r COJq. / Uos h fi* _ The Sj^n'isiri War.. The Spanish War and Lying Propaganda By JOSEPH B. CODE Sc.Hist.D. (Louvain), F.R.Hist.S. of the DEPARTMENT OP HISTORY CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY Washington, D. Ç. THE PAULIST PRESS * 401 West 59th Street • New York, N. Y. WHEN YOU READ THIS PLEASE KEEP IT IN C I R C U L A T I O N TO THE HEROES OF SPAIN DEAD AND LIVING Nihil Obstat: Imprimatur: ARTHUB J . SCANLAN, S . T . D . , Censor Librorum. I F PATRICK CARDINAL HAYES. Archbsihop of New York. New York, July 21, 1938. PRINTED AND PUBLISHED I N T H E D . S. A. BY THE PAULIST PRESS, NEW YORK, N . Y. DeaeWfflsd The Spanish War and Lying Propaganda By if Special W JOSEPH B. CODE S C . H I S T . D . (Louvain), F . R . H I S T . S . p E R H A P S at no other period in the history of the world has there been so much and such widespread propa- ganda. This has been brought out in a most especial way by the deplorable treatment in this country of the Spanish struggle. From one side of the war there has emanated falsehoods and misinterpretations that are astounding to the honest observer. Information has been sent out with little regard for truth or decency by the sympathizers of the Spanish Leftists. So enormous and vicious has this propa- ganda been that even otherwise intellectually honest men have succumbed to it. The result is that the majority of Americans believe that the fight in Spain is between Fascism and Democracy, if not between Fascism and Com- munism; that the forces of Generalissimo Franco are for- eign mercenaries, barbarous, cruel, bent upon the destruc- tion of the Spanish people; that Generalissimo Franco is another Hitler or Mussolini, and that Fascism is the sup- posed goal of the Nationalists. This is not surprising when one realizes that Spanish Leftist propaganda agencies have literally blanketed this country with distorted, false and misleading information. Newspapermen, publicity experts and army officers who make a special study of this matter are amazed at the ex- tent of this propaganda and the highly efficient way in which it is organized, financed and directed. So well [ l ] organized is it, indeed, that a special news service— Juvenud—is being sent to editors of American high school papers direct from Barcelona. Other material is being mailed by Leftist groups in the United States to religious in American convents. Batches of alleged atrocity pic- tures, together with printed and embossed pamphlets and other material, are being sent to members of Congress and influential Americans from the Office of the Ministry of Propaganda in Barcelona. Undoubtedly the chief propaganda agency in this coun- try has been and still is the so-called Spanish Embassy in Washington. I t is the "so-called Spanish Embassy" be- cause it has been nothing more nor less than a propaganda factory. The principal task since October, 1936, of the present Ambassador, Fernando de los Rios y Urruti, has been to develop and sustain a public opinion favorable to the Spanish Leftists. In attempting this he EmbassedinSpaniSh h a s u t n i z e d e v e r y opportunity, as was Washington his right, to speak and to hold press conferences. But it is significant that most of his talks have been before Communist, Socialist and other radical organizations. On occasion he has been severely reprimanded by American editorial opinion for his brazen- ness. In fact he has made so many propaganda talks in New York City that the metropolitan newspapers rarely chronicle his activities. The newspaper which features him most is the Communist Daily Worker. By his own admission, Professor de los Rios is a rather successful propagandist. At the time of the conference of the Leftist Spanish ambassadors, which was held in Madrid in July, 1937, in reference to the state of world opinion regarding the Spanish situation, he declared that whereas in the beginning of the civil war the majority of Americans were sympathetic toward the Nationalists they now favor the Leftists {The New York Times, July 23, 1937). This is not surprising when one recalls the public charge made by the writer in New York City, April 3, 1938, which as yet has never been disproved, namely, that the Spanish Leftist [ 2 J Embassy in Washington is a veritable propaganda factory, supported by at least fifteen million dollars, which was seized from the Bank of Spain at the outbreak of hostilities. This charge elicited from Professor de los Rios a brutal denial. When publicly challenged to bring the matter into a regularly constituted court of justice he kept a discreet silence. The professor could not risk exposure in a court of law or before a congressional investigation committee. Finally, when questioned by newspapermen in Barcelona about this charge he replied that it "was too ridiculous to be worth denying" (The New York Times, May 15, 1938). And this in spite of the fact that he had denied the charge on April 4, 1938, according to an Associated Press dis- patch from Cleveland, Ohio. Either the professor's memory is bad or he holds truth lightly. At the outbreak of the war the Bank of Spain was holding for the Spanish nation—not for the Government— the world's fifth largest gold reserve, amounting to approxi- mately $489,000,000. This, as well as more than $300,000,000 in private prop- | p o n ! s ! ? G ? l d . I . ' , Spent in America erty, was seized by the Madrid regime and used to further its own ends not only in Spain, but else- where in Europe and in America. Part of this money which belonged to the whole Spanish people and should not have been used for partisan purposes enabled Fernando de los Rios to conduct a propaganda factory camouflaged as an em- bassy. In so doing he violated a fundamental principle of diplomatic ethics. Citizen Genet, early