Selected Papers from the 2003 SVU North American Conference, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 26-28 June 2003

Historic Markers Honor Thomas Garrigue Masaryk Carol Hochman, University of , Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania’s historic marker program, established in 1946, highlights people, places, and events significant in state and national history. Currently there are nearly 1,800 of these blue and gold markers located throughout the state. During the past two years, two markers were dedicated to the efforts of Thomas Garrigue Masaryk during his visit to Pennsylvania in 1918. Most recently, on July 23, 2002, a historic marker commemorating Masaryk’s visit to Independence Hall in Philadelphia was officially unveiled thanks to the efforts of Pennsylvania’s Honorary Consul General of the Czech Republic, Peter Rafaeli.

A year earlier, on May 31, 2001, a ceremony was held in Pittsburgh to honor Masaryk’s efforts in organizing and in the signing of The Pittsburgh Agreement, an event which helped to establish an independent Czechoslovak state after the First World War. Attending the ceremony to unveil this historic marker were descendants of two men who helped organize and also signed this agreement. Thomas Kotik, the great-grandson of Thomas Garrigue Masaryk joined us that day. He spoke about “The Pittsburgh Agreement as an important symbol of how different nationalities can come together peacefully to create a free and open society;” a relevant point in today’s world of protests and strife. Also in attendance that day were the granddaughter and grandson of the second man important to the signing of this agreement, Milan Getting. The high regard that Milan Getting had for President Masaryk is reflected in the fact that his grandson is named Thomas Masaryk Getting.

The Pittsburgh historic marker is actually the second plaque dedicated to the efforts of President Masaryk in this city. A bronze plaque was dedicated to Masaryk and President Woodrow Wilson on October 28, 1989 and is located in the lobby of the high rise office building which had been constructed on the site where the agreement was signed: the Loyal Order of the Moose Lodge. Much to the regret of many in Pittsburgh, the lodge was torn down in the 1980s to make way for this corporate office building. However, thanks to the efforts of the Czech and Slovak population in the Pittsburgh area, an agreement was reached to install a bronze plaque in the lobby near the site where Czech and Slovak immigrants met in 1918 to sign the agreement.

The story of The Pittsburgh Agreement is, in part, the story of the efforts of Thomas Garrigue Masaryk and Milan Alexander Getting to create an independent Czech and Slovak state. During the years 1914-1918, they conducted a very successful public relations campaign in the United States and Europe to promote the idea of Czech and Slovak unity. From 1924 - 1932, Milan Getting served as the Czechoslovak Consul for the Western Pennsylvania area and also served as the Press Bureau Chief at the Czechoslovak Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Milan Getting emigrated from to Pittsburgh in 1902. He immediately became involved in lodge activities and, in an attempt to keep around the country in touch with each other, by 1905 was single-handedly publishing the Slovensky Sokol , a weekly newspaper. He remained its editor until 1919. As an editor and journalist with national coverage of Slovak communities, Getting wrote and published many articles supporting his lifelong dream of establishing an independent Slovakia. He recorded the details of his efforts to do so in a book

- 1 - Selected Papers from the 2003 SVU North American Conference, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 26-28 June 2003 which he authored and titled: American Slovaks and the Evolution of the Czechoslovak Concept During the Years 1914 - 1918. I will share some of Mr. Getting’s eyewitness accounts of Professor Masaryk’s visit to the United States in 1918 as he recorded them in this book, which was translated into English by his son, Milan Peter Getting.

By 1914, Milan Getting, at the age of 36, was well into writing about and debating what he termed the “Czechoslovak concept” -- a federation of nations and, within the federation, the joining of Slovakia with , , and Silesia. Unfortunately, his efforts were not always supported by the powerful Slovak League, which was organized in Pittsburgh in 1906. Because the homeland Czechs would be in the majority, because of their greater population, many Slovaks preferred to negotiate with Hungary and opposed the proposed Czech/Slovak union. Getting felt an alliance between Czechs and Slovaks was a natural pairing that he favored over an independent Slovak state within the Hungarian Empire. Eventually, Slovak communities in the United came to support the Czech/Slovak alliance, but the Pittsburgh Slovaks were particularly resistant to this idea and stated as much in an official Memorandum. In this atmosphere, Getting worked tirelessly publishing articles promoting Czech and Slovak unity. He organized numerous fund-raising campaigns to gather money and encourage men to enlist as Czechoslovaks in support of the war against the Austro-Hungarian Empire. From 1914 - 1918, Mr. Getting conducted a public relations campaign within the Slovak communities of the United States that set the stage perfectly for the visit of Thomas Garrigue Masaryk.

