The New York Times/1918/11/11/Asks Letts to Organize
ASKS LETTS TO ORGANIZE.
C. A. Carol Calls on Them to Work for Free Government.
Declaring that only a few Letts favored Bolshevism, and that the Lettish nation has been misrepresented by German propaganda, Charles A. Carol, Secretary of the New York Lettish Society, yesterday asked all Letts to organize and work for the establishment of a free Lettish Government. The call to unite followed a meeting which, held by the Foreign Language Division of the Fourth Liberty Loan Committee for the purpose of thanking the Letts for supporting the loan, developed into a "freedom for Letts" movement.
"The Letts," said Mr. Carol, "are very much misunderstood in their national, political, and economic life. For centuries they ahve inhabited the provinces of Courland and Livland on the Baltic, with a growing population of more than 2,000,000, and they are almost without exception pure Letts, descendants of the Asiatics who brought the Sanskrit tongue with them from the Oriental continent. They have mixed very little with their neighbors, the Esthonians and the Lithuanians. For years the Letts have been the victims of the Hun oppressors."