a Spain's Struggle for Democracy

By MARSHALL J. GAUVIN

Mr. Chairman and Fellow Workers inthe cause
of Spanish Democracy:

At the threshold of my remarks let me thank our Chair-
man, my friend Mr. Stubbs, for his very kindly references
to me.

I have been asked to sketch the background of the pres-
ent tragic conflict in Spain. And let me warn you now that
that background, as I viewit, is so broad, goes back so far
in Spanish history,that I shall be required to cover con-
siderable ground; but I shall paint the picture I intend to
draw before your imaginations with bold strokes rather
than with lighter ones, and shall cover that ground com-
prehensively and in a manner to enable you to understand,
as I feel you cannot understand without a covering of that
background, the various bearings of the present ominous
struggle going on amongst the Spanish people, the struggle
of the Spaniards against what our Chairman has referred
to as “International Fascism.”   d

It is not generally known—-there have been and are in-
terests in the world opposed to allowing the people in gen-
eral to learn——that Spain was for a number of centuries the
home of the finest civilization then existing in the whole
world. I want to tell you something of that great civilization.

The whole of Europe lay buried in that intellectual and
moral tomb we call the Dark Ages. Mankind were slaves
of priests and kings. There appeared no light upon the
horizon of »humanity’s life. Then there occurred something
which was destined vastly to change the life of mankind.
Mohammedanism was born in Arabia. In about a hundred
years the followers of the Arabian prophet conquered a
large part of the eastern world, and built up therelone of

A the greatest civilizations the East has known. A t

Then they turned their at_ten_tion westward, and in the
year 710 A.D. they crossed over into Spain. By the end of
the Eleventh Century these Arabian Moors, a dark, white-

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