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“Representation House” of the City of Prague
and the Powder Tower.
THE TEXT OF THE SPEECHES.
The president of the Czech Union, Deputy Staněk who opened the meeting, spoke as follows:
“We heartily welcome our dear Jugoslav brothers, our faithful comrades and fellow-combatants, Croats, Serbs and Slovenes. They came to Prague again to show their solidarity with us and to encourage us and themselves in the light of common enthusiasm for our common cause, common ideals and common aims. Be welcome in the name of the whole nation! The whole Jugoslav nation is our faithful ally and will remain so in all sufferings until we have attained our aim. While the mild winds are beginning to blow around the earth, you and I are surrounded by cold winds of disfavor. These frosts will not stop the circulation of the blood in our veins, on the contrary they will stir it up. We are no more intimidated by any threats. Dear friends! Tell your brothers in the south that today we are with them in spirit, and that we will always be with them in all suffering. Tell them that we are fighting a common struggle for your liberty and ours, for your independence and ours, for your future and ours.
Gentlemen: We see here today assembled all the representatives of the Czech political, spiritual and economic life. We welcome also the women’s representatives. I welcome you all in the name of the Czech deputies as the legitimate and full representation of the whole nation. Twice we declared our political aims and the will of our nation. Twice we declared what is the political gospel of our nation and they would not believe us. They tried to discredit the unanimous will of the nation before foreign public, they tried to drive a wedge between the nation and its representatives in order to shake the confidence in the competence of the Czech deputies to speak and act in the name of the whole nation. We have therefore assembled here today in order to reject once for all such attempts and to manifest solemnly that the nation and its deputies are in complete agreement and that no power on earth will be able to shake this unity.
Gentlemen: The man who attacked us was the official representative of Austria-Hungary, the German feudal baron Count Czernin, a man who shuns the delegations and parliamentary responsibility. He read a speech to some unknown members of the Vienna City Council which by its . . .
(Ten lines deleted by censor.)
Gentlemen: At a time when the old order is falling and nations who have hitherto been silent are rising to their independence, the official representative of Austria is still living under the impression of a fifty years old anachronism. He knows in this empire only the Germans and Magyars, and looks on Slavs as on slaves who must be kept underfoot and whose political sentiments must be answered by a mailed fist, fetters and jail. We turn over the dagger pointed at us and ask: “Who is prolonging this war?” Surely not the Czech deputies, but those nations in Austria-Hungary who refuse to grant the Austrian Slavs the same rights which they granted the nations in Russia. If you give us independence you will have peace at once. The war is prolonged by those who on the eve of great social upheavals in Europe kindle the torch of civil war by inciting the hate between the different nations of this empire and by . . .
(Five lines deleted by censor.)
The Czechs do not prolong this war. On the contrary, we always opposed one-sided
