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The construction of a cable car in 1935 by Minister Aleksander Bobkowski halted the proclamation of a Polish National Park in the Tatra Mountains near Zakopane. A press and letter-writing campaign organized by Polish environmentalists, headed by Professor Wladyslaw Szafer and the Tatra Society, subsequently convinced the government to create a park. This debate also concerned the architectural aesthetics of the cable car buildings. The episode sheds light on the development of environmentalism in Poland during the partition era and in interwar Poland, as well as related discussions on the role of technology in modern life and aesthetics. Overall, the episode reveals the existence of two competing views of modern society.

The headline in the 15 August 1937 issue of the Great Falls Tribune proclaimed, "Montana Families Have Their Own Colony in Poland." This colony of eight American families constituted the upper management of the Giesche Mining Company of Katowice, Silesia. Owned by Americans since 1926, the Giesche Company was Poland's largest zinc mining company and one of Poland's largest coal producers. The newspaper article described the beautiful wooded site where the Americans lived, the nearby golf course, the good winter skiing, the numerous Hollywood films available at the local movie house, and the Americans' Polish language lessons.

Two hundred years ago, the Polish government was preparing another biennial meeting of thesejm, their parliament, by organizing a confederation to raise troops to fight with Russia against the Turks. In a startling switch of political alignments, the opposition to King Stanistaw August Poniatowski seized control of the parliament, threw off the Russian alliance, and undertook a major governmental reform that culminated, after the reconciliation of the king with progressive members of the opposition, in the enactment of the Constitution of 3 May 1791. The major import of Polish reform was to increase the size of the ludicrously small Polish army and to regain full independence from supervision by the partition powers, particularly Russia.