Professor Masaryk had left Prague in December of 1914, not knowing that with the start of , he would not return until four years later -- almost to the day. Masaryk’s efforts as an exile during these years were also devoted to the “Czechoslovak concept” and the idea of totally independent nation states. During the years of 1916-1918, he was the Chairman of the Czechoslovak National Council in Exile. One of his goals, as he traveled throughout Europe and eventually to the United States, was to establish the name Czecho-Slovak in the media reports about the war. One of Masaryk’s early successes was the organization of the Czecho-Slovak Legion. The story of the Legion’s journey across Siberia in the midst of the Russian Civil War was covered in detail by the American press. Masaryk was also successful in gaining President Woodrow Wilson’s attention for the cause of the oppressed people of Central Europe and, in a statement of Allied war aims written in 1917, the “Czecho-Slovaks” were named as one of the groups to be liberated. Efforts to create an image of Czecho-Slovaks united as a country were beginning to catch on.

Professor Masaryk had several reasons for coming to America in 1918. One had to do with making plans for transporting the Czecho-Slovak Legion from Russia to the Western European front in France. This plan involved using the railroad to cross Russia and Siberia, Red Cross ships to transport the army across the Pacific, and then moving the troops across the United States and the Atlantic Ocean to join the war effort in France. But Masaryk’s primary goal was to make Americans aware of Slovak and Czech aspirations for freedom. Thus, he began his journey to the United States in the manner of the Commander-in-Chief of his army who wanted to inspire his soldiers to get ready to make the same journey. Early in 1918, Masaryk traveled from London to Moscow where civil unrest was already beginning. His goal was to board a Red Cross train that would be crossing Siberia headed for Vladivostok on the Pacific coast. As fate

- 2 - Selected Papers from the 2003 SVU North American Conference, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 26-28 June 2003 would have it, Masaryk boarded that train on March 7, which was his birthday. He was 68 years old as he started this journey across Siberia, traveling in a hard wooden seat in the style of trains of that period. He was said to be most grateful when a Red Cross worker supplied him with a soft cushion for this seat. During the trip, the train sometimes stopped because of the fighting that was going on between warring factions in the Russian Civil War, and sometimes stops were made to cut wood to power the locomotive. The trip took about a month. After leaving Vladivostok, Masaryk stopped in Japan to meet with officials there regarding the plans being made for the transport of the Legion across the Pacific Ocean, and then he sailed from Japan aboard the Empress of Asia for Vancouver, Canada.

On May 2, 1918, the New Yorksky Dennik newspaper reported that Professor Masaryk had arrived in Vancouver.

On the 6th of May, Masaryk passed through Chicago where it was reported that over 200,000 people gathered to greet him.

On May 10th, Masaryk arrived in Washington, D.C. where members of the Congress and Senate greeted him.

On May 25th, the Czechs and Slovaks of New York City greeted Masaryk during an exciting time in the war. Russia was falling and the United States was mobilizing to join the Western front. Austria-Hungary was proposing all kinds of peace moves, and the Germans were massing to break the resistance of the Allies before American troops could arrive in full force at the Western Front. The Czecho-Slovak Legion was also involved in the battle as they made their way by train across Russia and Siberia just as Masaryk had done. In New York, Masaryk discovered a giant map that had been placed in front of the New York City Public Library so that people could watch the progress of the Czecho-Slovak Legion. At this same time, plans were being made in New York, Pittsburgh, and to greet the man who was already being acclaimed as the First President of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. According to Milan Getting, the celebrations and marches along city streets were really demonstrations of support for Czechoslovak unity. What came to Getting’s mind were the words of a Slovak academic, Jan Kollar, who wrote, “What took centuries aborning, a moment uproots.” It was the perfect time for Masaryk’s visit to the United States!

On May 29th, as reported in the New Yorksky Dennik, the government of the United States declared publicly that it “recognized the demands of the Czechoslovaks and Jugoslavs and all other nations which have been subjugated into slavery by Austria-Hungary and it completely agreed with their efforts.” The newspaper also announced that this proclamation had been cabled all over the world. So now the United States was officially supporting the “Czechoslovak concept.” The next day, May 30th, Masaryk arrived in Pittsburgh.

