And it is interesting to note here that today throughout the whole world efforts are being made by the Catholic :Church and its supporters, and others, to make it appear that violence in Spanish politics is a new thing and that the violence resulting from the conflictin Spain today is all on the side of those denounced as “Communists.” Now, that representation is wholly untrue. The facts of Spain’s his- tory show with overwhelming conclusiveness that in the past it has always been the Conservative side, led by the Church, that has practiced most outrageous cruelties, and that today the leaders in the atrocities are those represent- ing the rebel side.

We come to the present century. The Church, knowing that an educated Spain would not be a Catholic Spain, look- ed with sullen hatred upon every effort made to educate the Spanish people. The outstanding instance showing the lengths to which the Church was willing to go to keep the Spanish people in intellectual darkness occurred in the case of Francisco Ferrer. A

In the year 1909, Francisco Ferrer, a high-minded So-

cialist and Freethinker, a founder and builder of schools, a publisher of educational books, Spain’s foremost exponent and champion of scientific education for the common people, was ‘charged with being the leader of a rebellion. The re- bellion was a demonstration among the workers of Barce- lona against the calling out of Spanish reservists for the unpopular war in Morocco. Francisco Ferrer, as was con- clusively proved afterward, had absolutely nothing to do with the riots. Ferrer was a man of education, believing, as he put it, that that which was won by violence today would be lost by violence tomorrow. He believed in the slower method of education. So he spent his energies and his income in the effort to educate the Spanish people.

i There was no evidence, absolutely no evidence of any kind, against Ferrer. That was known. But the students from his schools were turning away from the priests, and for that reason the Church leaders determined to destroy him. The Archbishop of Barcelona was the first to move against Ferrer. The Catholic press and prelates ‘insisted that he be condemned. The whole intellectual world rang with protests» uttered at mass meetings and singly by lead- ing thinkers in different countries against what had every appearance of a frame-up designed deliberately to destroy a high-minded educator, and for no other reason than that he was educating Spanish youth. After the veriest mockery of a trial, Ferrer was convicted, and in less than ninety-six

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