The Southern Slav's Appeal (The Southern Slavs~Serhs, Croats, Slovenes) PUBLISHED ON BEHALF OP THE ' JUGC SLAV COMMITTEE' BY MILAN M ARJANOVIÔ. CLEVELAND, O., NOVE MBER, 1916. OFFICES :1 402 E . 40th ST., CLEVELAND, O. NUMBER 1. THE SOUTHERN SLAVS , OR JUGO SLAVS, AIMS FOR LIBERTY AND UNITY. THE SOUTHERN SLAVS TERRITORY IN S. W. EUROPE. THERE WERE MORE THEN 13,000,000 JUGOSLAVS BEFORE THE WAR. THERE WERE 5,000,000 JUGOSLAVS LIVING IN SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO, MORE THEN 7,000,000 IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY (IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA, CROATIA-SLAVONIA, SOUTHERN HUNGARY, DALMATIA, ISTRIA, TRIEST, GORIZIA-GRADISCA, CARNIOLA, SOUTHERN CORINTHIA AND SOUTHERN STYRIA), MORE THEN 200,000 IN ITALY (UDINE) AND GREECE (VODENA, SALENIK) AND ' 0,000 IN BOTH AMERICAS (700,000 IN THE UNITED STATES).—THE NATIONAL TERRITORY OF THE JUGOSLAVS IN EUROPE COVERS THE AREA OF MORE THEN 96,000 SQUARE MILES. SERBO-CROAT. ORTHOGRAPHY. s —sh in "ship." c = ts in "cats." c = ch in "church." z = j in French "jour." c== ditto (softer). j=y in "your." Printed by "HLAS", CLEVELAND, OHIO AMERICAN DECLARATION OF INDENPENDENCE. "When in the course of human events, it of these ends, it is the right of the people to becomes necessary for one people to dissolve alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new the political bands which have connected them government, laying its foundation on such prin­ with another, and to assume, among the ciples, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect powers of the earth, the separate and equal their safety and happiness. Prudence indeed, station to which the Laws of Nature and of will dictate that governments long establish­ Nature's God entitles them, a decent respect ed should not be changed for light and trans­ the opinions of mankind requires that they ient causes ; and, according, all experience hath should declare the causes which impel them to shown, that a mankind are more disposed to the separation. suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to We hold these truths to be self-evident, right themselves by abolishing the forms to that all men are created equal ; that they are which they are accustomed. But, when long endowed by their Creator with certain un­ train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing in­ alienable rights; that among these are life, variably the same object, evinces a design to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is secure these rights, governments are instituted their right, it is their duty, to throw off such among men, deriving their just powers from government, and to provide new guards for the consent of the governed; that, whenever their future security." any form of government becomes destructive Declaration of Indépendance 1776. AMERICA'S PART IN FUTURE PEACE. " We are participants, whether we have been honorable enough to admit; but it would or not, in the life of the world. The has become more and more our rule of life interests of all nations are our own also. We and action. are partners with the rest. What affects man­ Second, that the small States of the world kind is inevitably our affair as well as the have a right to enjoy the same respect for affair of the nations of Europe and of Asia. .. their sovereignity and for their territorial in­ .... The nations of the world have become tegrity that great and powerful nations expect each other's neighbors. It is to their interest and insist upon. that they should understand each other. In And, third, that the world has a right to order that they may understand each other it be free from every disturbance of its peace is imperative that they should agree o cooper­ that has its origin in aggression and disregard ate in a common cause and that they should so of the rights of peoples and nations. act that the guiding principles of that common So sincerely do we believe in these thinjrs cause shall be even-handed and impartial that I am sure that I speak the mind and wish justice. This is undoubtedly the thought of of the people of America when I say that the America. This is what we, ourselves, will say United States is willing to become a partner- when there comes proper occasion to say it.... in any feasible association of nations formed We believe these fundamental things: in order to realize these objects and make First, that every people has a right to them secure against violation " choose the sovereignity under which they shall From the Speech of the Presi­ live. Like other nations, we have, ourselves, dent of IL S. A. W. Wilson, no doubt once and