CZECHOSLOVAK INDEPENDENCE
press in America from the very beginning was united in opposition to the Central Powers.
So when Professor Thomas G. Masaryk escaped from Austria to become the head of the movement abroad, he found at least the rudiments of an efficient organization at hand, with a definite program; and he was entirely free, in so far as America went, from worries of an organization or administrative nature. The importance of this is best realized if we bear in mind the fact that the Czechs in America are the strongest branch of the nation living outside of the present republic; that they are comparatively wealthy, owing to their thrift and industry; and that they could of course exert, and did exert, considerable influence upon American public opinion.
The first need of successful activity was funds. Money is as much an essential of revolution as it is of war. So the leaders of the movement applied themselves first of all to the raising of financial means, and in this they exhibited remarkable ingenuity. Some of the methods adopted are described by Thomas Capek in his work, The Czechs in America, from which the following paragraph may properly be quoted:
Not a dollar was asked for or accepted from a foreign source. Those were Masaryk’s orders,
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