lines of the Prague newspapers. Our military information proved trustworthy and was gladly received. It won us many a friend, not least because we refused payment and gave it in the interest of the Allied cause. On this point I was adamant, though it was not easy to keep an eye on all our helpers when this branch of our propaganda grew into a regular system of espionage and counter-espionage. Yet, with insignificant exceptions, nothing went wrong.
Part of our work was to get Allied news into the German and Magyar press. In Austria and Hungary the progress of the Allies was being kept dark. Therefore we tried successfully to smuggle news of it into the Austro-Hungarian newspapers. Dr. Osuský could tell many a tale of the dodges by which he got into Budapest papers reports of the great help the Allies were receiving from America. He did it mostly in the form of attacks upon the Americans; and the news was reproduced by the Vienna and the Prague press.
In the United States Mr. Voska cleverly organized a very efficient system of counter-espionage, gaining thereby political prestige both for himself and for us, as I shall presently relate. In Russia the difficulties were more serious though, after the Revolution, we surmounted them. We never used money, that is to say, we never bribed. I helped some respectable people, Czechs and others, discreetly and without their asking, when I heard they were in need. In that stormy time not a few were in want through no fault of their own.
Beneš, Štefánik and I kept ourselves deliberately independent of the funds supplied by our people in America. My salary as a Professor at London University (its resources were limited during the war) was small, but I was well paid for my articles and was, besides, helped by personal gifts from American friends. As I have said, Dr. Beneš put money into our “enterprise” from the first and still had enough for himself. Štefánik, too, had an income of his own. This financial independence impressed our people favourably, and our frugality had a good effect. All sorts of stories were told about it, and many thought that the cause should be more smartly “represented.” But we needed no such “representation.” We were working. Later on, “representation” came by itself. When I reached America from the Far East our people took for me an apartment in a first-class hotel, as biggish permanent quarters were required for the reception of my numerous visitors. But in Europe we inverted the Czech proverb “Little money, little music” and got plenty of music for our
