come, as you see it flying from the masts of our ships on all the seas or floating from every flagstaff of the Republic. You will never have a worthier emotion. Reverence it as you would reverence the signature of the Deity.

Listen, son! The band is playing the national anthem-"The Star-Spangled Banner!" They have let loose Old Glory yonder. Stand up-and others will stand with you.

IGNACE JAN PADEREWSKI

THE NEW POLAND

This address was delivered at Warsaw before the Seym, or parliament, of Poland on May 22, 1919, the first made by President Paderewski after his return from the Peace Conference in Paris. The famous pianist, born in Poland in 1860, made his début at Vienna in 1887, Paris, 1888, London, 1890, and New York, 1891. During the War, in addition to giving concerts for the aid of Polish war sufferers, he appeared as a public speaker in behalf of his native country. After the War, he became President, representative at Paris and Premier of the new Republic.

THE Polish nation is to-day living through solemn moments. I suppose that in its eventful history there was never a time more solemn, more fateful than the present. The fate of our country is at stake; powerful people, holding in their hands the destiny of the world, are building a framework for our independent existence, are deciding the frontiers of our State, and soon will pronounce a final sentence, from which, no doubt for long years, there will be no appeal, perhaps for many generations. Violent bursts of hope and of joy and anxiety are strongly shaking our national spirit. From every side, from every corner of our former Commonwealth, people are coming here to Warsaw and going there to Paris, in frock coats and smock frocks, in old-fashioned country dress, in mountaineer costume, and they cry aloud and implore that their distant provinces should be united to the Polish State. The Polish eagle does not seem to be a bird of prey, since people are gathering themselves under its wings.

What will Poland be like? What will be her frontiers? Will they give us everything we should have? These are the questions that every Pole is asking. I am here to answer, as far as I am able, all these questions. I have taken part in the work of

the Polish delegation to the Peace Conference, and I am here to report on this work to the Seym, and I ask for attention.

I will begin with what has been done. The conference has only dealt as yet with one of its defeated adversaries, the Germans. Conditions have been dictated to them, though they are not yet signed, which give us considerable advantages on the west frontier. We are not all satisfied with our frontier. I admit freely that I belong to the unsatisfied ones; but have we really a right to complain? The conference tried to decide justly according to the ethnographical and national majority as regards all territorial questions. It applied this rule to our territory, and we have obtained considerable advantages from it on the west. But not everything was decided according to this principle. Thus, for example, our Polish population in the Sycowski and Namyzlowski district and in some parts of the locality of Posen has distinctly been wronged. The Polish peace delegation will do its best to have this remedied.

The press has already published the chief points of the Peace Treaty. I will, however, remark in passing that by this treaty we are to receive more than 5,000,000 of population. This territory may yet be increased if the plebiscite in other districts formerly Polish has results favorable to us. The Peace Conference has not yet given us Warmia, Prussian Masuria, part of the Malborg district, also the Stzumsan, Kwdzynsan, and Suski districts, through which passes the railway line from Gdansk (Danzig) to Warsaw by way of the Mlava. The Peace Conference has given us the Keszybski coast, the Silesian mines, and the unlimited use of the port of Gdansk, also complete control over our Vistula, and a protectorate over the town of Gdansk under almost the same conditions as we had it in the most glorious days of our Commonwealth.

These conditions are different only in so far as present-day life is different from the life of that time. The area of the free town has been considerably increased. In the course of 126 years of Prussian oppression and systematic Germanization many Poles have forgotten their native tongue, and there are many real Germans settled in Gdansk. However, the former will soon remember Polish, and the others will soon learn it. Gradually Gdansk will tend to become what we wish it to be

come, if we show seriousness and common sense, enterprise, and political understanding. All Polish State property is returned to Poland absolutely, without any burdens or expenses. On the whole, I consider that Poland may be grateful for the verdict. If we are not obliged to shed more of our blood, I say that this is a great and fine gift from God.

I come to still more pressing matters. As you know, we have recognized the authority and dignity of the Peace Conference, as all other civilized nations have done, and we wait for its verdict. Up to the present its verdicts have been favorable to us. We voted here an alliance with the Entente, that is, with France, England, and Italy, who are continually sending us the help which is absolutely necessary to us in present circumstances. We have very much to be grateful for from America and its President. Without the powerful support of President Wilson, whose heart the best friend of the Polish cause, Colonel House, was able to win for us, Poland would no doubt have remained an internal question for Germany and Russia, at best confined within those frontiers which were assigned to her by the Germans in the act of Nov. 5, 1916. America is giving us food, America is giving us clothes, boots, linen, and munitions of war, and other supplies, on very easy terms, and with long credit.

Just before my departure from Paris, I received a letter from Mr. Hoover, promising Poland effective financial and economic help. That is the beginning of a very important help for us. Yesterday I learned that 2,000 tons of cotton would arrive at Gdansk in a few days, and that the Ministry of Finance in Washington were considering the question of granting Poland a considerable loan. Gentlemen, the Peace Conference, and especially England and America, with President Wilson at the head, while recognizing the necessity of our defending ourselves against the Bolsheviki, does not wish for further war on any front. Mr. Wilson expressed this wish repeatedly and very firmly. Could a Polish Prime Minister, director of the Polish Government, a man upon whose shoulders falls the really dreadful responsibility for the fate of his people in the near future, could such a man wave aside such demands? I did as my conscience prompted me. I acted as my love for my coun

try and my honor as a Pole demanded. I said that I would do all I could to satisfy these demands, and I have kept my word. An armistice was demanded. I agreed in principle to that. It was demanded that Haller's army should not fight against the Ukrainians. It was withdrawn from the Ukraine front, and finally it was required that the offensive should be stopped. Although the Ukrainians in their telegram of May 11 asked for the cessation of hostilities, on the 12th, at noon, they attacked us treacherously near Ustrzyk, bombarding the town of Sanok from airplanes. In the face of this criminal attack no force could stop the elemental impulse of our young soldiers. Like a whirlwind they threw themselves upon the enemy, and with lightning swiftness took Sambor, Drohobych, Boryslav, Strey, Izolkiew, Soki, Brody, and Zloczow, being joyfully greeted everywhere as saviors by the Polish and Ukrainian population. To-day our soldiers are probably approaching Stanislavow. [A voice: "It is taken already."]

So much the better. But from Podwoloczysk and from Huslatyn a strong Soviet army has entered unhappy Galicia, or, rather, Ruthenia. Haller's army will probably be obliged to fight on the Ukraine front, but not against the Ukrainians, only against the Bolsheviki, and perhaps it is fighting to-day.

On May 14 I broke off by telegraph all negotiations for an armistice, as I considered that, after the way the Ukrainians had behaved themselves, an armistice was absolutely impossible. The oppression, violence, cruelty, and crimes committed by them are without parallel. Wounded soldiers were buried alive in a wood near Lwow. Which of us has not heard of the young officer Losia, who, when wounded, was taken prisoner, and, after dreadful tortures, was also buried alive? The day before yesterday I had news of a young man who was known to me as a child, the twenty-four-year-old Wolsky, who was taken as a hostage, first tortured and then knouted. He received 110 blows, and finally died a martyr's death, together with sixteen of his comrades, killed by the Ukrainian soldiers in Zloczow. Yesterday came news which brought mourning to our Ministerial colleague Linde. His wife's sister was murdered in Kolomia.

Gentlemen, I am far from blaming the Ukrainian people for