ngs secure for their men left behind. They took town
after town with the arms they first took away from the Bolsheviki and
Germans; but in every town they immediately set up a government, with
all the elements of normal life. They established police and sanitary
systems, opened hospitals, and had roads repaired, leaving a handful of
men in the midst of enemies to carry on the plans of their leaders.
American engineers speaking of the cleanliness of the Czecho-Slovak
army, said that they lived like Spartans.

The whole story is a remarkable evidence of the struggle of these little
people for self-government.

The emergence of the Czecho-Slovak nation has been one of the most
remarkable and noteworthy features of the war. Out of the confusion of
the situation, with the possibility of the resurrection of oppressed
peoples, something of the dignity of old Bohemia was comprehended, and
it was recognized that the Czechs were to be rescued from Austria and
the Slovaks from Hungary, and united in one country with entire
independence. This was undoubtedly due, in large measure, to the
activities of Professor Masaryk, the president of the National Executive
Council of the Czecho-Slovaks. His four-year exile in the United States
had the establishment of the new nation as its fruit.

Professor Masaryk called attention to the fact that there is a peculiar
discrepancy between the number of states in Europe and the number of
nationalities--twenty-seven states to seventy nationalities. He
explained, also, that almost all the states are mixed, from the point of
nationality. From the west of Europe to the east, this is found to be
true, and the farther east one goes the more mixed do the states become.
Austria is the most mixed of all the states. There is no Austrian
language, but there are nine languages, and six smaller nations or
remnants of nations. In all of Germany there are eight nationalities
besides the Germans, who have been independent, and who have their own
literature. Turkey is an anomaly, a combination of various nations
overthrown and kept down.

Since the eighteenth century there has been a continuing strong movement
from each nation to have its own state. Because of the mixed peoples,
there is much confusion. There are Roumanians in Austria, but there is a
kingdom of Roumania. There are Southern Slavs, but there are also Serbia
and Montenegro. It is natural that the Southern Slavs should want to be
united as one sta