The President

President Masaryk has written and will shortly publish his memoirs. The book, which will also appear in English, will deal with the story of the Czecho-Slovakian struggle for independence during the Great War, and will throw new light on the diplomatic pourparlers that led up to the recognition of the new State by the Allies.

Formerly a member of the Austrian Reichsrat (State Council), President Masaryk fled from Austria on the outbreak of war to work for the delivery of Czecho-Slovakia. He worked hard toward this end and finally, before a visit to the United States in the summer of 1918, he secured Allied recognition of the Provisional Government of Czecho-Slovakia--the recognition of a Government over a country that did not exist. His triumph was not delayed, for on Oct. 28, 1918, after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Narodni Vybor (National Council) took over the governments of the countries of Bohemia, Moravia, Ruthenia, Silesia and Slovakia, which had formerly belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Less than a month later (Nov. 14, 1918) the National Assembly met at Prague--capital of Czecho-Slovakia--and formally declared the State of Czechoslovakia to be a Republic and elected Masaryk, who was in New York, as its first president.

Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, son of a poor gamekeeper on one of the imperial estates in Moravia, is married to an American. He was a student at the Universities of Prague Vienna and Leipzig; later, while still a young man, he was appointed a professor in Prague University.

The seeds of republicanism were sown in him when, once a year, the emperor and his suite of aristocrats distinguished soldiers and statesmen came to shoot over the Moravian estate. This company were in the habit of leaving their costly cloaks, which represented a fortune to the peasant, in his father's cottage. While the shoot was on the peasants used to gather round to admire the resplendent garments, but little Tommy Masaryk alone refused to look at them, saying: " I do not like to see those things." Later, explaining his feelings, he said: "I felt there was something radically wrong. Just what was not clear to me. Such a hate I had that it lasted until today!"

It is no exaggeration to say that President Masaryk has won through his influence, his character and his ability a just and honorable place among the political and intellectual leaders of the world.