Thirty Days in
LITHUANIA
in 1919
By REV. PETER P. SAURUSAITIS
Being an Account of Personal Experiences and
Observations Encountered in a Trip extending
from August 30, 1919, to February 16, 1920
Printed by Call Printing Company
EAST ST. LOUIS, ILLINOIS
1920
Exodium for All Americans
I hope the American people will be interested with the information Ihave just brought from my native country. I am writing the story of mytrip to Lithuania and return at the suggestion of some of my fellowcitizens, to whom I have narrated some ideas of it, in which they tookmuch interest as instructive information for anyone who prepares for atrip to any part of the world. As this country is composed of citizensand patriots of all nationalities, so every citizen may get attractionto visit his native land; and even those who are born in this countryare sometimes tempted to visit the country of their fathers andforefathers.
Exodium for Waterbury, Conn., Citizens Only.
My Dear Friends and Fellow Citizens:
I am glad to be with you again. Why am I glad? Because of the thirty-sixyears since I came to America, most of the time I have spent inWaterbury. Here I have lived for twenty-one years. Because in WaterburyI had time enough to make many friends, and if I did not do so, it is myown fault. In a word, in Waterbury my adopted citizenship must haverooted much deeper than in the other parts of the United States in whichI have lived for a much shorter time.
What I Saw in Lithuania
No matter how zealous patriots we may become in our adopted country, weshould not forget altogether our native country. As I did not venture tovisit Lithuania under the czar in 1910, when I was visiting other partsof Europe, I had a great desire to see my native land after the horriblewar. Anyone would be anxious to visit his native country afterthirty-six years' absence.
It was not an easy task for me to get a passport, as the United Statesgovernment objected to letting me cross Germany. There being no Americanconsul to Germany, our government would not take the responsibility ofprotecting me in that country. To avoid crossing Germany I was advisedto ask for a passport through Denmark, Switzerland and Libow, which Idid. But the consul at Denmark refused to put the visa on my passportunless I would send a cable to Denmark and get the consent of thegovernment. I went to Washington to see the ambassador of Denmarkpersonally, and he told me the same as the consul in New York. I then[Pg 6]went to the State Department asking to have a change made in mypassport which would permit me to go through France. This the StateDepartment refused to do. Finally I went to Mr. Walsh, the Senator fromMassachusetts, who sent his secretary with me to the State Department,and the change was made immediately. I then went to the Frenchambassador who put his visa on my passport, and I was ready to go by wayof France. It took me about two months to get the passport.
On August 30th, 1919, I embarked from New York, West Fourteenth Street,on the ship Transatlantique La Lorraine, to Havre, France. The secondnight of my