Our Peril in the East 
 
 Resolutions ol the 
 
 War Committee of 
 
 The Union League Club of Chicago 
 
 setting forth the menace to the safety 
 of the United States which lies in the 
 consolidation by the Central Powers 
 of their conquests in the East, and 
 urging the vital necessity of a peace 
 which not only forces the liberation of 
 the Slavic peoples now held under the 
 German and Austrian yoke, but pro¬ 
 vides for their establishment as inde¬ 
 pendent states which will forever block 
 the pan-German program for world 
 domination, 
 
 and 
 
 Editorial comments thereon by leading 
 newspapers of the City of Chicago. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/ourperilineastreOOunio 
 
/c. . i ‘■n i 
 
 "or *-i 
 
 Resolutions 
 
 Adopted Aug. 8, 1918 by the War Committee of 
 The Union League Club of Chicago: 
 
 Recalling that — 
 
 The world war was begun by the 
 Central Powers largely because of 
 their ambition for conquest in the 
 Near East, and 
 
 Realizing that — 
 
 The Central Powers, by the con¬ 
 quests thus far achieved in Russia, 
 Roumania and Serbia have prac¬ 
 tically doubled their area and pop¬ 
 ulation, and 
 
 Recognizing that — 
 
 If the Central Powers are allowed 
 to keep and develop these con¬ 
 quests they will organize a mili¬ 
 tary despotism which will menace 
 the security of the United States 
 and all freedom loving nations, the 
 War Committee of the Union 
 League Club of Chicago there¬ 
 fore, 
 
 3 
 
Resolves — 
 
 That it hereby puts itself on record 
 as against any treaty of peace 
 which does not force the Central 
 Powers to release the territories 
 they have gained by conquest and 
 intrigue in the Near East, and fur¬ 
 ther urges that no peace should be 
 regarded as satisfactory to the 
 Government of the United States 
 and its associates in the war which 
 does not fulfill the just aspirations 
 of the smaller national groups 
 long held against their will under 
 the domination of the Central 
 Powers, and be it further 
 
 Resolved — 
 
 That the War Committee of the 
 Union League Club of Chicago 
 hereby directs its Editorial Com¬ 
 mittee to begin at once the prep- 
 
 4 
 
aration and dissemination of mate¬ 
 rial to inform the public and crys- 
 talize opinion in favor of the 
 recent official pronouncements to 
 this effect of our Government and 
 of the Versailles conference of 
 representatives of the Allied Na¬ 
 tions. 
 
Significant Resolutions 
 
 Everting Post , Tuesday, August 13th, 1918 
 
 The war activities committee of the Union 
 League Club has adopted resolutions demanding 
 the liberation of Austria-Hungary’s subject peo¬ 
 ples and the restoration of all territory taken by 
 the central empires in eastern Europe. 
 
 The Union League Club has developed into one 
 of the most helpful and intelligent propaganda 
 agencies in the country since its war committee 
 entered the field of public education and inspira¬ 
 tion. It has led in a clear-visioned and broad 
 understanding of the issues involved in the great 
 struggle, and has done invaluable work in pro¬ 
 moting an informed sentiment for the prosecution 
 of the war to complete victory. 
 
 It is significant of the progress of opinion that 
 it should now speak so emphatically for the 
 emancipation of Europe from the Prussian yoke 
 and that it should recognize the fundamental im¬ 
 portance of dismembering the German-Magyar 
 monstrosity that, under the Hapsburgs, serves the 
 will of the Hohenzollerns. The Post has been 
 insistent in urging that the Prussian menace to 
 
 6 
 
world peace and security can be ended finally only 
 if Berlin’s vassal ally is disintegrated and the 
 Slavic, Roumanian and Italian national groups 
 liberated from alien oppression. With this 
 achievement must go the removal of Prussia’s 
 strangling fingers from the throats of Russia, the 
 Baltic States, Poland and the Balkans. 
 
 The Union League Club in espousing this pro¬ 
 gram will be of immense service. It is vital that 
 Americans should understand the danger of a 
 compromise peace and the necessity for maintain¬ 
 ing the war until the enemy is deprived of all 
 spoils and all power. 
 
