limitations.... Democratic Europe, the Europe of free and independent
nations, is the Europe of the future. The nation asks you to be equal
to this historic occasion, to devote to it all your abilities and to
sacrifice to it all other considerations...."

And to this appeal of their nation the Czech, deputies did not turn a deaf
ear.

On entering the Reichsrat on May 30, 1917, Mr. Stanek, president of the
Union of Czech Deputies, made the following memorable declaration in the
name of all the Czech deputies:

"While taking our stand at this historic moment on the natural right of
peoples to self-determination and free development--a right which in
our case is further strengthened by inalienable historic rights fully
recognised by this state--we shall, at the head of our people, work for
_the union of all branches of the Czecho-Slovak nation in a single
democratic Bohemian State_, comprising also the Slovak branch of our
nation which lives in the lands adjoining our Bohemian Fatherland."

Both the Yugoslav and the Polish press greeted this declaration with
undisguised joy and sympathy.

The _Glos Naroda_ welcomed the Czech declaration, and added: "Those who
to-day are asking for an independent national existence do not claim
anything but the minimum of their rights. Nothing less could satisfy them
(_i.e._ the Czechs and Yugo-slavs), seeing that even smaller and less
historic nations claim the same." The _Nowa Reforma_ also said that the
Czechs were quite right to ask for full independence. "They are entitled to
it by their position in which they can lose nothing more than they have