May 30th was also a holiday, “Decoration Day.” It was the perfect day for a parade and nearly 20,000 Slovaks, Czechs, and Subcarpathian Russians (Rusyns) gathered in downtown Pittsburgh to greet Masaryk. Immigrant families participated in the parade and Masaryk, in a horse drawn carriage, traveled through some of the immigrant neighborhoods of what was called

- 3 - Selected Papers from the 2003 SVU North American Conference, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 26-28 June 2003

Allegheny City and, in particular, the Bohemian Hill section of the city. Here he is said to have stopped at the National Bohemian Hall to give a speech about independence and freedom, probably to an audience of Czech freethinkers. However, his real destination that day was the Exposition Hall, a huge glass-covered building that was located at what is today known as Point Park - the place in downtown Pittsburgh where the Ohio, Monongahela and Allegheny rivers meet. Thousands of people gathered outside the hall, while inside Masaryk received official greetings from city officials and a telegram from the U.S. government was read expressing “the greatest sympathy towards the national aspirations of the Czechoslovaks and the Jugoslavs yearning for liberty.” This was followed by a tremendous burst of enthusiasm from the audience and a heartfelt and emotional moment of immigrant voices singing “The Star Spangled Banner.” The words of introduction for Professor Masaryk were drowned out by the ovation he received from the audience.

Milan Getting wrote the following:

“It was obvious that the 68-year-old gentleman was struggling to control his emotions, of a kind that can only flow in a Slovak heart. He also had to combat physical exhaustion because he had no opportunity to rest. His Pittsburgh speeches were not prepared in advance; he spoke directly from the heart. In the English portion, Masaryk spoke of our cause. In the Czech spoken portion, he addressed himself to the Slovaks present. From this portion, he expressed cheerful relief that he could address such a large meeting of people composed mostly of Slovaks. He shared the following thoughts:

“On the other side of the ocean, Czechs and Slovaks have been torn asunder by force; here, they have created a unity which can no longer be torn apart. The unifying of Czechs and Slovaks is just the beginning of the unifying of all of humanity.”

He spoke with pride of his Slovak heritage and the fact that Slovak was spoken in his home when he was growing up. He explained the union between Czechs and Slovaks, by saying, “There will be a free Bohemia and a free Slovakia. In Slovakia, all political affairs, schools, the courts and everything will be conducted in Slovak; in Bohemia it will be in Czech. We would be crazy if we thought otherwise, or if we didn’t wish the best for each other. The question of language among us does not exist and must never exist; after all, one understands the other, and more than this is not wanted. We should not be afraid of a Czech majority. That will exist in Bohemia; just as in Slovakia, the majority will be Slovak. Each branch will be lord in its own home.”

It was in this atmosphere that the next day, May 31st, members of the American branch of the National Council met in Pittsburgh with members of the Slovak League, the Czech National Federation and the Czech Catholic Alliance. Masaryk joined the meeting as well. They met in the Loyal Order of the Moose Lodge, a building a local historian has called the “Czechoslovak Independence Hall.” During the meeting, in response to the question of how Czech and Slovak unity would be established, Professor Masaryk was said to have written with a lead pencil a few

- 4 - Selected Papers from the 2003 SVU North American Conference, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 26-28 June 2003 phrases upon an ordinary scrap of paper which were later included in The Pittsburgh Agreement. Mr. Getting reports that no discussion of what Masaryk wrote was held, but instead the idea of a Slovak Parliament was discussed.

The document that was signed that day reads in part:

“We approve a political program aiming to unite the Czechs and Slovaks into an independent State comprising Czech lands and Slovakia.

“Slovakia shall have its own administration, its own parliament and its own courts.

“The Slovak language shall be the official language in schools, in government offices and in public life generally.

“The Czecho-Slovak State shall be a republic; its Constitution shall be democratic.”

It was Milan Getting who made a motion proposing the bottom-line statement to the Agreement which reads:

“Detailed regulations concerning the establishment of the Czecho-Slovak State are left to the liberated Czechs and Slovaks and their legal representatives.”

Thus, in the final analysis, this last portion of the agreement states that the people of the Czecho-Slovak Republic would define the laws that govern them and not the American Czech and Slovak immigrants who composed and signed The Pittsburgh Agreement.

