It would not be difficult to find in the political development of the Czechoslovak nation instances of the influence of American political principles, and a careful study of the subject would soon produce large results. This is quite natural in the case of a nation which is counted among those having the highest intellectual development in Europe, which has an old political tradition but at the same time has been badly oppressed by the Habsburg régime, and which is a nation sending every year a comparatively large number of emigrants and political refugees to America, a large proportion of whom continue to carry on a lively intercourse with their fatherland and even return in after years to their homes in the old country.