p. 1....The first issue of Juanimas in the English language is a momentous occasion in the history of our people in America. It is the beginning of a new era for the second generation of Lithuanian-Americans- an era of patriotic enlightenment, of closer contact with their nationality, fatherland, their language, and the history and traditions of their nation.

We don't think the Lithuanian language is old-fashioned. We are not ashamed of it. Our goal - reverence for our fatherland, our nationality and our tongue and the application of the reverence to our daily lives - remains the same. We are not losing sight of our goal - we are merely readjusting our point of view toward it. We may as well face facts squarely. However desirable it may be to read only Lithuanian newspapers, and to consistently speak the Lithuanian language among ourselves - we must admit that the odds are too overwhelmingly against us. A one-hundred per cent Lithuanianism will not-can not - save us from complete denationalization - because it is utterly 2impossible for us to practice this pluperfect Lithuanism in America. We are not compromising, or conceding that it is too hard to be a "good Lithuanian" in America. We not only believe that our young people can become better Lithuanians - "good Lithuanians" through the medium of the English language, but are putting that belief into practise by sending forth Jaunimas printed in English into the world.

We, the second generation of Lithuanian-Americans, are facing a problem that is unprecedented in the history of our nation. We can draw no solution for it from our past, because the circumstances surrounding our position and this serious threat of complete" delithuanization" are different from any that have affected our people in the past.

We, the young Lithuanians of America, must find out our own solution for our problem, because it is only we ourselves who can understand the predicament we are in. Most of our elders do not sympathize with the difficulty of our situation, beacause their view-point toward the Lithuanian language is so 3different from ours. The Lithuanian language is an indispensible necessity in their daily lives. They cannot get along without it. It is not so for us. However desirable it may be for us to know well the language of our ancestors, the fact nevertheless remains that it is much more easy for us to express ourselves in English. Not because we prefer it to Lithuanian, not because we are being unpatriotic, but simply because we were born and grew up in America and because our minds have been so thoroughly permeated with the English language that it has become almost a part of our nature. It is human nature to choose the easier way out of a situation. Thus whenever - on a thousand and one occasions it has been a question of using an English or Lithuanian expression, we very naturally drop into English. (We choose to ignore the smug contention of those who insist that by so doing we are being very poor Lithuanians, indeed). Thus, throughout our daily lives, our knowledge of Lithuanian is developing - if at all - under a continual handicap.

Some of us have been more fortunate in this regard. Either our home life has been thoroughly Lithuanian, or we have lived and worked most of our lives in Lithuanian surroundings, or have been able to attend one of our higher 4institutions of learning - in such a way that we have learned our language fairly well and have absorbed enough of the needed Lithuanian spirit through our reading and our contacts to overcome this handicap and to weigh the balance in favor of Lithuanianism. But how few of us live and work in such favorable surroundings, how few - comparatively speaking - attend our Lithuanian elementary school, how few continue to live under a Lithuanian influence after graduating from these schools, and how few have the opportunity to attend our Lithuanian college and academies! Because the great majority of our young people have not had the opportunity to learn the Lithuanian language at least fairly well, they are doubly handicapped.

Our Lithuanian newspapers are the only medium through which they can find out anything about their fatherland and nationality. But because they do not know the language well enough,they cannot read these papers. Being thus isolated from their nationality and being thus deprived of the patriot inspiration and interest in the affairs of their people that follow from continual reading about them, these Lithuanian young people drift farther and farther away from us.

It is the tremendous force of Americanization working against a starved badly-weakened, almost dead Lithuanianism.

It is the desire to revive and to strengthen this dying Lithuanian spirit that has brought about the publication of Jaunimas in English. It is not our aim to destroy or hinder the work and influence of the present Lithuanian agencies. We want to assist in and augment the work that our Lithuanian schools, colleges, academies, newspapers and societies are doing. We can and will reach those Lithuanians who cannot be contracted or influenced by these agencies. "Jaunimas" is not being published by and for any one group of Lithuanian Americans. It is a Lithuanian paper, dedicated to every Lithuanian in this country, and to the proposition that every one of Lithuanian parentage should be proud of that distinction.

For the past fifty years our Lithuanian-Americans have been broken up into groups violently antagonistic to one another. After all these decades of wrangling and dissension among our elders nothing has yet been settled, no agreement has been made. This has worked irreparable harm to our nation.

It is true that the differences of opinion that have separated our people into so 6many groups are even today irreconcilable. But the fact remains that most of the disagreement has been caused, not so much by these differences of thought but more by the personal malice, envy, bigotry and prejudice of the individuals or groups who have been involved.

Individually, we cannot compromise on fundamental principles, but it shall be the policy of "Jaunimas" to avoid the petty bickering and muckraking that has been the most outstanding feature of our Lithuanian newspapers. We extend our land in friendship to you, fellow Lithuanian-Americans in every state and city and hamlet in the country, and we invite your cooperation in this work. Naturally, we expect much opposition and criticism. We will be accused of lack of Lithuanian patriotism, of neglect of our language and for the traditions of our nation, and of many other things. Individually, we do not fear criticism, because we feel secure in the strength and sincerity of our convictions.

Perhaps the greatest opposition we have to face is that of silence - the refusal of our opponents to recognize our existence. In the event of such a conspiracy of silence and if our contemporaries, the Lithuanian-American newspapers, refuse to give 7us a helping hand in publicizing Jaunimas, we shall have to depend on our readers to tell others about us.

We are in no way being unfaithful to the country of our birth in our desire to keep our nationality from becoming completely denationalized. Our first allegiance is and always will be to the United States, both in spirit and in fact. We take great pride in our citizenship, yet one can be at the same time a good American and a Lithuanian.

Recently a prominent American stated that "There is no danger that young Americans of foreign ancestry will become less patriotic, less valuable Americans if they learn the language of their ancestors and become better acquainted with the culture and traditions of their racial stock. Their birth, their environment, their education and everything American will take care of their Americanism. But there is every danger that they will be shallow and hollow Americans if the new does not rest solidly on the old."

These are our sentiments in the matter. Though we have not been addressing you 8in any official capacity, we believe the editors of Jaunimas will concur with us in everything we have written.