The building of the new State and its army was also being undertaken
with great fervour in America, New Zealand and Australia. North
America contained about 100,000 Orthodox Serbs, 200,000 Catholic
Slovenes and 400,000 Catholic Croats; South America had some 50,000
Yugoslavs, chiefly Catholic Dalmatians; while the 8000-10,000 in
Australasia were mostly of that origin. Two kinds of Southern Slav
newspapers were being printed in North America, namely those which the
Austrian Ambassador supported, and those which were national. The
chief argument of the former species was the Treaty of London, which,
as the editors pointed out, gave up a large part of Dalmatia to the
Italians. Two of these editors, by the way, were imprisoned for other
reasons by the authorities. They had constantly threatened the
terrible punishment that Austria would inflict on those who had worked
against the Fatherland--many of the Southern Slavs, like the
Roumanians, Czechs, Ruthenians and Magyars, were employed in munition
factories, and the Austrian Embassy, in concert with the German, hoped
to see them on the land. After a time the Yugoslavs took an office in
Washington and attacked this propaganda, their example being followed
by the Czechs and the Poles. When the United States entered the War
these Austrophil papers no longer wrote in favour of Austria, but
confined themselves to animadversions against the Serbian leaders,
suggesting likewise that Croatia and Slovenia should be
independent.... The patriotic Yugoslav papers--three dailies in New
York, three in Chicago, and over twenty weekly organs--were not
subsidized by the Yugoslav Committee in London or by the Government in
Corfu; and some of the editors did not display a very prosperous
appearance. But the poor Yugoslav workers contributed 20 million
dollars to the first three Liberty loans, and when the National
Council at Pittsburg in November 1916 united the different charitable,
gymnastic and political associations, a call was made for volunteers.
Between 25,000-30,000 men joined the United States army, a good many
joined the Canadian contingents, and about 10,000 sailed for Salonica.
The Yugoslavs in South America were in different circumstances: the
Dalmatian temperament being nearer to the Spanish they found it easier
to make their way; besides which, those who went to South America were
on the average more advanced than those who preferred the North. In
Chili, the Argentine and Bolivia the Yugoslavs are often very
prosperous merchants and shipowners. They organized the Yugoslav
National Defence and found all the funds for the Yugoslav organization
in London. From New Zealand, where there is a Yugoslav paper called
_Zora_ (the _Dawn_), about 300 volunteers sailed to the Dardanelles,
and others, when the Salonica base was established, joined their
compatriots in that port.