29 July 1913 A party is founded here — and it will come backTu vzniká strana — a raz sa sem vráti

Politics arrived with the factories. The first political party organised in Žilina was the Social Democrats, in May 1912. The year after that the Slovak People's Party, which since 1905 had been the Catholic wing of the Slovak National Party, finally constituted itself as a party in its own right — at a conference held in Žilina on 29 July 1913, with the priest Andrej Hlinka as chairman. Žilina stayed one of its strongholds and voted for it in every election; the party was refounded here again on 19 December 1919, in the gymnasium hall of the local grammar school. Keep that in mind when you reach 1938, because it explains why the most consequential meeting in modern Slovak politics happened in this town and not in Bratislava.S továrňami prišla aj politika. Prvou politickou stranou, ktorá sa v Žiline zorganizovala, bola v máji 1912 sociálna demokracia. O rok neskôr sa Slovenská ľudová strana, dovtedy od roku 1905 katolícke krídlo Slovenskej národnej strany, konečne ustanovila ako samostatná strana — na porade v Žiline 29. júla 1913, s kňazom Andrejom Hlinkom na čele. Žilina ostala jednou z jej bášt a volila ju vo všetkých voľbách; strana sa tu 19. decembra 1919 obnovila znova, na zhromaždení v telocvični miestneho reálneho gymnázia. Zapamätajte si to do roku 1938 — vysvetľuje to, prečo sa najosudnejšie rokovanie modernej slovenskej politiky odohralo práve v tomto meste, a nie v Bratislave.