THE FERRER TRIAL.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 17, 26 October 1910, Page 42

THE FERRER TRIAL.

An Account of the Court Martial and Execution of Ferrer, the Spanish

(By

PERCIVAL GIBBON.)

f. 4 recent cablegram from Madrid stated- —“Two thousand coal workers, on the /anniversary of the, execution of Francisco Ferrer, visited his grate at Barce lona. Violent speeches were made blaming the Clericals for the execution, until the police dispersed the croud. The Spanish Premier (Senhor Canalcjas) banned references to Ferrer at meetings arranged in Catalonia to pro est against the death penalty, and to express sympathy with the revolution in Portugal. Ten thousand Socialists celebrated the anniversary of Ferrer’s execution and the f Portuguese Republic. Encounters between the Catholics and Republicans on Bunday necessitated a charge by the Municipal Guard.”]

YTT UK trial of Francisco Ferrer in the ill I Model Prison at Barcelona was a g 1 State function of the highest iml&fy t portance; besides the reporters, l pmy privileged spectators were present i’to witness an end being made of the Ljbovennnent’s enemy. There was a good [deal of competition for a place in court; HFerrer was not known by sight to many [people in Spain, and there Was curiosity ras tQ the personality and appearance, pf [sfiig powerful Revolutionary, the leader If A School of political thought. A colonel nd six captains were appointed to try ini, And a captain of engineers was eputed io conduct his defence, with a, rospecl qf arrest and imprisonment if e went too far on the prisoner's beajf, TJie whole thing was stagcjnanaged like* a drama, and its end was i not legs certaiji and foreseen. t»S They 1 brought Ferrer in and placed i mint at the bar of the court, with a gentry beside him; and the spectators tjusiled and fidgeted to see him close 'jt hand. T’ndei' their curious eyes, the xjoomod man shrank and was uneasy, f’eople saw him with astonishment. Ho Jiad the manner ami all the outward look rtf an elderly clerk or a country schoolmaster, of anything subordinate aiid plodding and uninspired. He was middleaged and of the middle stature, with a i* ound, dull face, and a short, pointed rey beard. There was nothing to disingulsh him frpm thousands of men in Ipafn to-day, in whom the national iharacter of reserve and incuTiousness re exaggerated to a sort of atrophy of lie faculties. He showed no tra?e~ of hat fervency and power that had made Stint the enemy of the Government, and Sustained him through years of war Against bureaucracy and clericalism in Catalonia. It was only when, at some turn in the proceeding*, he looked up

quickly', that people were able to see that the eyes in the patient face were steady and of a peculiar brightness. A military court does not pronounce sentence at the end of the case, and when Ferrer was taken out from court, no word of death had been spoken. Bitt he knew, and the others know, that he went forth doomed, in London and in Paris it was known. There were attempts to influence the Governments of Great Britain and France to .intervene to save him: and the advocates at the

Palace of Justice in Paris signed a protest against the manner in which he had been denied justice and an opportunity to clear himself. In Rome also it was known. The Pope addressed an inquiry to the Papal Nuncio in .Spain as to ■whether his intervention would be taken well,' and the date of Ferrer’s execution was actually advanced in order that the young King might not have to refuse a request from the Vatican. Those who advise the Pope were not blind to the fact that clericalism in Spain can ill afford to make martyrs; the proof of their wisdom is in the uproar that arose from every capital between St. Petersburg and Montevideo in answer to the volley at Montjuich on October 13. There is not lackins' a mass of proof that from the moment he was arrested

leader whose disappearance would chaagw the destinies ol the struggle between the forces of liberalism and their opponents, it would hard been hard to fix upon one. In Catalonia, Ferrer’s native prov, ince, as in the rest of Spain, Anti-clericals ism is more an instinct of the people thag( a matter of polities. A man may 'be gl Republican, a Nationalist, a a Lerrouxista, but he is an Anti-clerieaJ as well. It is not that he is necessarily) hostile to religion, or even to the Church ij it is simply that the religious order'd have become a heavy burden to the community, and their increase in the facel of the law restricting them is making life a difficult matter for thousands of people. Although I was not personally ac-

