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ask the Senate of the United States to refuse to have our country become a party to the annihilation of a civilized nation.

Senator KNOx. Let me ask you a question. You speak of these various territories as being claimed by the French, by Roumania, and by Serbia.

Mr. PIVÁNY. Yes.

Senator KNOX. What do you mean by "claimed"?

Mr. PIVÁNY. They have advanced these claims at Paris.

Senator KNOX. Have you any indication that they have been allowed as claims?

Mr. PIVÁNY. We have two indications-first, newspaper reports, and, second, that the Allies have allowed the invaders to go into that territory.

Senator KNOX. What I want to get at is, how accurate is this map likely to be, in view of the Austrian treaty; whether these claims have been so far conceded that you are pretty sure they are going to be allowed.

Mr. PIVÁNY. We know what each of the races wanted, and we know pretty well what they did not get. Now, I do not believe there is any exaggeration in this at all, because the Roumanians really want to get down to this river Tisza. In fact, they have gone there and have gone over there.

Senator KNOX. Still, this will be subject to verification by the. treaty.

Mr. PIVÁNY. Yes; of course this is not final. This is merely an attempt to show it graphically.

Senator KNOx. Of course this question is not involved in the German treaty.

Mr. PIVÁNY. This question is not involved in the German treaty, except that there is an allusion that Germany acknowledges all the boundaries as they shall be set in the future.

Senator KNOX. She agrees to be bound by whatever they do?
Mr. PIVÁNY. Yes.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Have you any information about what is contained in the treaty between the Allies and Austria?

Mr. PIVÁNY. We have only what has been published in the newspapers. On the map you can see this little part here south of the Danube in western Hungary which has been demanded by CzechoSlovakia. I understand from the newspapers reports that little part has been awarded to Austria and not to Czecho-Slovakia. Of course that is unofficial. We do not know. All we have is what is contained in the newspaper reports.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Your organization is called the HungarianAmerican Federation?

Mr. PIVÁNY. Yes.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Are you in communication with the people in Hungary?

Mr. PIVÁNY. At present I am not, but I have been in Hungary as a newspaper correspondent, from September, 1916, to the end of January of this year; so I was there during the first revolution, during the greater part of the war, and during the armistice.

Senator BRANDEGEE. As such newspaper correspondent did you come into personal touch with prominent men in the Government of Hungary?

Mr. PIVÁNY. Yes; I did with practically all excepting, of course, the Bolsheviki. They were unknown people in my time there. Senator BRANDEGEE. When I asked if "you" were in communication I meant, if your organization was in communication? Do they receive communications from the people of Hungary?

Mr. PIVÁNY. No; our organization does not. Our organization is purely an American organization, started 12 years ago.

Senator BRANDEGEE. I did not mean to intimate that it was not an American organization, but being the Hungarian-American Federation, I did not know but you had letters from people in Hungary so that you would know what their attitude has been upon public questions,

Mr. PIVÁNY. Before the war we could get letters, but postal communication has not been reopened with Hungary. That is one of our complaints to the State Department; but we do get newspapers from there.

Senator BRANDEGEE. That is what I was going to ask you.

Mr. PIVÁNY. And also we sometimes get letters through neutral countries, not to our organization, but to us as individuals.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Inasmuch as we get no information at all as to what is in the proposed treaty between the Allies and Austria and Hungary, we are compelled to rely upon newspaper reports, just as

you are.

Mr. PIVÁNY. Yes.

Senator BRANDEGEE. I wondered if you knew whether the views represented in your brief and in your statement before us were the views of the great majority of the Magyar people in Hungary.

Mr. PIVÁNY. Yes; I am absolutely sure of that, because I know their history, I know their sentiments, and I was there during the first part of the armistice.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Does your presentation of the matter here represent simply your personal views as a newspaper correspondent over there, or are there other people in the Hungarian-American Federation who know about Hungarian affairs?

Mr. PIVÁNY. Yes; our president, Mr. Henry Baracs, is right here. In fact, he collaborated with me in making up this statement. Senator BRANDEGEE. What do you mean in the last statement you made:

"We feel that Hungary can be saved from destruction only by America, as the United States are the only powerful country who have not been a party to the immoral secret treaties upon which the claimants of Hungarian territory are pressing their claims." To what secret treaties do your refer?

