 Between 1913 and 1914, he was the president of the Christian Social Association ("Krščansko-socialna zveza") in Gorizia and Gradisca, and between 1917 and 1919 he was a personal secretary of the chairman of the Slovene People's Party, Anton Korošec.After World War One, he returned to Gorizia, and soon became one of the main figures of Slovene and Croat political Catholicism in the Julian March, an administrative region formed out of the former Austro-Hungarian Adriatic provinces annexed to Italy.In 1919, he became chief editor of the Slovene daily newspaper "Edinost" (Unity) of Trieste, and in 1921 he was elected to the Provincial Assembly of the Province of Gorizia.