Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/88



The Czechoslovak women were among the first of the foreign racial groups to organize for war service. There was every reason why they ought not delay. Theirs was a double responsibility. They welcomed the opportunity to show their loyalty and gratitude to the country of their adoption, in the defense of which they were ready to stand—to the last woman—if necessary. And again their hearts yearned to help their mother country, Czechoslovakia, which was engaged in a death struggle for liberty, with its inveterate oppressors, the Germans and the Magyars.

As active members of the Bohemian (Czech) National Alliance and the Slovak League, they had gained experience which prepared them, in a measure, or the tremendous task that now confronted them. Everywhere they began this task by offering their services to the American Red Cross, Liberty Loan Committees and other patriotic agencies. They participated in all the recognized National War Activities and Drives. They continued in this work throughout the duration of the war, and time will show that the Czechoslovak women of this country bore, creditably, a generous share of the war’s burden that fell to the American womanhood.

When the good news came that by the decree of the President of France the formation of an independent Czechoslovak Army was authorized, the Czechoslovak women saw that their chance to help their mother country—by backing up, morally and materially, the men who were fighting for her freedom. This acted as an impetus to organize themselves throughout the country into groups for the special purpose of doing relief work for Czechoslovak volunteers and their dependents. These groups assumed such names as “Priadky” (Spinners), “Včelky” (Bees), etc. They realized that while for America they could work through the existing national organizations, the Czechoslovak relief work they could do more efficiently through organizations of their own. They patterned their activities after the American relief committees. They made the usual type of comfort articles given to men in service, collected books, newspapers and magazines, and solicited money for the purchase of tobacco and chocolate.

In order to unify and coordinate the activities of these local and disconnected relief groups, a National Czechoslovak Relief Committee, with offices in New York, was established at a Conference of the Slovak League and the Bohemian (Czech) National Alliance, held early in February of 1918. This Committee was to be one of the Departments of the Czechoslovak National Council in America (now the American Czechoslovak Board), formed at the same Conference.

To me came the honor and the responsibility of the Chairmanship of the National Relief Committee, representing the Czech women of the United States. Miss Ethel Cablk was elected Secretary, and represented the Slovak women.

We went to work without delay, and a modest little office was opened at 316 East 72nd Street. There was, however, nothing modest about our visions as to what our organization would eventually become. We took the American Red Cross as our model for the plan of organization, and the map of the United States as our field of activity. Our first task was to get in touch with the above mentioned local relief groups and to form them into a nucleus of the larger organization as it exists today. This involved a considerable amount of correspondence, and to simplify matters it was decided to divide our field; accordingly ten Division Offices were established in the following Cities New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburg, Bridgeport, Omaha, St. Louis, Houston, Baltimore and San Francisco.

The work of these Division Offices was, first, to get into closer touch with the Czechoslovak women in their respective territories and to organize them into local relief committees where it had not already been done; second, to distribute and direct the work of these committees; third, to receive the material made and collected, and to pack it in cases ready for shipment abroad, all these cases being consigned to the National Headquarters in New York, where final arrangements for shipping were made.