Mr. PIVÁNY. One secret treaty between the quadruple ententethat is France, Great Britain, Italy and Russia, and Roumania, concluded sometime in August, 1916. The secret treaty between Roumania and the Entente has been published, I believe, by the Lenine government in Russia, found among the archives of Russia, and the essence of that treaty was that the Allies tried to induce Roumania, which was an ally of Austria-Hungary, to break her contract with Austria-Hungary, to throw the treaty away as a mere scrap of paper; and in return for that they promised to Roumania big slices of Hungarian territory. They promised things that did not belong to her. Roumania held back for a long time, and when she thought

that Hungary had become exhausted, and there was a big victory of the Russians in June, 1916, then she entered into agreements with the Entente and in August, 1916, invaded the country.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Are there other secret treaties than that, which you have in mind?

Mr. PIVÁNY. I do not know. There must be some treaty between Serbia and the Entente and there must be some treaty between Czechoslovakia and the Entente, but the text of those treaties has not, to my knowledge, been published; but as I understand our country is not a party to the secret treaties and is not bound by them. Senator BRANDEGEE. There is no way of knowing how many secret treaties there may be between these nations, is there? Mr. PIVÁNY. No, sir; I could not tell.

Senator POMERENE. Have you had any communication with the Magyars who are now in Siberia ?

Mr. PIVÁNY. We get letters from them.

Senator POMERENE. What is their attitude with respect to this matter?

Mr. PIVÁNY. They have only one thing in mind. They want to get away from there, because they are starving, they are dying from disease and from hunger, and they have no clothing, no soap, and no medical supplies. We have applied to the State Department to help them and to the American Red Cross to help them. We wanted to send money and supplies to them. The American Red Cross _answered that they could not do anything and the State Department answered the same. Then we asked the Danish Legation in Washington whether they would transmit our remittances to them, and the Danish Legation do transmit our remittances to the Hungarian prisoners of war. We received an order from the Post Office Department just a few days go permitting the sending of parcels to Vladivostok, where the American mail ends. Beyond Vladivostok there is no American mail, but the mails from there are being forwarded by the Danish consular agent.

STATEMENT OF DR. BELA SEKELY.

Dr. SEKELY. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I appear on behalf of the Hungarian-American Press Association. I am not here to plead for new territories, for spoils of war, or conquest. I have come to ask of you justice, magnanimity, and fairness to a defeated people. A Hungarian by birth, but an American by choice and by adoption, I ought to feel perhaps awed in the presence of the honorable body before which I am now pleading the cause of a martyred and agonizing nation, but knowing your high sense of duty toward all mankind, I feel instead almost inspired to let thoughts and feelings run high and freely, so as to permit you to look down deep into a human heart that is filled with sorrow and despair over one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the world.

For the past 1,000 years, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, Hungary has had the same frontiers. For the past 10 centuries Hungary has been and still is a nation with a great destiny, the roots of which reach back to the very foundations of the State. In 896, the first years of Hungarian history in Europe, Prince Arpad solemnly promised for himself and his successors that they would

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rule the country according to the advice and counsel of the chosen chieftains of the nation. At a time when all of eastern Europe was inhabited by half savage people, and when the rest of Europe was ruled by autocratic kings, the Hungarians, yet heathens, had organized a constitutional government which in 1222, only a few years after the English Magna Charta received its written guaranty in the document called bull d'or, and signed by King Andrew II. They remained not very long heathen, but in 1001 embraced Christianity. Then Hungary began to play the double part she acted so honorably and often so dramatically in European history. She joined western civilization, and defended it against all attacks coming from the East. For 150 years she fought the Turks, preventing them at the cost of her own blood and flesh and liberty to conquer western Europe.

Senator KNOX. Let me ask you a question right here. graphically, what was Hungary a thousand years ago as compared with this map which you have presented here?

Dr. SEKELY. Practically it was the same geographically, and it could not have been otherwise, because, as you gentlemen know, Hungary is a geographical unit. It is the finest and most complete and most perfect geographical unit in Europe. It is bounded by the Carpathians, and on the south by rivers, and it is no mere chance that this country was preserved for a thousand years; but the valleys from the mountains go down to the center of the country, the rivers all flow to the Danube, and by its natural boundaries it was really predestined to be and to form a country.

Senator KNOX. The point I want to make is that it is substantially true, then, that the Hungary that is proposed to be dismembered is the same Hungary geographically that was established a thousand years ago?

