“ As if all the gleamings of the beyond had filled the world and now were sparkling from waters, from the trees and blossoms, from the clouds and from the eyes. But with the same force with which there is growing in nations the passion for the Earth, there grows the knowledge that without the co-operation of the millions, nobody will taste the fruits of her hidden orchards. The highest joy of the Earth, the intoxication of the victory of a brotherly power, the joy over the joy of brethren, remains unknown and inaccessible. The human body was moulded by the past ”

“ New conquerors, unknown to the masses but advancing in all parts of the world, came among nations, invisible and omnipresent. Their ships meet in all harbors and on all seas; like over the maps of battlefields their countenance bends over continents amidst the oceans. They estimate future harvest under the burning suns of all zones; they know the wealth of all coal-strata, iron-mountains, gold-bearing waers, deposits of copper and tin; into primeval forests and tropical deserts resounds the cannonade of the continual warfare in which like hunters they encircle their prey. ”

“ Our Bohemian nation demands for herself nothing more but what every cultured and enlightened nation of the world demands and with her blood defends. Our demands are union with our Slovak brothers and independent political, economic and cultural life (confiscated) . What is not deemed a crime, when others do it, shall not be a crime in our case. And if others who are sacrificing their lives and treasures for the freedom of their people get respect and recognition and appreciation, respect is due also to the men of our nation who, sacrificing all, follow after the same high ideal. ”

“ Great January frowned and swung the club over his head. The sky grew dark in a moment, the fire burned low, the snow began to fall as thick as if the feathers had been shaken out of a down quilt, and an icy wind began to blow through the forest. Holena couldn’t see one step in front of her; she lost her way altogether, and several times she fell into snowdrifts. Then her limbs grew weak and began slowly to stiffen. The snow kept on falling and the icy wind blew more icily than ever. Holena began to curse Maruša and the Lord God. ”

“ The masses, for thousands of years the humble bestowers of splendour and of bread, have moved. In the first shudders of horror that comes with every new truth we are beginning to realize that all our sorrows and joys are shared by beings whom we do not see all our life, and that we are being struck by blows without knowing the hand which is dealing them out. The mystery of unity is glowing from the depths of matter; distance ceases to exist; the sorrow through which we realize our omnipresence on the Earth is transformed into a natural force working on the transformation of all life. ”

“ Slovakia is at present a nation without territory. Its limits have not been dfined by the surveyor. But it exists in the hearts and minds of a people who have willed their liberation and have earned it by splendidly demonstrating their capacity for self-government. The indomitable spirit of nationality which the Czechoslovaks in Russia have exhibited is one of the marvels of the war. Fighting for their own future and the future of liberty and democracy in Europe, they have saved Russia from the German oppressor. ”

“ How then shall Germany be weakened so as to be impotent for aggression? Not by garrisoning her cities permanently by foreign soldiers, not by extorting from her a crushing indemnity, but by taking away from her the allies whose resources have enabled her to keep up the fight against the greater part of the world. Do the people in this country realize clearly that the kaiser controls in addition to sixty-eight millions of his own subjects also the subjects of his so-called allies numbering eighty millions? ”

“ Out of this brief statement of the origin and growth of the Hapsburg empire one fact stands out clearly, namely, that this great power, second in area and third in population among the states of Europe, is not the product of the expansion of a single race occupying constantly new lands and assimilating new people. The races that the Hapsburgs gathered under their sway are still in existence, full of energy, conscious of their separate nationality, eager to live their own life, fighting bitterly all attempts to make them over into something else, whether it be into Germans or Magyars. ”

“ Will the United States say at this conference that it cannot help Italy, because that would be making war on Austria? Is it not a fact that if Austria and Germany succeed in defeating Italy so seriously that internal discontent and socialist agitation would compel King Victor Emmanuel to conclude peace, then the burden carried by the United States would become so much heavier? For every Italian soldier put out of action by an Austrian gun America must furnish one of her own sons, if she is to win the war in which she is engaged against Germany. ”

“ We still have hundreds of children dying of hunger; there are hundreds of children dressed in rags, there are entire districts where the children are almost all dead. Did you realize how many sighs each minute are given out in Prague, do you ever see the pitiable smiles of emaciated children, living skeletons? Austria sucked out our blood, you must nurse us back to life. You must have faith and you must get to work. Awaken your fellow-citizens, whether they are of Czechoslovak origin or Anglo-Saxon. Send food, under wear, clothing and shoes for children, new things or second-hand. ”

“ If there is then no hope that this right of self-determination may be had within Austria, there is even less reason to believe that there could be any guarantee of it in the Hungarian half of the empire. To speak of Hungary is to utter an accusation before the whole world. Hungary of today is the last survival of barbaric Asia in Europe. There is not in the world a more violent racial tyranny or more brutal political oppression than in that satrapy of the corrupt high-born Magyar oligarchy. ”

“ The obvious solution is to dissolve Austria-Hungary into its component elements. It cannot be repeated too often that the Dual Monarchy is not a national state, like France or Italy or England or Germany, but a conglomeration of nations and fragments of nations, bound together solely by common subjection to a dynasty. Dismemberment of Austria-Hungary would not be a crime; it would be a logical execution of the principle for which the Allies are fighting—the right of each adult nation, great and small, to self-determination. ”

“ Death had no terrors for them. The Bohemian people fight in this war for the right to dispose of themselves and for the liberty of Slavs. For that ideal we have fought and suffered, and for it we shall go on fighting until the end.”
How proud are the descendants of Bohemia in these United States of the noble courage of their kinsmen in the old country. The same love of liberty that actuated the heroes of the American Revolution is at the bottom of the boldness and the sacrifices of the Czechs. They are the leaders in revolt of the other oppressed Slavs of Austria. ”

