Americans has come forward to defend their country in time of war with better spirit than Americans of Bohemian birth and descent."
This is not saying that with a different policy better results could not be obtained. Men who have been fighting for more than three centuries for the ideals which, at least in a world sense, we have only so recently espoused are entitled to fight under the colors their fathers have placed so high. If such a generous and elastic policy could be adopted, a great many men would be reached who are not being reached now. Among the many fractions of the six hundred thousand Bohemians in this country, who will not be affected by the selective draft, there are thousands of trained soldiers who have served three years in the Bohemian infantry, which are the smartest regiments of this arm in the Austrian army. Many of them came out of the service as "non coms" and not a few as reserve officers. With a little limbering and brushing up this class of men could furnish several thousand excellent drill sergeants, and this, I take it, is the greatest need of our army at this moment.
I have the utmost confidence that this question of the Bohemian volunteers will be solved in the way that will prove the best for all concerned. If I should make a plea for exceptional treatment and special units for the Bohemians, it would be on the ground that among large classes of our people there is greatly lacking an appreciation of the spiritual kinship that has existed between our races since the days of Wycliffe and Huss. To men of their past and of their aspirations, it is very annoying to be regarded by some as non-conforming Germans and by others as a race of sedentary Gypsies.
The formal demands of the Czechs and the Slovaks are contained in the authoritative statement which was issued in Paris in September, 1915, by their joint national council. They demanded an independent Czecho-Slovak state, and an explicit approval and sanction of this demand was incorporated in the reply of the Entente Allies to the German request for possible peace terms which were secured through President Wilson's greatly misunderstood good offices. In a word, then, every member of the Entente Alliance at that time joined in a formal demand for the liberation of Czecho-Slovaks from foreign domination. Since our entrance into the war there has been no public expression of opinion, much