Dr. SEKELY. The same country.

Senator KNOx. That is all I wanted to know.

Dr. SEKELY. And permit me, Senator, to give you this further information, which is very important. Mr. Pivány mentioned it, but I want to emphasize it, that at the time of the foundation of Hungary, of the races that now claim territory from its living body were only a very few of them present then. Neither Roumanians nor Serbians nor any other nationality was there. There were only a few Slovaks. The Roumanians and Serbians immigrated mostly during the Turkish invasion. They came from Turkey and were welcomed by Hungary. The Roumanians came into Hungary in the thirteenth century, and the Serbians also, and multiplied and increased afterwards. If they had been oppressed, how would it be possible that they are still Roumanians and Serbians? In 700 or 800 years an autocratic government would have annihilated them, but Hungary never wanted anything else except that they should be Hungarian citizens and live their own lives otherwise.

In this connection Michelet, the great French historian, paid a glowing tribute to the Hungarian people. In his "Histoire de France," volume 8, page 346, in apologizing for not dealing more extensively with Hungary, he says as follows in a footnote:

It is a cruel sacrifice not to say anything here of the hero of Europe. I am speaking of the Hungarian people. Shall I die, then, always postponing to pay the debt history owes her? Yet infamous and lying compilations appear everywhere. The Hungarians are loath to answer them. When they do speak they speak to the whole world. I hope that our historiography will pay the debt of our hearts to this heroic people, which by

its deeds, by its sufferings, and by its noble voice elevates us and makes us greater. It is generally accorded that the Hungarians are a valiant people, but this valiance is simply the manifestation of a high degree of morality. In everything they do or say, I always hear "sursum corda." The whole nation is an aristocracy of valiance and dignity.

But despite the unceasing wars with Turkey, Hungary has attained, in the fifteenth century, under the leadership of its national King Matthias Corvin, a high degree of culture and civilization. Scientists, writers, and artists from all over Europe flocked to Buda, the capital of Hungary, which at the time was the center of intellectual life in eastern and central Europe. In Pressburg, the ancient royal seat of Hungary, where its kings were crowned, a great university and many scientific societies were founded, as well as the first printing shop established in 1473. The everlasting onslaughts of the Turks, however, were bleeding the country to death, and for this reason Hungary elected in 1526 Ferdinand of Hapsburg to the Hungarian throne. The country hoped to get from him material help against the Turks and thus be able to continue the peaceful pursuits of its destiny. Unhappily the remedy was worse than the illness. Instead of helping Hungary to keep out the Turks, the Hapsburgs meant to make a German Province of Hungary and taking advantage of her exhausted condition caused by the Turkish wars, deprived her of her independence. Since then Hungarian history is a story of unceasing effort to deliver the country from the Hapsburg rule and to regain its freedom and liberty.

In the seventeenth and in the eighteenth century Hungary revolted eight times against the Hapsburgs, three times with French aid, but the prevailing European coalitions always crushed Hungary's noble fight for freedom. In 1848, under the leadership of Louis Kossuth, Hungary once more revolted against the Hapsburgs, and this time her armies were victorious, when the Russian Czar rushed 200,000 fresh troops to the help of the Austrian Emperor. Thus Hungary again was crushed and defeated. But the glorious deeds of the Hungarian revolution called the attention of the whole civilized world to Hungary's plight. Louis Kossuth turned for help to the western countries of Europe, to France and England and finally to the United States of America. Who does not know of the glorious reception the great patriot was given in this country? Never in the history of America was a foreigner received with greater honors than Kossuth. Congress assembled in a joint meeting and was addressed by the wonderful orator whose impassioned burning speeches were the wonder of two continents. But though he got all the sympathy he could have wished for his cause, material help was lacking and none of the great powers made it their business to interfere with the Austrian Emperor in his treatment of Hungary. After Hungary's defeat in 1879, an autocratic military rule was established in Hungary, prohibiting the use of the Hungarian language, confiscating all liberties and privileges of a free people. This lasted nearly 20 years when the country at last gave up hope to get help from France and England and in order to lead at least the normal life of a State, it submitted to the so-called compromise of 1867, by which Hungary was granted in internal affairs an autonomy, but the direction of her foreign policy and the control of her army was left in the hands of the emperor king.

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