, dealing with the Czechoslovak problem in the same way and also pledging America to the Czechoslovak cause.