Page:America in the Struggle for Czechoslovak Independence (1926).pdf/66

RV 62 Both Senators—Kenyon as well as King—were actuated by a genuine conviction of the justice of the Czechoslovak demands and were not in the least influenced by ordinary political considerations. Judge Kenyon is a Republican and the Czech vote in this country is almost unanimously Democratic, and as for Utah, Senator King’s state, it is to be doubted whether in that commonwealth there is the proverbial baker’s dozen voters of Czech or Slovak origin.

The Slav Press Bureau was a political center and a journalistic office, and also the distributing point for virtually all Czechoslovak literature. Naturally, copies of all publications were sent to Senators and Congressmen. Also, there was kept at the Bureau a diary, by all odds the most important source-material for Czechoslovak war activities in this country.

Technical reasons—lack of Czech stenographers in America—determined the writing of this diary in the English language, undoubtedly a handicap to the Czech historian, but an advantage to the American writer who may desire to study the movement. The diary indicates that the response in Congress was not perfunctory merely and that in both Houses there was a growing and genuine interest.