Masaryk’s travels continued. On the 15th of June he spoke in Cleveland where crowds of Czechs and Slovaks continued to gather. That evening, at the Armory Hall, the Romanian leader, Basil Styca, spoke and addressed Masaryk in the following manner:

“My Dear Professor, the oppressed Rumanian people in Hungary consider you to be their own leader. Lead, and we shall follow you. We and all of the oppressed people of Austria-Hungary are with you body and soul.”

In keeping with this spirit, on September 21st, Masaryk led a delegation of representatives of the Oppressed Nations of Austria-Hungary to visit President Wilson. Masaryk was the speaker for the delegation but was also described as the “reluctant” Chair of this Mid-European Union. He placed before Wilson resolutions containing documented evidence that a minority of Germans and had illegally ruled the vast majority of inhabitants of Austria-Hungary. He demanded the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy and the creation of an organization of Free Nations. He then introduced the delegates individually, who represented more than 30,000,000 inhabitants of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Six days later President Wilson announced his

- 5 - Selected Papers from the 2003 SVU North American Conference, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 26-28 June 2003 program for the League of Nations and claimed “the interests of the smallest nation are as sacrosanct as the interests of the largest.”

All this led to the mass meeting of the Oppressed Nations at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on the 26th of October. The second historic marker commemorating Masaryk’s efforts for establishing independent nation-states stands near this shrine to American freedom and democracy. At this gathering, the Mid-European Union proclaimed, under Masaryk’s leadership, the Declaration of Common Aims, a declaration of independence for these nations.

The representatives of the following signed the Declaration of Common Aims:

1. Czecho-Slovaks 2. Poles 3. Yugoslavs 4. Ukrainians 5. Uhro-Rusyns 6. Lithuanians 7. Romanians 8. Italian-Irredentists 9. Unredeemed Greeks 10. Albanians 11. Zionists 12. Armenians

Thus, Masaryk’s efforts for independence and freedom now extended beyond the borders of the Czech Lands and Slovakia. Two days later, on October 28, 1918, the Czech National Council in Prague officially proclaimed national independence. Masaryk’s efforts for an independent Czechoslovak state had succeeded.

Milan Getting writes the following about Masaryk’s final days in the United States:

“On the 18th of November, in President Masaryk’s chamber in the Vanderbilt Hotel in New York, a little meeting took place. About 32 of us Czechs and Slovaks gathered to grasp his hand in parting; for on the morrow, the 19th of November he was leaving us not as an escapee without a nation, but as the head of the Czechoslovak State. The people of New York gathered in front of the hotel, to bid him goodbye on his journey to the freed homeland. It was a march celebrating the victory of the “Czechoslovak concept.” Arranged in front of the hotel was a company from the American Army and another from the American Navy. The moment that Masaryk appeared upon the steps of the hotel, the American Army “Presented Arms” in honor of President Masaryk. Masaryk was deeply touched by this attention from the Armed Forces.”

Getting goes on to write down his own thoughts at that time:

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“We had come to America, forsaken by God, emigrants abandoned by the entire world with no prospects for the future. When someone inquired, where do you come from, our faces flushed with shame, when we unwillingly had to point to Hungary. Suddenly, as if someone had awakened us from a dream, we met with the map of everywhere; in the American Press, in the windows of stores, everywhere, everywhere. The name of “Czechoslovakia” blossomed; oh, it blossomed into such meaningfulness that everyone without any reservation claimed to be one of us. And we were all proud to be Czechoslovaks.

Slovaks had in four years overcome that which in peace-time would have taken at least fifty years.”

In the words of Jan Kollar, “What took centuries aborning, a moment uproots.”

Today two Pennsylvania historic markers stand in place to help future generations discover this story of Czechoslovak Independence and those who made it possible.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

American Slovaks and the Evolution of the Czechoslovak Concept by Milan A. Getting, Translated by Milan P. Getting, Published by the Slovak Gymnastic Union Sokol in America, 1933.

Talks with T.G. Masaryk by Karel Capek, Translated by Michael Henry Heim, Catbird Press, CT, 1995.

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Copies of American Slovaks and the Evolution of the Czechoslovak Concept by Milan Getting are available for purchase. Please get in touch with the author for information.

Carol Hochman 1541 Pinehurst Drive Pittsburgh, PA 15241 Email: [email protected]

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