The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 2/President Masaryk started for Bohemia

PRESIDENT MASARYK STARTED FOR BOHEMIA.

 

After an absence of four years Thomas G. Masaryk left New York on November 20th to return to Prague as the first president of the Czechoslovak republic. His last days in this country were extremely busy; diplomatic and business matters, press representatives, his own countrymen and correspondence amounting to more than a hundred letters a day, claimed every minute of his waking time. He left Washington late on November 16th; at the station Czechoslovak officers and workers in Washington took leave of him. He presented each of them with an autographed picture. In New York he had to attend a number of dinners and functions arranged in his honor ad gave numberless interviews. He also received a delegation of the Czech and Slovak organizations in this country; they came to New York to present to him a sub stantial sum for his own expenses and the expenses of the Governmental offices in Paris, since no money could have been transmitted to him as yet from Bohemia. At his departure from the Vanderbilt Hotel to the “Carmania” the United States Government provided a guard of honor consisting of a company of infantry and a detachment of sailors. With him went his daughter, Miss Olga Masaryk, his secretary Mr. Jaroslav Císař and Major Jaromír Špaček, an officer of the Czechoslovak Army. Masaryk intends to stop in London and Paris, before proceeding to Prague. At the time he left he did not know by what road he would get to Bohemia. There are many important matters waiting for him at Prague and the whole country is anxious that he should be at the helm, but it is to be hoped that President Masaryk will be able to leave Prague after a few weeks and represent his country at the peace conference.

 

Before he left Masaryk closed negotiations for a loan from the American Government to the Czechoslovak Government. The amount is $7,000,000, and all of this sum will be used to pay for guns and ammunition sent from America to the Czechoslovak Army in Russia.

 

The interests of the Czechoslovak Government in Washington will be in charge of Charles Pergler, who has been accredited to the State Department as commissioner of the Czechoslovak National Council, with full powers to act on behalf of his Government. As a matter of fact since September, when recognition was extended by America to the Czechoslovaks, the Czechoslovak National Council has become merged in the government of the Czechoslovak republic, so that to-day the existing Czechoslovak government recognized by the Allies is a government not merely de facto, but also de jure. It controls most of the territory over which it claims sovereignty and its authority is willingly ac cepted by the entire people.