CZECHOSLOVAK INDEPENDENCE
dealt with the native country, and 7.3 per cent were devoted to special group interests. American economic, political and religious problems occupied the foremost place in editorial discussions.
Fraternal organizations and other similar societies are so plentiful that the number of Czech lodges and clubs is generally fixed at not less than 2500. Chicago is credited with 500, while in the same city there are at least 227 Building and Loan Associations. The total membership of fraternal societies is, in round figures, more than 160,000, and the ritual and methods of business of these organizations closely follow American models. In fact, such orders are practically unknown on the European continent, certainly not in the form found in the United States. Their combined reserve fund, according to the Fraternal Monitor, is over $10,000,000, and it is wholly invested in American securities, such as Liberty, governmental, state, soldiers' bonus and other bonds of a similar nature.
Czechoslovakia became an independent nation in October, 1918. Necessarily, statistics relating to Czechoslovakia, even as far as the Czechs are concerned, are incomplete, and as regards the Slovaks such statistics are still more meager, since the latter suffered under Magyar (Hun-
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