FRANCISCO FERRER.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1018, 6 January 1911, Page 2

FRANCISCO FERRER.

: Sir—ln your issue of the 2-Jtli i'nst. your anonymous correspondent, "A Wellington Catholic," makes a frantic attempt to reverse the verdict of. the whole human race, I had almost said, 011 the recent .-execution of Francisco Ferrer, the founder of secular;schools in benighted Spain. That in so doing he also attacks me by name is a-small matter, and I only mention it now as my justification for again appealing to the hospitality of your., columns.- Humanity itself, with the exception of the extreme clerical party, has pronounced that execution a foul murder, without the shadow of. an excuse, and involving the party, responsible for it in undying infamy and opprobium. This is the testimony of Catholic Belgium as well as Protestant England, whilst tlio municipality of Kome has decreed a statn'e at the public expense to the martyred hero, to be erected alongside that of tho noble Giordano Bruno, in full sight of the Vatican itself. It will take "A Wellington Catholic" a long time to exonerate those responsible for a crime which, for many has eclipsed the brightness of the twentieth century, and proved to demonstration that superstition is ever the same —the sworn foe of knowledge, freedom, and truth. My critic brings forward various testimony to blacken the character .of Ferrer, but not a word, not a single word, to prove that lie was privy to the rioting at 'Barcelona, the charge on which he was executed. "A 'Uelluutcii Catholic" reallv appears to thiuk that if he can only prove Ferrer to have professed anarchistic or even atheistic opinions. he lias fully. justified tho execution of the victim. Apparently lie lias never heard of tho principle which holds good in every free country, that the State does not take cognisance of a man's opinions, but only of his actions. There can be no doubt that Ferrer was really put to death for his opinions, and those, too, opinions which, though he had held them in early life, he had long since renounced and tried to get others to renounce. That he was 110 longer an active anarchist or revolutionary is plain from his latest correspondence with his friends—a correspondence which the authorities, contrary to all justice and fairness, suppressed at his trial. How true is all this will appear from the fact that just before the Barcelona outbreak Ferrer was ill England, making himself acquainted with the text-books in use in English schools, and translating them into Spanish, for. use in his own. Amongst these books was F. J. Gould's'"Children's Book of jloral Lessons," hardly. I. think, ths treatise an anarchist would choose for tho furtherance, of liis revolutionary projects. It was whilst engaged in this most beneficent work that the hand of tho priestly tyrant fastened on his throat. My opponent quotes from various foreign newspapers ('To Temps" amongst others); as Ferrer's teachings, sentiments of a most violent and mischievous order, destructive-of the first principles of society, but neither he nor his authorities gives chapter and verse for what tliey affirm; they do not even venture to say that these sentiments are to be found in Ferrer's school books. \Ve have nothing; but the word of tho anonymous French writer that these were Ferrer's sentiments at all, and in view of this fact, I, for one, refuse to believe that such atrocious sentiments are to bo found in any school books, whether Ferrer's or anybody /else's. A man must bo .very simple indeed to condemn an accused person of oucli mero hearsay, and this, especially as. if I mistake not, the French "Lc' Temps" is a priestly organ of a decidedly ultramontane character, such looso partisan testimony as that should not so much as hang a dog. : But' that Ferrer was a martyred patriot awl not a criminal justly condemned is best seen in the fact that the authorities did not dare to put him on his trial before a Civil Court, but delivered him up helpless to the' tender mercies of a court-martial. That, of itself, is quite sufficient to show that .they had determined on his death before putting him on liis trial. Every man has a right to be tried by a Civil Court, before a jury of his own peers, to be defended by a counsel learned in the law and absolutely free to speak and act in 'defence of his client; and, where all this is absent, the verdict of the Court is not worth the paper it is written 011. But-of all these rights Ferrer was deprived. No chance had 110 to challenge liis jurors; his counsel, who was-not a lawyer, was Crown-beaten and cripnled in his defence in every possible way," especially by the authoritative suppression of Ferrer's recent correspondence, which would have proved his innocence. How strong he was in the cousciousncss

of that innocence is seen in the fact that he voluntarily delivered himself up.'" " to tho authorities niter finding (.onecaf-'" ment. His confidence was doubtless duo to the fact that he trusted to the Civil Courts of his country, by one of winch ho had been acquitted, and as 1 have already said, years before when accused • of a similar charge. The GorernmGQk knew this and determines to make suro - of him this time by substituting a military for a Civil Court. It.was a easyof premeditated murder on the part of • the Government. How improbable is the theorv thafc Ferrer was responsible for the'rioting at Barcelona appears from the fact that he was not at this time a resident of that city, but only a visitor, ne had just arrived from' Loudon, having mad© the'jonrney to'se&'a ycung • whom he Jiad a great affection, and who was lying dangerously ill in Barcelona.-. •_ Ileuce his visit had nothing to do with fiolitics, a sphere of action which he had ong since Exchanged for educational work. Nor must it be forgotten that'tho outbreak at Barcelona was apparently quite spontaneous and not premeditated at all, whether by Ferrer or anybody , else; the sudden outbreak of war with ' Morocco was the cause of it all. All this and much more liiay easily bo learned from Joseph M'Cabe's pamphlet entitled "The Martyrdom of Ferrer/', surely a bettor authority anyway than the anonymous utterances of a French partisan newspaper. I have said earlier in my letter that/ Ferrer was put to death for his opin-. ions and not for his actions, yet I am willing to allow that some of his actions . may have had their influence on hia judges,'viz., those by which he founded secular schools in priest-ridden Spain; for knowledge and mental activity are more dreaded than- oven; revolutionary, bombs ' by "the clericalism" of that unhappy • country.—l am. etc., . JOHN GAMMELt." . Seatoun Heights, December 31, 1910.