Vim pauses if echo in .vimrc file

Question

I have a problem with vim. I am using Debian testing and --version gives

VIM - Vi IMproved 7.3 (2010 Aug 15, compiled Dec  1 2011 03:25:24)

In my .vimrc file, if I use the echo statement, it pauses the start of vim with the following statement:

Press ENTER or type command to continue

Then vim will work as usual. It was just an addition:

echo "Hello"

at the bottom of .vimrc

How can I stop this behavior when paused, if at all?

Thanks Narnie

Answer 1

:silent !echo Hello

will do the trick.

~~~
From the OP, this worked:

let colorScheme = "evening"
silent execute "!echo setting color scheme to " . colorScheme