again offended against discussing Peace and America's that principle when for a little while controll­ part in a future league to pre­ ed by selfish passion, as our franker historians vent war. May 26th 1916. KING PETER I. TO THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA. "I have long wanted very much to speak worthy intrigues, like those of the smaller from the bottom of my heart to the great heart Italian States in the Middle Ages, from the of America, which is so deeply moved over the most stubborn ideal of liberty, implanted in fate of Serbia and has done so much for our those ready to fight to the last man to realize unhappy people. It seems to me that somehow that idea. your compatriots have been able to divine in "Yet we have always wanted to live at the struggles of a people, simple and rugged, peace with the Austrians. but stubbornly individualistic, the same sacred "But it is of the very nature of a feudal fire which inspired the first Americans 300 state that liberty cannot and must not flourish years ago to leave Europe to erect in the wild­ in the same vicinity, and Austria arranged erness of America a home for freedom. They all that in the time of the Obrenovitches. 'Ser­ understand us. We speak the same language bia was made merely a tributary to Austria. of liberty. She was no longer free at all. By the treaty "And those of your compatriots who have of 1881 she renounced all her rights. Today, come to us as doctors, nurses—the American again Austria still seeks to follow toward Ser­ Red Cross, the Serbian Relief and Sanitary bia crushed the same policy as before—to Commissions—all these brave young people, create of Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, and who have so gladly given their young lives Herzegovina an empire of vassal States for to fight typhus and the sickening effects of the benefit of a mediaeval feudal nobility. But shells and epidemics, of whom not a few rest we cannot stand that. "We are peasants, but forever in Serbian soil—was it not they who free peasants. brought to us the soul of a kindred people "I am King. I eome from the people, but from America?" a heroic people who preferred bitter death to "I do not know if it is quite understood comfortable, shameful slavery. My grand­ in America what it is all about that almost father was a peasant, and I am prouder of entire Europe is at war. But I will tell you in that than of my throne. Crowns are lost, brJ a word; it is the supreme, the last effort of the pure, clean blood of those who have lived feudalism, a fight to a finish between the of the earth does not die out." feudalism of yesterday and the freedom of to­ morrow. So that is why war had to break out (King Peter I. of Serbia, to on the banks of the Danube, and not elsewhere, the representatives of the for the Danube separates by so little the most American Press. February intransigent feudalism, maintained by un­ 1916.) ïNTkÔDUCTÔÎlV NOTÉ. The Jugoslavs are: the Serbians, the the parts of Jugoslav lands, is such as not to Croatians, the Slovenians and the Bulgarians. allow of any tearing or exclusion, and any But the Bulgarians, pursuing as they are a separation of however small a part would separatistic and imperialistic State policy, do greatly hinder the developement of the en­ not, at the present time, belong to this move­ tirety. ment, nor do they in the contemporary policy After the infamous ultimatum of Austria, of the Jugoslav Unification; consequently, it and for the idea of Jugoslav liberation and is only the Serbians, the Croatians and the unification, the free and independent King­ Slovenians who are the bearers of that idea, dom of Serbia has accepted the war. This is though the central group is formed by the in conformity with the National Programme Serbians and the Croatians alone. of Serbia's State Policy, and was proclaimed The Serbo-Croatians are absolutely one in the exposé of the Serbian Goverment (Nov. and the same people by their blood relations, 1914) and the Serbian National Skupstina made by the identity of their spoken and literary in Aug. 1915 and Sept. 1916 as well as the sol­ language and their aspirations — irrespective emn declarations of the Prince Regent Alexan­ of the territories in which they live. The der and of the Prime Minister Pasic in Paris Slovenians belong to the same race with a and London in the Spring of 1916 ; besides, that slightly different literary dialect. At this idea is supported by the "Jugo-Slav Com­ moment the matter could be summarised thus : mittee" in London which is the representative the Serbians are considered as the Orthodox of the Jugoslavs from Austria-Hungary.