To the Honorable Editor:-

For Bohemians in America there is nothing of greater importance than the establishment of an orphanage. Therefore, I take the privilege to make the following suggestions:

(1) That there may be a committee appointed as soon as possible, in Chicago, for the purpose of building and maintaining a Czecho-Slovak Orphanage.

(2) This central committee will invite by circulars and by means of the various papers, all Bohemian-American Lodges and Societies, as well as individuals, to institute collections or themselves make donations.

So that there may be a beginning to the collection of funds, my wife and I will give fifty dollars for the establishment of a Czecho-Slovak Orphanage in America. This money, I will forward as soon as I find out that a committee has met and where the money should be sent.

Respectfully,

London, March 7, 1881

Josef Bartos.

We are almost ashamed to admit, that we are, we American-Bohemians, in our national interests, so careless and slow in a work of such usefulness. For over two years we have been writing, speaking and debating about this very important matter of a Bohemian Orphanage and not one cent, not one workable resolution, not one person has come forward to form a committee to investigate how best to accomplish the purpose, and now we must receive the first $50.00 from a countryman in London, who has not seen America, and does not know us except for what he is able to read about us in the Daily Newspapers.

With this $50.00 the first decisive step is taken and our national Lodges would be traitors in accordance to their laws, to their own members if they allowed this offer to pass by and allowed the matter of providing for an Orphanage to lay dormant for several more years.

Thus far we have in America one orphanage,--The Bohemian-Polish Catholic Orphanage; it was founded by the Catholics and is supported through annual contributions.

Let us stop talking and arguing and go to work. Let us not argue about individual ideas as to how and what would be the best thing to do first, but let us have a committee elected, which will receive all suggestions and will then proceed to pick out those most suitable to the purpose.

The time for work has arrived, our nationality is calling and whoever is a true son, let him accept his share of this beneficent work.