Ferrer was as good as dead. He was charged with inciting and taking part in the recent riots at Barcelona. His guilt or bis innocence no longer concerns any one. The time to prove him guilty was in his life-time, when he could answer for himself. Six months ago, if one had sought in .Jpain for an outstanding man. for a

quainted with Ferrer, 1 lived for a considerable time at Barcelona while I was studying the growth of the Anarchist movement in Spain, and 1 was able to follow closely the results of his work there. To gain a due to Ferrer's share in Spanish politics, it is necessary to understand the position of the Anti-clericals. The diocese of. Barcelona.", to select one in-

01mm, has * total population of about • million souls. Within this diocese there *te not fewer than five hundred religious (houses —monasteries and convents—and dome six thousand minor institutions ■forming centres of clerical propaganda find influence. It is not known how many monks, nuns, and priests these figures represent; Spanish statistics are incomplete land inaccurate; but they stand, at any grate, tor a very large body of people—individually poor but collectively controlling enormous wealth—who have no share in the life of the community and the duties of the citizen. ■lf this were all, it would yet be a burden to Spain's most enterprising and ■prosperous province; but the matter goes further. The. orders engage in business. They have special advantages in the way of securing labour and custom, and they are exempt from all taxes. They manufacture liqueurs, chocolates, candy, and linen; they work farms; they undertake printing and laundry work: and they pre able to do all this on terms with which the'layman cannot compete. They Control the schools of Spain, and in polities -their influence is paramount. There is a general belief throughout the couijtry that the Queen Mother, the mofS unpopular figure in Spain, is the tool of the Jesuits. Whether this be true or not the effect is the same; clerical influence and clerical wealth shut off all hope

of reform and progress; and thus it is that in Barcelona all disorders begin with the burning of a convent. There is a story of a newly-appointed Governor whose first report from his district began: “The convents are still being burned quite regularly.” It was to this warfare 'between the people and the orders that Francisco Ferrer belonged. . He was the son of a Cooper ».t Alella, a small town about ten

miles from Barcelona, when he was born in 1863. Thus he belonged, as by inheritance and birthright, to the paramount cause in Catalonia. He had little education, save such as a poor ‘boy was able to gain in the Church schools under a system that still leaves seventy-five per cent of the people of Spain illiterate; but he had an aptitude for study and read largely. The corrupt and decadent Spain of toda.y has- lost its old artistic and literary traditions, but there is still a curious subterranean culture to be found, which is tracealde directly to Anarchism. The

Anarchist teachers who leavened Spain in the sixties and seventies of. last century brought with them the new philosophy of democracy. The idea of Marx, Bakunin the Russian, and John Stuart Mill gained currency and acceptance, and these and 'others were accessible to Ferrer. He grew up, in the faith they inculcated, a Republican, an Anticlerical, and a philosophical Anarchislr—that is to say, accepting the principles of Anarchism as an academical proposition, but witholding himself from their active conclusions. The universities of Europe are full of Anarchists in the same sense; it is the common resource and refuge of political idealists. But he made no history. He had sufficient dislike for monarchy to leave Spain after the brief experiment of the Spanish Republic. He went to Paris, where he found companionship among others of the same way of thinking as himself, and secured employment as a teacher of Spanish. He was never an imposing figure. He was a man of the lower

without grace of manner, geniality, or wit, and his appearance almost constituted a claim to be overlooked. But none the lees, this awkward, silent Spaniard had something within him that attracted to him the confidence and devotion of women. The record of his life has several instances of women inspired to be his followers and helpers. While he lay in prison, one, Senora Villafranca, the most faithfbl of his followers, was exhausting every resource to' secure his reprieve in Madrid. In Paris there was another, named Mlle.Meunier. Little is known of her, save that she was a very

old woman who believed in Ferrer, and when she died she left him half a million dollars with which to forward his cause in Spain. Lt made him, for Spain, a very rich man; it put into his hands such as no other leader had commanded. -From that time Ferrer began to bo recognised as a formidable figure in Spanish affairs. He opened his campaign by founding in Barcelona his -Escueia Moderna, the only secular school in Spain. Here a child received sound teaching in conventional subjects, and was also trained along the peculiar lines of Ferrer’s beliefs. He described the object of the school in those words: “To make children reflect upon the lies of religion, of government," of patriotism, of justice, of politics, and of militarism; and to prepare their minds for the social revolution.” Apart from his latter purpose, the school served a great national need, and its success was immediate. Branches