“ Only he is guilty of treason who sins against his own nation. But he who goes as his heart and conscience demand, as his nation’s ideals guide him, he is no traitor. And if you call such people traitors, then I, too, am a traitor. For us there is no Austrian fatherland; we know only our Bohemian country, where we were born and where our nation lives. ”

“ The sweet violence of springtides, the touching purity of azures, the secret language of colors, the glory of the waters, mountains, infinities, are constantly at work in our subconsciousness, and nourish in us superhuman longings. The rarest ethereal component, of our every inhalation refreshens the roots of our heart, wearied by the heavy sap of the Earth. Every word which has fallen in to the depths of our soul (and the fall takes years sometimes) inevitably, by a law as old as the beginning of the worlds, is struggling to become flesh. ”

“ There are many who imagine that the process of Americanization, the process of the melting pot as it has been called, consists in discarding and throwing away all the traditions, customs and national traits of character which the immigrant people have brought over with them from all parts of the world, in order to become here something that it not yet defined or crystallized. Every one realizes that the American is not Englishman in spite of the fact that our national and political life is so greatly derived from the English national and political life. ”

“ While the great Slav nation of Russia became utterly disorganized and fell a helpless prey to the German robbers, the Slavs of Bohemia and Slovakia scattered as prisoners of war through millions of square miles of territory managed to come together, secure arms, establish firm discipline, and may yet prove to be the salvation of Russia from German penetration.
Is there anyone today who can doubt the ability of the Czechoslovaks to govern themselves? Can anyone claim that they have not earned the right to complete independence? ”

“ Whatever the Magyars may say, the Czechs will not abandon the Slovaks after their sacrifices. They will demand for them also the right to a national culture. It is true that the Czechs would welcome peace with open arms. But you must not forget that our people did not shed their blood for imperialism or Germanism. When the millions of men return from the front, they shall claim freedom and equal rights for themselves and they will demand that the bloody bath of the present war shall never again occur. ”

“ This is the reason why the Bohemian Social Democracy in our old country took its place bravely, in spite of oppression and grave dangers, by the side of Russia. It was the Bohemian Social Democracy in the first place which organized a revolutionary army from the prisoners of war, the now famous Czechoslovak Army, not only to win the independence for its nation oppressed by Germans and Magyars, calling for an independent Czechoslovak Republic, but also for the defense of the Russian revolution for which it has shed and yet will shed its blood. ”

“ We, the deputies of the Bohemian nation, faithful to these principles of our predecessors, greet with joy the fact that now all the states built on the principles of democracy whether belligerent or neutral, agree with us in looking upon the right of nations to free self-determination as the guarantee of a general and lasting peace. ”

“ A new Europe, a new world, must arise out of the blood-soaked ruins of the old order of things; no emperor shall ever again throw millions of obedient subects at unoffending neighbors to commit murder and destruction; no nation shall in the future set itself up as a lordly race to impose its kultur and its dominion over other nations. Democracy within the state and democracy between states is to be the ruling principle of the new order which will be set up after Germany is defeated. ”

“ He who deserves liberty must fight for it and must be ready to die for it. The Czechoslovaks have proved that they were worthy of liberty by raising armies to fight for it. But how could they fight, since they formed a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, being in the very center of Central Europe, as it were in the very deepest cell of the Pan-German jail? To fight in Bohemia would have meant a useless slaughter. ”

“ The attitude of the American people toward Austria-Hungary was one of good-natured contempt. Contempt, because of the defeats of Austrian armies by both Russia and Serbia, because it was known that German receivership saved the bankrupt empire from complete defeat. But contemptible as Austria proved itself in more ways than one, it is still Germany’s chief support. For it must not be forgotten that the monarchy on the Danube covers an area considerably larger than that of Germany and that it has fifty-two million people as against Germany’s seventy. ”

“ The hearts of all who today all over the Bohemian lands celebrate this memorable day are full of oyful confidence that we shall live long enough to hear in our national theatre the sound of jubilee over our freedom, of the final victory of justice and right and free determination of all nations. ”

“ Each step of their way and their dreamings is myteriously followed by slaves on both hemispheres. Even creative spirits, inventors, conquerors of the elements, artists, are hired to work in their fields. Him who has conquered the Earth even the Sun seems to serve, like a jealous overseer of the work of the clouds and the winds.
But every force like a cry striking into the very depths of life is waking thousands of dormant forces. ”

“ An army is today the main attribute of sovereignty. We can imagine a state deprived by the enemy of all its territory; Belgium and Serbia control only a tiny strip of land, but they are still real states, because they have armies.
Once an army comes into being and becomes subject to central political control, a new government has come into existence. It follows that the new Czechoslovak state already exists, and that the Czechoslovaks are not merely revolutionists, but that they are waging war against Austria-Hungary under their own standards and as the allies of America and the Entente. ”

“ When the Czech deputies of our then recently revived nation during the Franco-German war made a declaration with reference to the European international questions, they used in their resolutions of Dec. 8, 1870, the following solemn words:
“All nations, the small as well as the great, have an equal right to self-determination, and their equality in this regard should be respected. Only by recognizing this equality and respecting the right of every nation to shape its own destiny can mankind establish true equality and brotherhood, General Peace and Genuine Humanity.” ”

“ Man trembles before the horizons that open before him at every step of his hallucination; he is frightened by the majestic silence in which the cry of his astonishment is lost without answer; he trembles, unwonted, before the gales that bring to him the song of all seas, suddenly opened, the voice of all metropoles, harbors and workshops, as well as the scents that rise from the primeval forests and are drifting over the equatorial lakes. Like at a sudden ascent, his breath is stopped in the sweet wafting of ether that strikes his countenance from the motion of the earth. ”