English Translation

41a - 32 - all hopes came to an end. In Slovakia, dejection and distrust arose. In September 19l5 the "Slovak Tagblatt" was discontinued in Budapest and thus Slovakia lost the only national daily newspaper. This was due to the rushed, angry denunciation of a leading Slovak writer who was annoyed by a series of articles on the Czecho-Slovak question. I had written these articles for the purpose of not forgetting the only true political-national point of view. Since my youth, I have always dealt with this question and during my writing work in Skalitz and Budapest, I always urge the Slovaks and the Czechs that only the wise and reasonable cleansing of the Czech and Slovaks is the salvation of both. In this respect, I had become equally a specialist, and during the wartime, I personally wrote nothing else in the direction of the "Národní Listy". One also had to react to certain voices in the "National Newspaper" where Matúš Dula comforted the people with quotations from magyar scientific magazines, which now wrote more cheaply about Slovaks than before. Dr. Ján Mudroň and Martin Pazúrik wrote in worrying tone. The articles showed that it would be good for the Slovaks to enter into relations or negotiations with the Magyars. Therefore, I began to write more detailed on the Czecho-Slovak question and warned the Slovak public and the "national newspaper" not to rely on good services. "We Slovaks need a national concentration, but in the Czecho-Slovak sense." (Slovac Dayblatt, September lgi5). In the meantime it became clear that only in the Czechoslovakian connection a healthy political core was contained. For us the world war could not have any other meaning. The editors of the Nationalization and the patriots of St. Martin, never understood those who maintained the Czecho-Slovak unity. Although all knew the anti-Czech attitude of many ultra-Slavaks, they did not want to acknowledge that the solution to this national question depended on a certain inclination towards the Czechs. In order to educate them, I always tried objectively and unbiasedly, also our weaknesses and the schwa- - 33 -