"The world knows the justice of our claims, which the Habsburgs themselves dare not deny. Francis Joseph in the most solemn manner repeatedly recognised the sovereign rights of our nation. The Germans and Magyars opposed this recognition, and Austria-Hungary, bowing before the Pan-Germans, became a colony of Germany and as her vanguard to the East provoked the last Balkan conflict as well as the present world war, which was begun by the Habsburgs alone without the consent of the representatives of the people. "We cannot and will not continue to live under the direct or indirect rule of the violators of Belgium, France and Serbia, the would-be murderers of Russia and Rumania, the murderers of tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers of our blood, and the accomplices in numberless unspeakable crimes committed in this war against humanity by the two degenerate and irresponsible dynasties of Habsburgs and Hohenzollerns. We will not remain a part of a state which has no justification for existence and which, refusing to accept the fundamental principles of modern world organisation, remains only an artificial and immoral political structure, hindering every movement towards democratic and social progress. The Habsburg dynasty, weighed down by a huge inheritance of error and crime, is a perpetual menace to the peace of the world, and we deem it our duty towards humanity and civilisation to aid in bringing about its downfall and destruction. "We reject the sacrilegious assertion that the power of the Habsburg and Hohenzollern dynasties is of divine origin. We refuse to recognise the divine right of kings. Our nation elected the Habsburgs to the throne of Bohemia of its own free will and by the same right deposes them. We hereby declare the Habsburg dynasty unworthy of leading our nation and deny all their claims to rule in the Czecho-Slovak land, which we here and now declare shall henceforth be a free and independent people and nation. "We accept and shall adhere to the ideals of modern democracy as they have been ideals of our nation for centuries. We accept the American principles as laid down by President Wilson, the principles of liberated mankind of the actual equality of nations and of governments, deriving all their just power from the consent of the governed. We, the nation of Comenius, cannot but accept those principles expressed in the American Declaration of Independence, the principles of Lincoln and of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. For these principles our nation shed its blood in the memorable Hussite wars five hundred years ago. For these same principles beside her Allies our nation is shedding its blood to-day in Russia, Italy and France.