THE BARCELONA RIOTS

New Zealand Tablet, 30 June 1910, Page 1010

THE BARCELONA RIOTS

HOW FERRER WAS TRIED (Concluded from last week.) 111. . I have been asked whether Ferrer's previous character and teachings may not have had something to do with his condemnation. This question cannot bo answered by anyone outside of Spain, for certainly he had not kept himself in anywise aloof from the events which counted against him. For instance, there were- some six revolutionary events before the July riots; he . was on hand at the time of every one of them. It may have been a coincidence, bat it was a coincidence that had- a sinister aspect. Take the bomb explosion of May 31, 1906, when the King and his fair young bride • narrowly escaped instant death on the Calle Mayor, Madrid. The man who threw that bomb, which killed ten persons, and who was executed for it, was Mateo Morral, a - professor in La Escuela Moderna, placed in that position in Madrid by Ferrer. Ferrer at that time was on hand in Madrid, was living in the same block with Morral, and was visited from time to time by him and various noted Anarchists. Ferrer was arrested along with many others, and was kept for eight months in the Model Prison in, Madrid, but while many circumstances pointing that way were brought out, no evidence directly connecting him with the bomb-throwing - was discovered, and so he was acquitted. It is absolutely untrue that there was a special court organised to try him on that occasion. But these questionable facts and circumstances may have weighed against him when came to a question of clemency. _ . Ferrer was not a man of education. , He was the founder of:a school,, but never wrote a book. His writings in correspondence and versos do not exhibit any reason,

but rather follow their passions. Of his life I -need say little. He was born in Alella, in the province of Barcelona, and became a railway brakeman, and then conductor, had some trouble in smuggling on the French frontier, and then went to Paris, where he fell in with the Anarchist school and imbibed their doctrines. He quarrelled with bis wife, deserted her, and afterwards' obtained a separation, and left her to take care of his three children. All were disinherited in the will, which he made at Montjuich, just before his death, and his fortune was left to Soledad Villaf ranca, his mistress, who was younger than his eldest daughter. He died a comparatively rich man, for he obtained from Mile. Ernestine Meunier, an old lady of Paris, money to found children's asylums in Barcelona, which were to be operated under Catholic auspices as religious institutions. He even gave her a statue of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, in token of how he was carrying them on. At her death, she left him property in Paris, upon which he realised over a million francs. She died a Catholic, putting that very expression into her will, and left legacies for Masses for her soul. After her death he changed his asylums into La Escuela Moderna, the Modern School, a name which he took over bodily from a greater man, the historian, Don Rafael Altamira y Crevea, one of the foremost professors of the University of Oviedo, who had used it for many years and had used it in a religious sense. After the bomb-throwing episode of 1906, the various branches of La Esceula Moderna were closed and a new name, La Escuela de'la Gasa del Pueblo, was adopted for it. A book-selling and journalistic venture was also added to it. Books from the French and new books written in Spanish, in which all mention of God or country was omitted, were compiled. As a rule, these books are inferior to the text books used in the Catholic and Government schools, and a comparison of the two sets of books upon any subject will demonstrate that. His chief instructor for the girls' schools was Mme. Clementine Jacquinet. _ She was a French Anarchist, who kept a school at Sakha in. Egypt for several years. This school was closed by the British authorities, and Mme. Jacquinet banished from Egypt on account of its Anarchist character. She describes herself as 'an Atheist, scientific materialist, and anti-religious, because religion, dividing men, constitutes the real obstacle to progress, an Anti-Militarist and Anarchist.' She had. a large hand in preparing the school books for La Escuela Moderna. A glance at' some of the teachings of the text books of La Escuela Moderna, intended for the minds of tender young children, would show them a little too advanced for use in the United States. In the. Third Reader, known as 'Patriotism and Colonisation,' we read (page 12): ' Drop the soldiers' musket as though it were hot iron! For. this refusal (to drill) you will be treated as rebels, as cowards, and as lacking in noble sentiments. But what of that? Do not shoulder the musket! If they point out to you that an enemy is invading the country, why. let him invade! Even if they show you that he is tearing down the throne or the presidential chair I What do you care for those trifles?' ■ On page 15:. Don't get excited for the sake of the flag! It is nothing but three yards of cloth stuck on a pole!' On page 33: 'One's country is not made up by territorial boundaries nor by the citizens who dwell therein; no, they are mere despots who exploit those ideas.' One page 80: 'The words "country," "flag," and " family do not excite in me more than hypocritical echoes of wind and sound.' '

