pamphlet, Teď, anebo nikdy (Now or Never), was issued and distributed by the hundred thousand, also in the prisoners-of-war camps.
In order not to have to return to the matter later, I will give an account of what was achieved by the Czechoslovaks in America in military matters. As early as 1916 a Canadian Brigade was organized from the first Czech volunteers. It was originally proposed to organize a whole Czech regiment in the Canadian Army, but this idea had to be given up on account of many insuperable obstacles (American neutrality, strict frontier surveillance, the impossibility of carrying on open agitation, etc.) The Canadian Brigade was first organized by Jaroslav Císař, with the help of Vinklárek, Votava, Tvrzický, Linhart, and others.
When the United States entered the war there was a swarm of Czech volunteers for the American Army, and accordingly, the recruiting of volunteers for our own army in France, which had been arranged in the United States by Štefánik, met with a comparatively limited success. (The number of American volunteers in the Czechoslovak Army in France was about three thousand.) For several reasons the American Czechs preferred to join the American Army, while others were called up when conscription was introduced, so that there remained for the Czechoslovak Army only an insignificant fraction of the most enthusiastic of our fellow-countrymen, and those who were not American citizens. These military matters were directed by František Kopecký in New York.
The relations between our organizations in America and the Czechoslovak revolutionary headquarters in Paris developed smoothly. Our fellow-countrymen in America had already made the acquaintance of Masaryk during his trip there before the war, and their ideas had much in common with his. He was therefore acknowledged there from the very beginning, as the leading authority and head of the revolutionary movement, not only among the Czechs but very soon among the Slovaks as well. This process was either tacit, or revealed itself by occasional manifestos or by the subscriptions which were sent in from the Czech and Slovak organizations.
Thus there were no differences concerning the association with the European headquarters. Masaryk had communicated with his acquaintances in America immediately after his departure from Prague. Dr. Sychrava co-operated with the
