Italy, France, and Great Britain formally recognized the Polish national army as independent and Allied, and on November 4, 1918, Secretary Lansing, in a letter, to a representative of the Polish National Committee, stated that the United States Government also wished to recognize officially the independence of the Polish army as a part of the Allied forces.
The people of the United States with those of other countries are hoping that Paderewski's great national family shall become united in one free and independent state. They now applaud this master of music as the first leader of free Poland. He will help destroy Bolshevism with its cry, "Death to the educated," which has resulted already in the death of hundreds of doctors, professors, engineers, and in one case, the extermination of all the pupils in a single high school. He will join the other great leaders in their belief that "Economic development, patriotism, and the ennobling of all human souls alone can lead to freedom."
To the south of Poland in the very heart of Europe is another new country, which already has set up a democratic government and elected as its president,—Thomas G. Masaryk, a former professor in the University of Prague, now the capital of Czecho-Slovakia.
Professor Masaryk spent some time in the United States conferring with officials at Washington. He was here when he received word that he had been elected first president of his newly formed country by a convention held in Geneva, Switzerland.
Great preparations for his return were made by the people. When at one o'clock on December 22, the booming of cannon told that the president's train was drawing in at the station, the hundred thousand people who had poured into the city of Prague were massed on every side to welcome him and sang, as only the Slavs can sing, their national song.
Soon President Masaryk's train, with its engine elaborately decorated, steamed in through the silent crowd. In complete silence, Masaryk, gray-haired and distinguished appearing, left the train and entered the station. There he saw groups of Czecho-Slovaks in French uniforms, some wearing the war cross, and groups who had been fighting in the Italian Alps. He saw also a group of university professors who had come to honor him.
In the tense silence, one of the leaders of the new republic came forward. He had for years conspired and worked with Masaryk for the freedom of their country, and now he greeted him by throwing his arms about him. After a further greeting from the government officials, and from the nation's aged and honored poet, Masaryk gave a brief speech telling of his hopes for the republic. He then passed out to the crowd who hailed him in a tumult of joy. One who witnessed Masaryk's return pictures the scenes on the way to the government buildings.
"There began a triumphal procession which took two hours to arrive at the Parliament house. Every window, every balcony and every roof was filled to overflowing, and every street lined on either side, twenty deep. All this multitude, most of whom had been standing for hours, had such joy written on their faces as has never before been seen and cannot possibly be described. Elders were holding children on their shoulders, all eyes were full of tears, all eyes smiling. The people kissed the flags of the Allies as they would kiss their babies.
"Since the proclamation, all the young ladies of Prague have taken to the fashion of peasant costumes, and several members of Parliament wore the old national dress. Searchlights playing on the spires and steeples of this most beautiful Slav city now again touch the great castle, henceforth the seat of government, where hundreds of windows are ablaze with lights, the first rejoicing it has known for three hundred years."
For three hundred years the peasants of Bohemia together with Slovakia which, with some smaller provinces, is now called Czecho-Slovakia, had tried every means to free themselves from Austria. On the north and west were the Germans and on the south the Austrians, both enemies, seeking only to get what they could for themselves out of the little country.