among the Czechoslovak Communities in Paris sent a message to Slovakia on February 15, 1915, in which independence was promised to the “Slovak Regions” with a Diet of their own at Nitra. On May 81, 1915, the League of Czechoslovak Societies in Russia also declared that Slovakia would have a Diet and political and linguistic autonomy.
Nevertheless, the great majority of Slovaks and of their leaders in Russia and in America supported the only reasonable and practicable plan—a united Czechoslovak State. At a Congress held at Cleveland, Ohio, in October 1915, the Slovaks and Czechs agreed upon unity and cooperation; and the American Slovak leaders were among the signatories of the first anti-Austrian manifesto of November 14, 1915. The Czechoslovak agreement at Pittsburg in 1918 was only one of a series of programmes and, it may be noted, not the most radical of them.
But the activities of our Czech and Slovak colonies in America were by no means confined to this sort of thing. From the beginning of the war they engaged in political propaganda and, through their organizations, exercised considerable influence upon the American public—an influence the more important because America remained neutral for two and a half years. In 1916 our “National Alliance” in America issued a manifesto explanatory of our struggle for freedom. In May 1917 it and the “Slovak League” presented to President Wilson, through the intermediary of Colonel House, a memorandum setting forth our political aspirations; and in February 1918 a further memorandum put the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate on its guard against Austrian promises of autonomy. On May 25, 1917, Mr. Kenyon, the Senator of Iowa, whose goodwill our people had won, moved a resolution demanding the liberation of the Czechs and Slovaks as a condition of peace; and a year later (May 81, 1918) Mr. King, Senator for Utah, put forward the same demand. In this way and by organizing numerous public lectures and meetings, our American colonies contributed politically as well as financially to our conquest of freedom—politically, perhaps, even more than financially. After I reached Washington our “National Alliance” induced Congress, on June 29, so to amend the Immigration Law that, like the American volunteers who had joined the Allied armies, our Legionaries should be allowed to return unhindered to the United States.