in our history, attempt- ed something of the kind and was escorted to the port of New York as an undesirable. Baron Lionel Sackville was given his passports in 1888 for a much less serious matter. There are those who believe that Professor de los Rios should be at- tended to in the same manner, if for no other reason than he is partly responsible for the death of so many Americans. The professor must have had little regard for the intelligence of the American people if he thought they could be treated to the spectacle of thousands of their youths going into a foreign land to fight and die for a foreign cause without seriously questioning why these young Americans, shaming our patri- [ 3 ] otism by misusing the names of Washington and Lincoln, have become involved in an issue which is no concern of this country. In fact, the most deplorable tactics Irregularity of h a y e b e e n r e s o r t e d t o j n o r d e r t o g e t Enlistments T - . I T enlistments. Captain John koghan Kelly writes in America, of October 23, 1937: Red recruiting agents are prolific in their promises. The rewards vary with the prospect. The average pay promised is $60 per month and expenses to and from Spain. Aviators and technicians have been offered as much as $1,500 per month. The recruiting agents have no hesitancy in naming any figure necessary to secure enlistment since, with the exception of per- haps the first month's pay, the promise is never kept. There is no need to; protests are met with the bland statement that all Spaniards are expected to sacrifice for Spain, repetitions bring summary punishment. Upon selection the recruit is passed upon by a committee and certified to the Red Consul General as worthy of a pass- port. Once equipped with the passport no time is lost, the recruit is hurried to the ship, provided with his ticket and five dollars expense money and carefully watched lest he slip back to shore at the last moment. The Reds appear to find passports no obstacle. At first, whenever eligible, they applied for American passports under the guise of tourists to Europe. The State Department put a stop to that, as far as possible, despite a barrage of protests from American radical leaders, by stamping passports "not valid in Spain" and stationing agents at French ports to take up the passports of those who had de- ceived the American Government as to their true destination. In this way a considerable number of passports have been lifted but the State Department has not power of arrest abroad and the recruits were free to continue to Spain. The Spanish Consul in New York, representing the. Red Valencia Government, also issues passports to the recruits. These solemnly recite that the applicants are Spanish citizens and Spanish names are selected for them. Thus on May 27, 1937, the Consulate General of Red Spain in New York issued to naturalized America citizens of Italian origin passports in the following names: Juan Polo Iglesias, Genaro Perez Rubio, Bruno Agra Serra, Domingo Se- garra Perez and Alfonso Bertran Sala. Oh the same day the Consul issued to Cubans or Cuban-Americans desirous of fight- ing for Communism the following passports: Jorge Agostini Villasana, Waldo Martinez Diaz, Lino Garcia Milian, Leonardo Izquierdo Alonso. . . . [ 4 In Spain, in accordance with Commhnist practice, the re- cruits are supervised by political commissars who note those showing talent for recruiting or lecturing. Such men are from time to time returned to this country to speed up the propa- ganda and keep the cars of the "underground railway" full. Among .such returned propagandists are Samuel Stember, "com- mander of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion," the three Flaherty brothers, whose pretensions were scathingly denounced as anti- American by Governor Hurley of Massachusetts, and Frederick Lord. Consider the case history of the latter. Born in Wis- consin in 1900, he boasts of an unverifiable record of air con- quests in the British service on the Western Front and in Rus- sia. Together with three other American flyers, he enlisted in the Red service at $1,S00 per month and a blood money bounty for each Nationalist plane shot down. In his speeches under the sponsorship of the American League Against War and Fascism and the Medical Bureau in Aid of Spanish Democracy (God save the mark!) he claims to have served the Reds from No- vember, 1936, to May, 1937, destroying 13 "Fascist" planes. His companions in the mercenary adventure report that he served two weeks, made only two flights, carefully avoiding the Na- tionalist lines, and that his plane was a commercial model, un- armed. Lord formerly held the rank of Major, Specialist Re- serve, United States Army, and was dismissed from the service on March 23, 1937, upon admission of service with the Reds. Yet on September 9, 1937, the Jersey Journal (Jersey City), chronicled a talk the preceding night at the Jewish Community Center in Jersey City by "Major Frederick Lord," illustrated by a photograph of Lord in American Army uniform. Inquiry developed that the photograph had been furnished to the news- paper by the publicity office of the Community Center. Wear- ing of the American uniform unlawfully, or impersonating a Federal officer is a penal offense. The conductors of this "underground railway" with fifteen months' experience to guide them have become expert in their task. More and more smoothly the shipment of men goes for- ward. The American Government is hampered by lack of laws, the French authorities sanctimoniously look the other way, the Red machine functions unhampered. The State Department is represented as feeling that the American volunteers serving in the Spanish Red Army since the outbreak of the Spanish war in that country are not required