CZECHOSLOVAK INDEPENDENCE
Germany, Austria-Hungary or Turkey,” the situation would be adequately met. This is merely a suggestion, and perhaps even a better wording could be found. I am writing this rather hastily so as to get the matter before you, and have not had time to suggest such formulations as, perhaps, may be definite, but probably the suggestion I make conveys sufficiently the idea I have in mind.
8. The Czechoslovak National Council is an organization headed by Professor T. G. Masaryk, a former member of the Austrian parliament, who escaped from Austria immediately after the outbreak of the war, and with the authority of the Bohemian parties, and backed by the whole Czechoslovak nation, is leading a movement for complete Czechoslovak independence from Austria.
The resolution in its original form was met by the argument that the Allied Powers can, and should, take care of their own soldiers, whether conscripted at home or coming from America. But of course this argument could not apply, and was not applied, to those who joined the Czechoslovak forces. So in the end Mr. Slayden, of Texas, introduced a resolution (H. J. Res. 255), on February 28, 1918, authorizing the readmission of “Aliens lawfully resident in the United States, who, prior to April sixth, nineteen hundred and seventeen, declared their intention of becoming citizens of the United States, and who have en
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