Dirva = Field. [volume] (Cleveland, Ohio) 1915-current, 1943-08-06
PLEA FOR BALTIC COUNTIES
Lthuania, Latvia and Estonia Said to Fear
Submergence by Russia
(THE NEW YORK TIMES,
August 2, l943)

No untOWard incident had mar
red the twenty-one years of diplo-
matte, economic and cultural inter-
course between our country and
the Republics of Lithuania, Latvia
and Estonia. In the words of the
Under-S Secretary of State, Sumner
Welles. From the day when the
people of these republics first gain
ed their independence and democ-
ratio form of government the people
of the United States have watched
their admirable progress in self
government with deep and sympa-
thetic interest.
Indeed, illiteracy inherited under
the Czarist regime (although less
than any other part of the former
Russian empire with the exception
of Finland) was quickly receding.
Standards of living were incompar-
ably higher than in neighboring
great powers. Nowhere in the world
were there, proportionately, as ma
ny intellectuals from the log-cabins.
Except for an outstanding dispute
over the capital of Lithuania, the
Baltic nations were at peace with
the world at large and truly good
neighbors to other and to their
great neighbors. Freedom of the
Baltic Sea was beneficial to all peo-
Piles sharing the sea lanes. Count
ries with no natural riches, the Bal
tic States were a source of envy
pursuing sound economic policy,
they all enjoyed balanced budgets,
concentrating more on an expansion
of educational facilities, road sys-
TENS, merchant marines and indus
try, rather than on futile armament.
Alas, all efforts at being good
neighbors did not help these weaker
states when their totalitarian neigh
bors plotted a division of the sphe-
res of influence and d dismember-
ment of Poland. All promises to
respect their political independence
their territorial integrity and the
inviolability of their forms of self.
government were violated, except
in one respect-the aggressor took
pains, in minutest details, to con-
form all misdeeds to the letter and
spirit of the definition of aggres-
sion as drafted by the pen of Max
i'm Litvinoff.
Thus far, no other country in
Europe has suffered as cruel a fate
as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia
and no people elsewhere in Europe
dread the rumble of gunfire re.
ceding westward as much as the
Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians
and Firms. AS long as the Soviet
Union threatens to submerge once
more the Baltic countries, the sounC
of Russian gunfire strikes a death
knoll in the ears of the Lithuanians
Latvians and Estonians.
The stout hearted Baltic peoples
continue their unrelenting under.
ground resistance to Nazi slave
masters. At the same time they
oppose parachuting messengers OF
Liberation" by unwanted liberators
from Moscow. Their sole hope lies
in the Atlantic Charter, copies
whereof are readily available there
and in the message of President
Roosevelt that there should be nc
doubt anywhere in the world
about the determination of the
American people-at-war to restore
the mastery of destinies to con-
quered peoples.
On the twenty-first anniversary
of the recognition de jure of the
Baltic States by the Government OF
the United States, we would like tc
broadcast message of hope that
the Soviet Union will eliminate the
sole cause of discord in the camp
of the United Nations by renounc-
ing it's imperialistic designs against
the Baltic States. Indeed, it is high
time for the Soviet Government to
liberate the scores of thousands OF
Baltic martyrs of freedom "relo-
Gated" in the Arctic regions of Rus
sia, and to consent to the admis-
sion of Lithuania, Latvia and Es-
tonic into the ranks of the United
Nations.
Norbert Pakalnis,
President, American Lithuanian
! Council of Greater New York