Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/107

 their courageous and self-denying behavior.

Deputy Staněk closed the National Assembly with a speech in which he thanked the Jugoslav guests for coming, and turning to the Assembly he asked everyone to relate about the enthusiasm of the meeting to his friends, and that the self-confidence of the people might be strengthened. And with the singing of the Czech national anthem, the meeting was dissolved.

On May 29th Secretary of State Lansing made the following important announcement of American policy.

“The Secretary of State desires to announce that the proceedings of the Congress of Oppressed Races of Austria Hungary, which was held in Rome in April, have been followed with great interest by the Government of the United States, and that the nationalistic aspirations of the Czecho Slovaks and Jugoslavs for freedom have the earnest sympathy of this Government.”

On June 5th the following official announcement was made in London:

“At the Versailles conference the premiers of Great Britain, France and Italy agreed to the foreign declarations: The creation of a united independent Polish state, with free access to the sea, constitutes one of the conditions of a solid and just peace and the rule of right in Europe.

“The Allies have noted with satisfaction the declaration of the American Secretary of State, to which they adhere, expressing the greatest sympathy with the national aspirations of the Czechs and Jugoslavs for freedom.”

Prof. Thomas G. Masaryk is still in the United States and finds so much to do here that he will stay here for some time longer. His headquarters are in Washington where he arrived on May 9. He was welcomed at the depot by a large number of senators and congressmen, chiefly members of the foreign affairs committees of the two houses, and by representatives of the French embassy, as well as by the local Bohemians. Of his conferences with the government officials, members of congress and Allied diplomats nothing has been given out to the public, but one may assume that Masaryk had something to do with the announced approval by the American government of the Congress of Rome.

After two weeks work at Washington, Prof. Masaryk went to Boston where he addressed the annual meeting of the American Unitarians, and from there proceeded to New York where his countrymen prepared for him a reception such as has never been known before in the history of the CzchoslovakCzechoslovak [sic] colony in New York. Masaryk spoke to a tremendous audience that filled every corner of Carnegie Hall, and was introduced by Nicholas Murray Butler, president of the Columbia University. From New York Professor Masaryk traveled to Chicago, where in three days he had to deliver three addresses. On May 26 he spoke at the University of Chicago at the invitation of President Harry Pratt Judson; the following day he was to speak at an open air meeting to the Bohemians and Slovaks of Chicago, but bad weather compelled the transfer of the meeting to the auditorium of the Harrison High School where in a hall holding 2500 seats some 3500 people, pressed against the walls and standing in the doorways, listened until midnight to an intimate talk by Masaryk and to speeches by representatives of the Czechoslovak revolutionary organizations. The day after, May 29, Masaryk spoke on the problem of small nations before a distinguished audience in the Chicago Press Club.

On Decoration Day Masaryk was in Pittsburgh at the meeting of the American Branch of the Czechoslovak National Council. Among many invitations received by him is one by Governor Cox of Ohio to be the principal speaker at the Americanization Day in Columbus on June 14.

So much has been written during the past month about Czechoslovaks and the cause of free Bohemia that we have not space enough to give a summary of it here. We shall quote briefly three editorial articles from influential publications as a sample of what the American press thinks about Bohemia.

The Saturday Evening Post is the most widely read periodical in America and probably in the world. Its issue of June 1 has the following article on the editorial page:

The war has produced no greater paradox than this: Unnaturalized Bohemians in the United States are technically enemy aliens, because they are subjects of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Bohemians are Slavs—not Teutons. Surrounded by conquering Teutons and Magyars, and brutally oppressed by both, their history for generations gives a record of the miseries and humiliations of a subjugated people. Their sympathy in this war is overwhelmingly with the Allies and against the Central Powers. Many Bohemian regiments, dragooned to war under the Hapsburg banner, have revolted and deserted. Other regiments have been decimated for mutiny. It is said that three hundred thousand Bohemian soldiers fought on the Russian side. Others went over to Serbia; and lately thousands of Bohemians have enrolled with Italy. Delegates who undoubtedly represented the will of a