In two weeks, the [Polish] National Committee will begin a campaign which will continue throughout the month of May. The purpose of the campaign will be to recruit at least ten thousand new volunteers for the Polish Army in France and to raise at least a million dollars in cash. This is to be a single contribution of American Polonia, a sacrifice of life and goods on the altar of our motherland. Since the money contribution will amount to about twenty-five cents a person or one dollar for every family of four, and further, since the contribution of life and blood, calculated at ten thousand volunteers, is a minimum portion of the four hundred thousand Polish young men here who are not only physically fit but who are not burdened with family obligations, therefore this May contribution to the cause that is holiest to all of us is neither beyond our means nor our power to achieve.

However, in order that American Polonia raise this million dollars and these ten thousand volunteers, it must comprehend perfectly its duties to Poland, to God, and to itself. We will review those duties in simple terms so that they will reach the farthest corners of the land, so that everyone can become acquainted with them, and so that no one will subsequently say that he did not know or that he did not understand.

These are our duties to God:

God created you a Pole. Remain so to death and do not go against his will by changing your nationality.

As for every little bug, God had a definite purpose and set out a definite course for its life; so God created you a Pole in order that you think of Poland, work for Poland, sacrifice your life and property for Poland, as does every honest American for his country, as does every Englishman, Frenchman, Belgian, and Italian. Such is the will of God, and if you attempt to evade it, 3you will die miserably, be spurned, spat upon, and forgotten.

It is by the will of God that you are here in America, that you would not die in vain in the chaos of the terrible war, but that by restoring your strength in America and saving up a little money, you might become, by virtue of this strength and money, the punishing hand of justice and aid in the destruction of an enemy against whom the entire civilized world is struggling. God has destined you for this in guiding your steps to America. Fulfill his will.

You will fulfill it best by enlisting in the Polish Army in France, and if this is not possible, by giving money for the Polish cause according to your means. In this way, you will do your duty to yourself and to your motherland.

What are our duties to ourselves and to our motherland? You must enlist in the Polish Army in France or give according to your means in order that:

1. We may convince the whole world, which will decide our future, that Poland is fighting.

2. We make the Polish Army as large as possible, for its political as well as military significance depends upon this.

3. We win our freedom, not through political charity but by our own efforts and our own blood.

4. Poland, with this to stand on, may not only demand, but receive all of the land that belongs within her boundaries by her national, historical, and geographical rights.

5. By regaining a free, independent, and united Poland with an outlet to the sea, we can take away from our enemies the great wealth of natural resources of Poland which, for a hundred years, the occupying conquerors have been exploiting.

6. We can cease, once and for all, to be wanderers of the world, slaves of conquerors, and become free and independent citizens, enriching ourselves, not others, with the fruits of our own labor as well as with the resources drawn from Polish soil.

7. Our children may have a better life and that they may have the respect of others.

8. Our name may be blessed not damned by our children and our posterity.

9. We may revenge ourselves upon our enemy of a thousand years for his wrongs and for his terrible torture of our children, our brothers, fathers, and mothers during the years of this war.

10. We may wash away the shame of slavery weighing us down and inherited by us.

11. We may fulfill the will of our forefathers who died on the field of battle, and that we may fulfill the duties bequeathed to us by millions of our oppressed ancestors.

12. Poland, becoming an independent nation, may achieve not only her own better future, but may become a bulwark of democracy and the rights of man in the spirit of the motto for which our forefathers died, going to battle under banners inscribed with the words: "For your freedom and ours!"

Such are the reasons why, during the month of May, we must do everything we can to supply at least ten thousand new recruits for the Polish Army in France and to raise at least a million dollars for the Polish cause. These are our great and holy obligations. Remembering them, let us prepare today for that May Campaign, that in all of the Polish communities in the United States, the motto: "Fight, or give" reminds everyone of his duty.