English Translation

S4a :- 12 - Yes, until the war there was no more important band at all between the Slovaks and Czechs ! Although some good attempts were made to concentrate such a thing. Guided by Banki:r Štěpina, the Chicagers tried on the one hand the "American Press Office", . On the other hand, the "National Council" with the world traveller Vráz at the head, to found and consolidate, but these efforts had little success. There was nothing to live concentratedly for, one generally felt no such need. Between the Slovaks, however, there was such a concentration of political character. This happened under the influence of a journey of the well-known oppressor Count Apponyi and as a result of the blood shed in Černova, that the Slovaks organized themselves more firmly in the "Slo-Wakischen Liga" (founded in the year l9o7), which endeavoured among other things also to the thought of the federalist Hungary. (At that time, Čapek's book "The Slovaks of Hungary" was also written, which in the course of the war proved to be an excellent propaganda aid to the Slovak movement.) But out of sympathy, all this caused no other reverberation among the Czechs and the two national branches continued to live their own lives without seeking a closer connection. The reasons for a closer life of grace in national concentration had no life-giving forces and attraction in the eyes of emigration and so the world war found the Czechoslovak emigrants: factually unprepared, politically and socially unorganized, without a strong awareness of the national commonality. And precisely such consciousness is the indispensable condition of the great movements and actions. 13