Baron Korff and Prince Lvoff were also among the Russians then living in America. I had met the latter in Petrograd; and shortly before leaving America I discussed with him the necessity of uniting Russians abroad on the basis of, at least, an outline of a common political programme. It was really painful to see how incapable of organizing themselves the Russians in foreign countries were. To me this incapacity seemed part and parcel of the general incompetence of the Russian intellectuals.
The Mid-European Peoples.
Cooperation with the Roumanians, which I had begun in Russia, was continued in America where, however, there were fewer Roumanian representatives. Dr. Lupu, a Roumanian member of Parliament, came, however, for a time. But I often met the representatives of the Lithuanians, the Letts and the Esthonians. All these peoples had colonies of their own in America, the Lithuanians especially. With them and with the Greeks, Armenians, Albanians and others I had conversations out of which a unifying organization arose—“The Mid-European Democratic Union.” I thought originally of founding a society of Americans to work for the small oppressed peoples. But, in this form, it could not be done, and the Mid-European Democratic Union was established instead. Against my wish, it chose me to be its President, an American Professor, Herbert A. Miller of Oberlin, being associated with me. The Union met pretty often to discuss all the ethnographical and political problems of the smaller mid-European peoples. As an instance of our method I may say that I used to bring the Poles and the Lithuanians, or the Greeks and the Albanians, together so that they might clear up their ideas beforehand and avoid serious disputes in the plenary sittings of the Union. The Italian Irredentists attended our meetings assiduously. One of my objects was to make the Union an agency for working out a plan for the Peace on lines which I had laid down in “The New Europe.” So well did the Union consolidate itself that President Wilson received a deputation of which I was the spokesman. It was a happy thought—-whose, I forget—that a public conference should have been arranged at Philadelphia where the various peoples put forward their programmes. On October 28, 1918, the conclusions of the Conference were signed in the memorable Independence Hall; and then, in the courtyard, I read out