were established la dther parte of and it has already, in something lee* {han eight year*, turned out about four boneand pupils, well equipped to hold their own in illiterate and ignorant fSpain. Also, it carried out its founder's iutention that it should be a blow at clericalism, and its power was fully r?J cognised by the Government when, in 1006, an opportunity arose td attack Ferrer. Among the mon whom Ferrer had appointed to assist in the conduct or th# feccuela Moderna was Mateo Morales, af accomplished linguist, who Was given the

post of libr.irian. He, too. was an Anarchist, but not of the philosophical and theoretical kind to which Ferrer belong; cd. He was the man who threw thi bomb at King Alphonso and his bride OR the day of their wedding. On June 4. 1906, Ferrer was arrested for complicity in this outrage, apparently for no other reason than that he had ‘known Morales well. Not a shred of evidence could be adduced against him); there was not even enough to bring ■him to trial. In fact, the case was so utterly feeble that the Judge of First Instance agreed to liberate him on bail, adding that no cause had been shown why Ferrer should be either tried oj; detained in prison. But Ferrer was not liberated. The Fiscal intervened to prevent it—his authority was higher than that of the Judge. “You will not be allowed bail," lie told ■Ferrer, “even if the Judge has permitted it. because 1 will stop it.” So Ferrer went back to jail, and remained there without trial for a full year. At the end of that time a trial iwas arranged. Ordinarily he should have been brought before the Court of Assize, but there were reasons why' t|ie normal course of justice should not ba pursued, and therefore a special court was established to try’ him, without fl jury. No means were neglected to secure the judicial murder of the only rich man among the Anti-clericals, and yet the attempt failed. Kvidence was offered on two points. It was shown, in the first place, that Anarchists had paid visits to Ferrer. This was not denied. In (Tip second place, there was an attempt to demonstrate that, since Morales was (l poor man and Ferrer a rich one, therefore Ferrer must have supplied Morales with money to hire rooms in Madrid and make the attempt on the King’s life. Ferrer’s counsel wished to call M. Henri Rochefort on his behalf—he would •have been a powerful witness for th<j defence but the court answered thia with a refusal to hear foreign witnesses. This, however, could not silence Rochefort in the newspapers, and he published a letter from Morales to a Russian Revolutionary in which ho said: “I have no faith in Ferrer, Tarridp, and Lorenzo, and all the simpleminded folk who think you can do anything with speeches." The case was absurd from beginning to end. Evon a specially constituted court found itself unable to convict on such evidence, ami Ferrer was acquit led.

The Gvvernmcut and the orders had lost the first round of the light. But they bad gained experience which served them well when Ferrer again fell into their hands. This time they improved on even a special court and no jury: they abolished witnesses and 'limited the discrel ion of the man they themselves nomifeated to conduct the defence. The first trial took place three years •go, and ever after Ferrer was a marked hu.ii, lie knew his danger and walked carefully. He conducted the increasing work of his schools, attended a Labour Federation in Paris, aud visited London. When, in 11)09, Barcelona flamed into open revolt, he was nowhere to be found, jt is not quite clear why he should have been looked for in connection with the disorder. Violence, dynamite, and barriiades are as native to Barcelona as steel to Pittsburg. But the police had orders from Madrid to lay hands on Ferrer, 'and he promptly went into hiding. The city was under martial law, and it was no time for Ferrer, of all people, io risk a t rial. The police effected his capture without jnnih difficulty. Among their prisoners was a woman who was known to be n friend of Ferrer, and she was released, In the ho-pe that she might be followed to his hiding-place. She managed to evade the detectives; but she reappeared Jn a day or two and tried to cash a draft io Ferrer at the Bank of Barcelona. It was pointed out to her that the draft must bear an authorisation from Fer’er to pay the money to her. Next day she was back with the necesftniy signature. It was clear that Ferrer yas mar at hand. The police lines drew loser, and it was soon discovered that ho was lodging with the Mayor of rn adjoining suburb. The police descerded on the house at night, but Ferrer had received notice and had escaped. Jfe was recognised at Alella, his birthplace. arrested, ami conveyed in a cart to Barcelona, on September 1. Senor Ugarte, the Public Prosecutor, announccd forthwith that he considered Ferrer t<> have been the leading spirit in the Outrage of July. Then began Ferrer’s second trial, the wretched farce that roused the lawyers of Paris to protest against the procedure. A preliminary examination was held by ft Judge of First Instance—one, that is to say, who has power only to examine, •nd cannot decide br sentence. A search yas made of the prisoner’s house, and • document was produced that was said to have been discovered there. It was • proclamation, and the authorities alleged that Ferrer was its author. It said: ‘AVe are all agreed upon a revolution. All Revolutionaries must devote them-

