Some time ago the American Slovaks formulated a demand for autonomy in a memorandum which they sent to influential friends and to those whom they hope to win as friends. The memorandum “voices the sentiment and national aspirations, not only of Slovaks living in the United States, but also interprets the mind and the will of their brothers, inhabiting, since times immemorial, the ancestral homelands of the race.” That the American Slovaks took the initiative in issuing the memorandum is not hard to understand. “The Slovaks at home are not permitted to approach their king with grievances, the last deputation to him having been denied admittance. Slovaks, therefore, are made to feel that they have no king, only a government--a government, however, that knows no mercy, that feels no remorse, that offers no hope, that fears no punishment. If Slovaks are resolved to speak at all, if they wish the world at large to know the measure of their wrongs, under existing conditions, they can only appeal through the medium of their compatriots in the United States.” Of the Magyars as a nation the Slovaks do not complain. It is the Hungarian Government which they accuse of oppression. When the time approaches to re-draw the map of Austria-Hungary, the Slovaks will ask to be freed from the Hungarian yoke. And if they cannot have a government of their own, their second choice is to co-operate with the Bohemians toward the establishment of a confederacy that shall include the autonomous states of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and Slovakland. Thus to the present ethnical unity of Slovaks and Bohemians another bond would be added, that of political unity. THOMAS ČAPEK. References: _The Slovaks of Hungary_, The Knickerbocker Press, New York, 1906, by Thomas Čapek; _Racial Problems in Hungary_, Archibald Constable & Co., Ltd., London, 1908, by Scotus Viator. _Die Unterdrückung der Slovaken durch die Magyaren_, Prague, 1903. FOOTNOTES: [20] “The Slovaks and Their Language” (Slováci a ich Reč), by Dr. Samo Czambel, Budapest, 1903. [21] Among the Slovak spokesmen at this meeting was Editor Milan Getting, of New York. At a subsequent conference was present Albert Mamatey, President of the National Slovak Society. [22] The very words “Slovak,” “Slovakland,” “Slovak nation” are tabooed in Hungary, and school books containing them prohibited. Hungarian officialdom refers to Slovakland as the Hungarian Highlands. [23] London _Times_, January 20, 1915. III WHY BOHEMIA DESERVES FREEDOM BY PROFESSOR B. ŠIMEK OF THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA[24] In the present European crisis several nations are hoping for a betterment of their political fortunes. Among these not the least hopeful are the Bohemians in the historic Kingdom of Bohemia, now annexed to the Austrian Empire.