Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/78

 accomplish. If we could tell how small were the demands of Masaryk during the first year and even during the second year, our American friends, who seen the results obtained would be astonished. Where the Germans disposed of millions, nay, hundreds of millions for their propaganda in neutral lands and treachery in Allied lands, Masaryk had one a few thousands dollars, but he made a dollar go further than the Austrian Government accomplished with a fortune. But perhaps there exists no reason any longer why we could not say for the year of 1915 Masaryk asked us to send him $1 50,000 for his campaign; so small were our beginnings that many of our workers declared it impossible to collect so much money. And as a matter of fact we fell some what short of the sum expected of us during that first year of our campaign.

In the summer of 1915 I managed to leave Austria and came to New York on August 15th. I was sent to the United States by the political leaders of the nation to work for the revolutionary movement in America among my people. It was, of course, nesessary that my departure to America should have outwordly other reasons, and when I landed in this country I was not able to come out at once for the independence movement. Pro-Austrian elements thought that they would find in me a sympathizer and asked me to denounce the work carried on by the Bohemian National Alliance as dangerous and abnoxious to the Czech nation. I said nothing at first, but on November 8th, 1915, I came out publicly for Czechoslovak independence. Since that day I have had a constant fight with the Austrian tools, who were not very numerous, but who employed all sorts of weapons to pull me down and neutralize my activities.

In the fall of 1915 the organization work of the Alliance received a strong impulse. At that time it was still limited to the liberal element, although from the very first days the Czech protestants were strong supporters of the movement and rendered it valuable service. The principal task, as I have said, was to send money for the support of the campaign managed by Dr. Masaryk. There was no way of getting money from Bohemia; the Czechs in Bussia who were the next strongest immigrant branch had too many cares of their own, and Czech residents in Paris, London and elsewhere were too few and too poor to give substantial help. It was natural and logical that the share of the Czechoslovaks of America in the revolution should have been that of furnishing money. And that is what we did, according to our strength.

Of course the information activity of the Bohemian National Alliance was emphasized from the very beginning. But until America entered into the war, the political significance of acquainting America with the justice of the Czechoslovak claims was of a secondary order. This work had really greater effect on the workers and member ship of the organization than on the American public, for it made the body of the people see with their own eyes that the Alliance was accomplishing something definite, even though as a matter of fact the great work was done by Masaryk and his co-workers in Paris. London and Borne. At the same time the unanimously expressed sentiments of one million people of Czechoslovak birth or descent under the free institutions of America had their weight with the Allied statesmen who did not have the means to ascertain for themselves the sentiments of the people in Bohemia and Slovakia. Czechoslovak immigrants in America spoke for their brothers who could not speak for themselves and their great organization, the Bohemian National Alliance and Slovak League, made the voice of a million people heard.

The leaders of the movement were consistent democrats, and so they tried to get the money needed in Europe from the masses of the people, rather than collect it in large amounts from a few wealthy individuals. It would have been very difficult in any case to carry out this second plan, for the wealthier Czechs in America lagged behind the workingmen in enthusiasm and rather decried the Alliance and its leaders as impractical dreamers. The principal support, both financial and moral, came from the workingmen in the cities and the farmers of the central west and southwest. To gain the support of the large mass of the Czechoslovak immigrants and their children took an almost unbelievable amount of work and hardship. The organizer of the Bohemian National Alliance crossed the United States back and forth, over and over again, addressing hundreds and even thousands of meetings and visiting even the smallest settlements. He and other zealous workers like Em. Voska, J. Tuma, St. Serpen, V. and M. Vimmer, talked to the coal miners of Pennsylvania, the farmers of