"As a Social Democrat I say that we, the Czecho-Slovak nation, have also a right to a place in the sun, and we want to be seen. Do you consider that a nation numbering over ten million and boasting of a highly developed civilisation can continue to breathe under such oppressive conditions, seeing what an important role is being played by four million Bulgars, two million Greeks, two million Danes and other small nations? _We welcome the resurrection of the great and united Polish State, we witness the great Yugoslav nation shaping its boundaries along the Adriatic, and we also see Ukrainia arising. At such moments we want to live as well, and we will live_!" _(c) After the Amnesty_ The political amnesty of July, 1917, intended to appease the Slavs, had just the opposite effect: it only strengthened the Slav resistance which acquired fresh strength and impetus by the return of the old leaders. Kramar was hailed like a sovereign when he entered Prague again. He now became the recognised leader of the whole nation. The _Narodni Listy_ became the mouthpiece of all the most eminent leaders of the nation without party distinction. Its issue of October 31, 1917, contained a map of the future independent Czecho-Slovak State and a series of articles. We will quote only a few passages from an article written by deputy Rasin which read as follows: "The war has brought our problem home not only to us but to the whole world. Nothing could have better expressed our situation than the propaganda of Mitteleuropa. Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria had to form a bridge for the imperialistic march of Germany to the Persian Gulf _via_ Constantinople and Bagdad. The Czechs and Yugoslavs were to be crushed and become the victims of those plans. This was the ideal that the German nation considered as its war aim and as a war aim of Austria-Hungary. They could not have obtained a better reply than was given to them by the Czechs and Yugoslavs in their demand for their own independent states, which would be able to form a permanent bulwark against the _Drang nach Osten_ as planned by the Germans and Magyars. Even if Herr Naumann ceases to promote the idea of Central Europe, in reality _a new programme which would do away with the old evils and assign a new mission to Austria-Hungary is inconceivable_. All the declarations of the government are only destined to conceal their real intentions. The German-Magyar hegemony is as strong as ever, and the Polish question is to be solved only according to the Pan-German programme. During this war Austria's real face has been unmasked before the whole world by her persecutions, arbitrary decrees and the Pan-German propaganda.