selves to the cause, but we need to have three hundred comrades ready, as we are to risk their necks at Madrid to begin our movement. We await a favourable opportunity, such as after a general strike or on the eve of Labour Day [May IJ.” The proclamation went on to discuss the killing of high personages and the destruction of public buildings. It wae also alleged that other documents were found, in which Ferrer gave instructions to hie comrades for the use of cipher codes, and asked for particulars as to

their stores of arms, money, and dynamite. In fact, none of the romantie paraphernalia of the stage Anarchist was lacking. In the light of such documents, Ferrer stood revaled as a bloodthirsty plotter 1 of the most deadly kind, a kind far more complete and more deadly than the history of Anarchism has ever revealed. But there was an answer to all this. Some of the documents produced had figured in the Madrid trial in 1906, and had been disposed of; they required no further answer. As to the others, Fer-

rer denied that they had been in M, possession, and reminded the judge thak it had more than onee been proved that the polite had placed documents in tf prisoner’s house for the purpose of discovering them there afterward. ll® wished to call witnesses to prove hi, manner of life, his concern with th, echools to the exclusion of all else, hi, freedom from all complicity in th® troubles of July. But this was impossible. Most of his witnesses were at* ready in exile, driven there either bjt the danger of life in Barcelona or by the action of the authorities. He do* nied that he had been present in Barcelona during the revolt, but there wer, the same difficulties in the way of substantiating his word. Against him appeared seventy wit) nesses, not half of whose number had anything to say that could be held t® aid towards a conviction. They swor, blithely that they considered Senor Ferrer to be implicated; that their opinion was the general one; that he was a man whose principles made such mat* ters natural to him. This, in fact, waff the evidence of several, and others had testimony of equal relevance. As the case proceeded, Ferrer seemed to lose interest In it. No doubt he re) cognised that the trial was no more thaij a form, a preliminary prescribed by eti« quette to precede the sentence of death, At the beginning he had watched evefitS shrewdly, and from time to time haq, spoken briskly and incisively; but long before the last of the seventy witnesses had been heard he had given himself up to thought. Everything was carried out according to arrangement. Ferrer was committed to take his trial before a court martial, and Captain Galceran, of the Regiment) of Engineers, one of the corps d’elite qj the Spanish Army, was appointed couqr sei for the defence. This is a post of 11$ ordinary difficulty, for in sueh a ease the officer must reconcile his duty to hi, cuent with a convention as to thf lengths an officer of the army may go in defending a man accused of a mill* taiy crime; and it has often happened that an officer acting as counsel has subsequently been punished for his over-en-thusiastic advocacy. In this case Captain Galceran seem, to have acted fearlessly and conscientiously. No witnesses were called, and the proceedings were confined to speeches. Captain Galceran charged th® prosecution .. with burking the trialMany witnesses for Senor Ferrer had Jtgcn refused • a hearing on the ground

