5. In the meantime, Professor Masaryk arrived in the United States _via_ Japan in May, 1918. He was accorded a splendid reception at Chicago where some 200,000 Czecho-Slovaks, as well as various Allied representatives, greeted him. His presence in the United States not only stimulated recruiting among Czecho-Slovaks there, but had also political results, especially when the Central Powers launched their peace offensive. At the end of May, Mr. Lansing issued the following statement: "The Secretary of State desires to announce that the proceedings of the Congress of Oppressed Nationalities of Austria-Hungary which was held in Rome in April have been followed with great interest by the Government of the United States, and that the nationalist aspirations of the Czecho-Slovaks and Jugoslavs have the earnest sympathy of this government." This declaration was endorsed by the representatives of Great Britain, France and Italy at Versailles on June 3, 1918. On June 29, Mr. Lansing completed and explained his statement as follows: "Since the issuance by this government on May 29 of a statement regarding the nationalist aspirations for freedom of the Czecho-Slovaks and Jugoslavs, German and Austrian officials have sought to misinterpret and distort its manifest interpretation. In order, therefore, that there may be no misunderstanding concerning the meaning of this statement, the Secretary of State to-day further announces the position of the United States Government to be that _all branches of the Slav race should be completely freed from German and Austrian rule_." On the following day, that is on June 30, 1918, President Poincare presented the Czecho-Slovak army with a flag and delivered an inspiring speech to them. On the occasion of the handing of this flag by President Pioncare to the Czecho-Slovak army, M. Pichon, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, on behalf of the government of the French Republic, addressed the following letter to Dr. Edouard Benes, the general secretary of the Czecho-Slovak National Council in Paris: "At the moment when the 21st Regiment of Chasseurs, the first unit of the autonomous Czecho-Slovak army in France, after receiving its flag, is leaving its quarters to take up its position in a sector amongst its French brothers-in-arms, the Republican Government, in recognition of your efforts and your attachment to the Allied cause, considers it just and necessary to proclaim _the right of your nation to its independence and to recognise publicly and officially the National Council as the supreme organ of its general interests and the first step towards a future Czecho-Slovak Government_.