Slavs, with the King and the Serbian Skupshtina at their head, to decide upon the future organization of the Southern Slav lands. One of their leading men in America rebuked me for not having taken action against Lloyd George. True, I did nothing publicly; but I drew the attention of President Wilson—whose demands, at that time, were the same as those of Lloyd George—to the inadequacy of mere autonomy for the Hapsburg peoples. Besides, my views were well known in England and we had vigilant friends there. President Wilson had also communicated confidentially to the Allies the memorandum which I addressed to him from Tokio. I was continually conferring with Allied Governments and statesmen, but kept the fact out of the press.
Upon my Yugoslav friends I had always urged the necessity of solving the urgent problem of centralization and self-government, that is to say, the question whether the Southern Slav provinces of Austria-Hungary should enjoy some degree of autonomy or should be united to Serbia under one central Government. Unification, I pointed out, would naturally be the chief thing in the eyes of all the liberated Slav peoples and States. Hence the need to think of it betimes, and carefully, and to prepare both for the peace negotiations and for the early years of their new State. In giving this advice I assumed that the Southern Slav Committee abroad, or a considerable part of it, would go to Belgrade as early as practicable in order to come to an understanding with the Serbian political leaders.
The Poles.
With the Poles our relations were not less constant than with the Southern Slavs. In America I continued the work begun in Russia, where we had held joint Czech and Polish meetings and I had maintained lively intercourse with the Polish leaders, especially with Grabski. Paderewski and Dmowski were in the United States; and among the American Poles I remember the writer Czarnecki. Paderewski I had not seen personally before, though I had met Dmowski in England.
On September 15, 1918, we organized a gathering of the oppressed peoples of Austria-Hungary after the model of the Rome Congress. Paderewski represented the Poles, Dr. Hinkovitch the Southern Slavs, and Stoica the Roumanians. It was an immense gathering. The Carnegie Hall was crowded, not only with Slavs and Roumanians but also with Americans. Paderewski was well known in the United States, and, doubtless,