 7 
 
America’s Interest in Middle Europe 
 
 Chicago Tribune , Thursday , August 15th , 79/5 
 
 The recognition by Great Britain of the 
 Czecho-Slovaks as an allied nation has been well 
 won by the Bohemians. We hope the United 
 States will take similar action. 
 
 At the beginning of the world war if any one 
 had asked that the United States enter into a 
 struggle to free Poland, Bohemia, or Jugo-Slavia 
 from Austrian domination, the reply would have 
 been a prompt if not profane negative. The 
 thought that American boys should be asked to 
 fight and die in Europe to win political advantage 
 for peoples of central Europe would have been 
 intolerable. 
 
 That thought is intolerable now. The sacri¬ 
 fice of American lives on such issues might be 
 called altruism, but it would be a political crime. 
 Polish and Bohemian patriots would not ask the 
 vicarious sacrifice. 
 
 Nevertheless, American soldiers are fighting for 
 the freedom of the Poles, and Czecho-Slovaks, 
 and the Slavs of Serbia and southern Austria- 
 Hungary, and practical statesmanship approves. 
 
We see more clearly than we did in 1914 the 
 real significance of the European conflict and we 
 realize that America is substantially and directly 
 involved in the establishment of a condition after 
 the war which shall insure a durable peace and 
 the removal of a threat to our welfare and 
 security. 
 
 What is our interest in the establishment of 
 free Polish, Bohemian, Jugo-Slav nations? It is 
 our interest in breaking the spine of that gigantic 
 imperial enterprise which the pan-German mili¬ 
 tarism hoped to erect with the sword of conquest 
 and cement with the blood of the weak. A free 
 Poland, Bohemia, and Jugo-Slavia will make a 
 bulwark of freedom across Mittel-Europa, and 
 with the passing of that grandiose dream of Prus¬ 
 sian domination, the free peoples of western 
 Europe will breathe again and we may look for¬ 
 ward to international relations regulated by our 
 common ideals of peaceful progress. 
 
 America is vitally interested in procuring a 
 peace that will be guaranteed by peaceful nations 
 and guaranteed against the threat of imperialist 
 militarism. We are vitally interested in setting 
 up the counterpoise of independent peoples against 
 
 9 
 
that peril until the German people have thrown 
 off the moral and physical control of the military- 
 aristocratic caste and the influence of the imperial¬ 
 ist idea of their destiny. 
 
 The resolutions of the war committee of the 
 Union League Club in favor of recognizing the 
 aspirations of these heroic peoples seem to us 
 timely and founded on a true perception of the 
 American interest in central European conditions 
 of peace. There are, of course, idealistic consider¬ 
 ations which would incline us to favor freedom for 
 all oppressed and aspiring peoples. But certainly no 
 civilian safely at home has a moral right to ask 
 other men to die for his ideal conceptions. In the 
 question of Polish and Slavic independence, how¬ 
 ever, our sympathy for the cause of freedom runs 
 parallel to our practical interest. America is 
 fighting for a secure peace for herself as well as 
 for her pacific allies. 
 
 10 
 
The Czecho-Slovak Nation 
 
 Evening Post, Thursday, August 15th, 1918 
 
 The Czecho-Slovak nation has come into being 
 with the recognition of Great Britain, France and 
 Italy and the sympathy of the United States. It 
 has organized itself under a national council and 
 it is represented by three well-equipped armies 
 fighting for the cause of democracy on three 
 fronts. 
 
 Its people no longer profess allegiance to the 
 Hapsburgs. The yoke of Austria has been thrown 
 off in purpose and they are the open enemy of the 
 dual monarchy and Germany. Their territory 
 is still under control of the oppressor, but they 
 are in revolt, and only martial law maintains the 
 semblance of Vienna’s authority in Bohemia and 
 Moravia. 
 
 Thus the disintegration of Austria-Hungary 
 has begun and the allied countries are of one mind 
 in the determination that it shall be carried on 
 until the political patchwork that has served so 
 well the ambitions of predatory monarchs is de¬ 
 stroyed. 
 