that the time limit had expired; only hostile evidence had been admitted, and statements had been received -from per ; sone not qualified to offer testimony; even anonymous denunciations had been suffered to have weight. Ferrer himself spoke, but briefly, and the trial was over. No one was in doubt as to the result. It is said—-with what truth I cannot say—that King Alphonso was willing to reprieve Ferrer, lie was inundated with petitions for mercy. One was from Senorita Paz Ferrer, the condemned man’s daughter in Paris; and there were others from nearly every country in Europe. The report adds that an interview with that object took plate between the King and Senor Maura, the Prime Minister. In such an event the King’s purpose can only have been frustrated by Senor Maura. A death sentence, once confirmed by the Cabinet, cannot be revised by the King. This is quoted in support of the charge that Ferre.r owed his death directly to Maura. On the evening of October 12 the Cabinet met and ratified the sentence. Ferrer, who had been removed to the fortress prison of Montjuich, was informed the. same night that he was to die next morning. The sentence of the court martial was contained in a long and prolix document, and it took threequarters of an hour to read it to him. His calm as he listened impressed everybody present. One knows that passive, half-melancholy Spanish calm more than Oriental in its strength. There were priests to attend him. He had been placed en capilia in the little chapel in which a condemned man is made to await the hour of execution. But Ferrer would have none of them. All his life he had seen his country suffer under unworthy priests; and at the end of it he would not turn from his hostility. “Leave me to die in peace,” he said to them. “I have my ideas, and-1 am as firm in my convictions as you are in yours.” He spent the night in writing his will. He disposed of his property in a few legacies: one to his faithful friend, Senora Villafranca, with which to carry on his work; another to provision for his father; and the rest between his children. To them he addressed a request that they would not claim their legacies, but would allow them to go to the upkeep of his schools. He neither ate, drank, nor slept all night. At nine o’clock in the morning of October 13 they took him forth to be shot in one of the ditches of the fortifications, consecrated to its grim use by many executions. On the hillside at a little distance were groups of spectators from the city; the troops would not allow them to come nearer. He still preserved his indomitable calm. In that hour his every-day and commonplace aspect must have worn a look of greatness. Two friars would have accompanied him, but he sent them back, and thus he came to the foot of the rampart sloping steeply up against the sky, against which it is the custom to shoot men. Ordinarily a man faces the rampart and is shot from behind; but Ferrer begged that he might see his death. “It is not allowed,” he was answered. ■ “A traitor must either turn his back or be blind-folded.” It was the latter alternative that he selected, and a handkerchief was bound over his eyes. There were only four men in the firing party, soldiers from the garrison chosen by the drawing of lots. The officers and guards stood away from him, the signal was given, and the’volley rang out. Ferrer gave a loud cry and fell forward. It was.over. The Government and the orders had won the second round of the game. The dice were loaded, it is true; the game was not honest; but they won. And what remains? There remains at least the Escuelu Moderna which Ferrer founded, and money to carry it on In less than eight years its branches have spread from Barcelona over all Spain; and though Ferrer absent, the very momentum of its own success will carry it on. It is the most powerful force against Clericalism, and it will not become less formidable as time passes. And there remains, further—what was lacking before —proof, plain to people of all classes and all grades of intelligence, of the evil influence of the orders of the Government of Spain.

France was obliged to expel the orders before the separation of Church and State could be brought about, and did so on provocation not to be compared with that of Spain. It is not merely a name, to be potent as a rallying cry on barricades when Barcelona raves in her periodic fevers, that Ferrer leaves behind him: it is a vital fact of official cruelty, dishonesty, and malice, to which there can be no answer but reform from tho root up. Since Ferrer died, Senor Maura's Government has fallen. Possibly there is a meaning in this change. Since the death of Ferrer was the issue on which the Government fell, the change may presage reforms. But Spain is used to government by spoliation; to parties that succeed one another in power by mutual arrangement; and hopes are not strong. The real hope is still in Ferrer. The world’s voice denounced the system that slaughtered him; his death is the chief count in the indictment against Clericalism and Bureaucracy. Not even his own Escuela Moderna could show Spain to the young generation of Spaniards in a harsher light than the tragic farce of his two trials, his condemnation and death. Meanwhile, the officer who acted for him is to be brought before a courtmartial for playing too well his part as counsel for the defence.

.THE KING’S COURT Royal Chamberlain ft Admiral of the King’s YacSF q. Keeper of the Golf galls x \ Chancellor of the Campaign Fund I ff. Lord High Interpreter of the Law & Superintendent of Senators i'p. .Official Horn Blower and Subsidiser of the Pres® , Keeper of the King's Conscience ■ 9> Presser of the Royal Pants to. Favored College President It. Major Domo . ta Chorus Girl in Waiting, tj. Chauffeur Extraordinary 14. Chauffeur in Ordinary " Is. Pmamt of Foreign Titles for the King's Paughttf,. i&. Knight of the Order of Graft r i?. Coupon Cutter in Ordinary' ,l& First Groom of the Garage ' tj. Poet Laureate 00, Grand Carver of the King's Meat PI. Defender of the Holy Tariff 4 ’ ■4A Court Painter 13. Knight of the Holy Order el Special Privileggj Ju buigrouni: Tkt frivatt tuiHtio—syeoi'haitig fHobs and hangers-O* who need the money