SKIPITIS,
Rapolas (1887-1976), jurist and statesman,
born in Baukai county of Panevezys, on Jan. 31, 1887.
As a high school student in Palanga and Siauliai
(1901-09) and as a law student at the University of
Moscow (1909-14), he took part in the activities of
underground student societies, organized political
conferences, disseminated illegal literature, and
concerned himself with aid to political prisoners.
After the outbreak of World War I he joined in
Lithuanian refugee relief efforts. At the Petrograd
Conference of 1917 he represented the nationalist
liberal party Santara, which he had helped
organize and whoso organ of the same name he
co-edited. On returning to Lithuania he was appointed
justice of the peace in the city of Kaunas early in
1919 before being made prosecutor with the city's
regional court. At the same time he participated in
struggles against the Bermondtists in northern
Lithuania, where he headed a partisan detachment. He
was one of the founders of the paramilitary
organization Sauliu Sajunga, serving as its
president in 1927-28. In 1922 he held the post of
Minister of the Interior. Elected to Parliament In
1923 and 1926, he represented the Peasant Populist
Party on the first occasion; on the second, the
Farmers' Party, whose organ, Ukininko Balsas
(The Farmer's Voice), he edited from 1925-27. He was
one of the initiators and chairman of the Society to
Aid Lithuanians Abroad (established 1931); he
organized the First Lithuanian World Congress at
Kaunas in 1935. From 1932-40 he was a member of the
Lawyers' Council. When the Soviets invaded Lithuania
in 1940, Skipitis withdrew to the West and came to the
United States in 1946. Settling in Chicago, he became
one of the most active local Lithuanian community
organizers. He produced two substantial volumes of
memoirs: Nepriklausoma Lietuva statant
(Building Independent Lithuania, I, 1961; II, 1967;).
He died in Chicago on Feb. 23, 1976.