On page 84, and following: When I think of the evils I have seen and suffered, which proceed from national hatreds, I recognise that they all rest upon a gross lie, the love of one's country.' ' The flag is but the symbol of tyranny and misery.' ' Industry and commerce are the names by which they (merchants) cover up their robberies.' Marriage is prostitution sanctified by the Church and protected by the State.' The family is one of the principal obstacles to the enlightenment of men.' -; In the Bulletin of the Modem School (vol. V., No. I,' page 5 (1908), an article reads Religion has retarded the evolution of man, has prolonged his primitive weakness, has made him retrograde to his ancestral brutishness, has cultivated and augmented the terrors arising from ignorance of phenomena, the miseries which those suffer who do not know how to modify natural effects to their advantage, and the injuries which, are the results of general incapacity and of various obsessions; and finally it has been wonderfully united with brute force to assist the material and moral authority of the violent and the astute as the oppressors of the great mass of humanity.' , And on page 6 following, in speaking of the separation of Church and State, it adds : ' Separate two authorities equally hateful! It is imperative to suppress both of them!' ■".' -.; - - ; . ' ' In the Compendium of Universal History, written by Mme. Clementine Jacquinet, we find the following gems: On page 37 : 'lt is believed that Jesus Christ was a Buddhist monk, who came from Mount Carmel, and who ■devoted himself to preaching the religion of Buddha to the .Jews,' -..-'•' '■■..■'"''' " - On. page 40: Would not God have, done better to have begun by making man as he desired him to be? Can

d?sezmt?%ht a J &theT communicating to his son a terrible disease tor the pleasure of curing it ..afterwards and thpn % reaft er as ; his benefactor^ d ThTs trod of the Christians is a wicked God, which every honest conscience ought to reject; or, if not,'he h a useless one dSsT t 0 Pr6Vent evil or to,-assure the good S one

nn , on + pa 6 . 4 J. 'We desire to observe here that the only act of 3 i UStlC^ accomplished by this God was to let himself killed as the author of all the evils which men +T, a ? n / age 42, ?P ea %g of "the. crucifixion: What does the deed represent? Why the part of a low-minded am wisdom/ 61 " 8011 ' infatuated with the. very idea of S own onnv?? page V 6: 'We will , always see Christianity in the Struct S lS.' faCe to face with progress in order to oanS ft r S J path; With a negation of science benZJlT^" 9 • gma i su PP° rtin S firmly absolutism, inequality of the social classes: as an oppressor of the witTa SSST? m - ltS * of false morality! with a hateful flag in whose shadow every crime has been v T pir V hvays thirstin S for blood to whom millions of victims have been sacrificed!' wfi+St, w or ? c ca " a * Mre i a . nd the Social Problem, written by Enrique s Llu^l 1 a '• used. in the advanced schools the work (Page ?) ex P lai » s thG design and tendency of

n + * At ft end ■*? two .generations in which' catechism Ijs not taught and - rt , is scientifically explained that what s called creation is but the uncreated existence of the nnC verse, only the atavistic effects of , a . religious belief will 35??;. WIU be left en Dnly its annihilation, and when its atrophy commences its annihilation will be rapid. or this purpose the Modern School of Barcelona has been work' ' aiT an freo Schools create d to extend the

mil ,S extracts from .the various text books might be multiplied to show the animus of the authors, and stabs a hi ßl -? 6 erks at Christianity and Christian civilisation S°nl a r ft r -°.V gh fWi serve that it is not against the Catholic faith or belief, as such, that these are directed; p\^f aga -I lSt - all . religion and religious ideas and against Christianity in the Targe as the foremost one, that the SSf- ° f A IS re^ arka series of text books and the teaching. of the modern school was directed b^ • : Thei constitution of Spain (Article 13, Section 1) guarSR*SSI. %?&A of free speech and free - press,, an! although the Modern School, -in its various branches, . was founded at Barcelona in 1902, and since in other cities the teachers and writers of it have never been molested or called before any tribunal for their speeches or. writings—more, in the city of Barcelona they have even made application to a Catholic City Council for a portion of the public funds for the support of their schools, and the application was anted, + fror eight years, therefore, Ferrer taught what he wanted in his schools, and no one interfered with him Only he and Morral and some militant teachers in the Modern Schools who were in riots arson, and slaughter were ever taken before the courts and tried. There are plenty of the teachers in La Escuela Moderna who have never been molested, notwithstanding the bloodshed of the Barcelona riots; although even here such occurrences would be likely to turn strongly to their disadvantage. ~ The movement has turned strongly now to the foundation of anti-Anarchistic schools in Barcelona, and the month ot December, last saw a great outpouring of teachers, professors, and others in the Educational Congress held there I? the -f, alace of Fme Arts the week after Christinas, and the building and equipment of newer and finer schools to take the place of those destroyed by the rioters were unanimously and enthusiastically undertaken.