 The achievement of this end, made just by 
 every consideration of the rights of subjugated 
 
 11 
 
peoples and the ideals of freedom and democracy 
 for which we are fighting, means the death blow 
 to the pan-German conspiracy. It will deprive 
 Prussia of her most useful agent, her essential in¬ 
 strument for control of the Balkans and the high¬ 
 way to Bagdad. It will dissipate the dream of a 
 middle Europe. It is as necessary to a complete 
 victory over the Potsdam plotters against world 
 peace as the defeat of the kaiser’s armies in France 
 and Flanders. 
 
 A glance at the map will show what strategic 
 importance attaches to the territory of the Czecho¬ 
 slovaks. The mountain land of Bohemia is like 
 a clinched fist thrust into the ribs of Germany. 
 It will smash the schemes of Prussia for a con¬ 
 solidation of weaker states if it passes into the 
 control of a people who do not recognize the au¬ 
 thority of Berlin. It will carry with it the Slavic 
 territory to the east and will be a beacon light 
 of freedom and revolt for the people of Poland 
 and the people of southern Slavdom. 
 
 The United States has yet to bring itself 
 abreast of the overseas democracies in its attitude 
 toward the Czecho-Slovak nation. The expres¬ 
 sion of American sympathy, recently given by our 
 
 12 
 
State Department, should be followed by full rec¬ 
 ognition of the national council as “trustee for the 
 future government.” We cannot afford to be less 
 bold and definite in declaring ourselves on this 
 issue. No further reason exists for considering 
 the feelings of Vienna. No hope remains of mak¬ 
 ing a separate peace with the dual monarchy that 
 will not be a peace in the interests of Germany. 
 There is no excuse for avoiding any step that will 
 hasten the downfall of the Hapsburgs. We owe 
 it to the laree element in our population of 
 Czecho-Slovak origin, as an element that has been 
 loyal in word and deed from the first hour when 
 we entered the war, to lend every aid possible to 
 their blood-kin in Europe in the heroic struggle 
 for emancipation that they are making. 
 
 13 
 
Bohemian Independence 
 
 Chicago Journal , Thursday , August 15th , 
 
 Three powers now have recognized the Czecho¬ 
 slovak nation as a formal and independent ally. 
 France took the lead in this work, as she generally 
 takes the lead in anything requiring clear-headed 
 logic. Italy followed. Now Britain has adopted 
 the same course in very generous fashion. 
 
 To these three powers should be joined a 
 fourth, the United States of America; and the 
 quicker our recognition of Bohemian independence 
 comes, the better alike for our prestige and our 
 policy. 
 
 If blood be the price of liberty, the Czecho¬ 
 slovaks have paid in full. Within the last twen¬ 
 ty-four hours, dispatches have been smuggled out 
 of Bohemia telling of the summary execution of 
 seventy-four Czech soldiers, the arrest of hun¬ 
 dreds of civilians and the reinforcement of the 
 German and Magyar garrisons. Yet this is 
 merely the last drop in the gory bucket, for tens 
 of thousands of Czechs and Slovaks have been 
 hanged, shot or starved to death in prison since 
 the war began. 
 
 If services to freedom be the price, the Czecho¬ 
 slovaks have an even clearer title to liberty. 
 
 14 
 
Gagged and bound though they were, their strug¬ 
 gles have wrecked the whole Hapsburg empire, 
 which is held together now solely by German 
 domination. They have whipped German and 
 Austro-Hungarian armies in fair fight. They are 
 battling now on the western front in France. 
 They are rendering valued aid to Italy. They 
 are the chief force that is rescuing Russia from 
 the mixture of bolshevism and kaiserism, and 
 their career in that country is an epic the like 
 of which never has been seen before. 
 
 There is an even stronger reason for recogniz¬ 
 ing Bohemian independence. That independence 
 is necessary for the throttling of Prussianism. 
 Pore over the map as you will, you can not figure 
 out a free Europe without a free Bohemia. That 
 mountain rimmed tableland in the heart of the 
 continent is the keystone of the arch of central 
 and eastern European liberties; and while it is 
 ruled from Berlin or Vienna, a new bid for the 
 Pan-German empire of middle Europe will be 
 an ever present threat. 
 
 Bohemia must have her freedom because she 
 wants it, because she has earned it, and because 
 that freedom is necessary to our own safety. Why 
 should we delay in giving formal official recog¬ 
 nition to these plain facts? 
 
 15