While Countess Karolyi was hovering between life and death in a New York hospital, we thought it wise not to press the matter of Count Karolyi's pledge of silence.

But now that the dangerous period of her illness is past, we respectfully ask our government to release Count Karolyi from his pledge of silence.

Count Karolyi was viciously attacked by some of our Hungarian newspapers upon his arrival in this country. [The disposition of] certain sums of money which Count Karolyi collected in the United States in 1914 is arousing resentment and suspicion in various Hungarian districts.

The contributors to that fund are entitled to a reasonable explanation, 2and Count Karolyi is entitled to defend himself against his accusers.

Therefore it is imperative that Count Karolyi should be allowed to speak as freely as anyone in this great democratic land. Due to the refusal of our government to vise his passport on a previous occasion, Count Karolyi has pledged himself to silence on all political matters during his present stay. Otherwise he would not have been able to visit his wife who is seriously ill here. Anyone who knows the feeling of a devoted husband will be able to understand his "voluntary" pledge.

Of course we know the peculiar attitude of our State Department officials is a result of the influence exerted by the official representatives of the Hungarian Government. We admit that the Horthy regime has plenty of valid reasons to muzzle Count Karolyi.

But we respectfully ask since when has the American Government assisted 3the dictatorship of Admiral Horthy in direct violation of one of the greatest principles and noblest traditions of America?

Are we Americans going to give aid and comfort to this most undemocratic government of Hungary, to this terroristic clique of Horthy? Or are we going to maintain this country as an asylum for political refugees and free speech?

While Count Karolyi is of noble birth, he is a true champion of the downtrodden Hungarian people whose ambition is and was, to build a democratic Hungarian republic.

They accuse him of being a "bolshevik." That is malicious propaganda. They accuse him of turning over the country to Bela Kun and the Bolsheviki when he was president. He positively denies it. He claims his name was forged to documents. We want to hear his version of these accusations.

We know he was against the Hapsburg and the Hohenzollern dynasties. He favored the Wilsonian peace terms. We know he sacrificed his comfort, his youth, and his wealth for the cause of the Hungarian people, as only a few people in modern history have done.

If there is any favor to be granted by our Government to either the Horthy regime or Count Karolyi, as a matter of principle our government ought to turn the balance in favor of Count Karolyi. Count Karolyi stands for American ideals and for American principles; the Horthy regime opposes them and the poor Hungarian people suffer in mute despair.

This country welcomed Louis Kossuth most impressively. While here he denounced the tyranny of the Austrian government.

Carl Schurz was never gagged when he assailed the Russian autocracy.

De Valera and his associates spoke from coast to coast against British 5Has our country changed her policy during the present administration to please Admiral Horthy, the dictator of Hungary?

We emphatically protest against such change.

We want Count Karolyi to be released from his pledge of silence.

We want America to remain a land of free speech, and an asylum for the political and religious refugees of the world.

This is the sacred and noble tradition of the United States inherited from the great founders of our Republic.