to take an oath of allegiance to Spain or be naturalized as citizens of that country, and are therefore not subject to expatriation. Yet our laws . . . provide penalties to those "entering the military service" of a foreign nation or faction, whether or not such persons go through the [ S ] form of taking an oath of allegiance. If the Administration chooses to stand on the letter of the Act of March 2, 1937, re- quiring the taking of an oath of allegiance to Red Spain, there is much evidence at hand or within the power of the Govern- ment to obtain. When a recruit accepts a false Spanish pass- port from a consul of the Valencia regime, he swears that he is a Spanish citizen. When the question of withdrawing foreign volunteers from Spain was first raised, the Valencia regime an- nounced that it had no foreigners in its armies, as all volunteers had been naturalized upon entering the military service. Authori- ties have held that the acceptance of a military uniform and arms and obedience of orders from military commanders consti- tutes an act of allegiance. When in the winter of 1936-37 several score French volunteers, tired of service in the "Inter- national Brigade," in which the American recruits also serve, and demanded to be sent home to France, they were shot "for treason." . . . The American people should know some of the facts which have never been adequately publicized about Fer- nando de los Rios. In the past he has been vehemently critical of Americans and America, hav- of" Fernando a n i S m i n g t h e r e P u t a t i o n a t o n e t i m e o f b e i n 8 de los Rios anti-American (New York Evening Sun, July 19, 1937). While a member of the Spanish Cortes in 1920, he denounced the United States for "its insatiable land hunger" and for "its increasing encroach- ments" on Latin-American affairs. At the same time he said that the seizure of Mexico by the United States was only a question of time. In a speech before the American Club of Madrid on March 8, 1932, he had the effrontery to state that the United States would be "reorganized" along Socialistic lines (The New York Times, March 9, 1932). Four years earlier, after completing a summer teaching term at the University of Puerto Rico, he tried to stir up trouble between Puerto Ricans and the United States by saying this country "did not understand the soul of Puerto Rico" (The New York Times, September IS, 1929). Professor de los Rios is likewise an enemy of reli- gion, which was and is the chief obstacle to the estab- lishment of Spanish Communism. He has been a leader [ 6 ] of attacks on the Church since 1931, the date of the establish- ment of the Spanish Republic. It was he who was principally responsible for the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain (The New York Times, May 25, 1931). In addition, he had the Government pass p^ 1 ' 9 '™ ° f another bill, encouraging priests to marry j ® ' " R ° o s (The New York Times, September 11, 1931), and still another, part of which legalized divorce by mutual consent on the Soviet Russia plan. These bills and others he instigated were aimed directly at the Church. The professor, who was then foreign minister, also was credited with being responsible for Spain's recognition of Soviet Russia in 1933, despite the vigorous objection of a large part of the Spanish people (The New York Times, July 28, 1933). I t is not surprising, therefore, to find him in the role he has played since his arrival in America. When the full story of the Spanish war as it affected America shall have been told the activities of the Spanish Embassy will provide a chapter which will reflect little honor on the Spanish Leftist regime or its representatives in this country. As a slight indication of that full story are the circumstances con- nected with the greeting which a number of United States Senators and Representatives were induced to sign and which was sent to the minority group in the Barcelona parliament, February 1, 1938. The statement emanated from the Spanish Embassy; after it had been signed by the congressmen a paragraph was added to it. The Honorable Fred Hildebrandt, United States Representative from South Dakota, denounced the action as "fraud" and "trickery" (Congressional Record, March 10, 1938). Only one conclusion can be drawn from Congressman Hildebrandt's statement: that the Spanish Embassy lent itself to a dishonorable piece of "doctoring," an action especially despicable under the circumstances. Next to the Spanish Embassy as the chief Spanish Leftist propaganda center is the Medical Bureau and the North American Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy. This organization was formed by a merger of the North [ 7 ] American Committee to aid Spanish Democracy with the Medical Bureau to aid Spanish Democracy. The North American Committee was founded in October, 1936, by the Communist American League Against Medical Bureau and ^ a r and Fascism, now the American the North American { Q r p e a c e a n d D e m o c r a c y . T h e Committee to Aid ° . , , Spanish Democracy American League, in turn, was founded by the late Henry Barbusse, notorious French Communist. The Medical Bureau and North Amer- ican Committee occupies a whole floor at 381 Fourth Avenue, New York City. Headquarters of the New York County Committee of the Communist Party are in the same building. Communists, Socialists and other radicals are among the bu- reau's officers and directors. Its publicity director, the "brains" of the organization, who left it some time ago, was Walter Carmen, a former editor of The New Masses, a radi- cal magazine. At a meeting of the Greater New York Com- mittee on June 9, 1938, the Communist salute of the clenched fist was enthusiastically given, and when.Russia and Stalin were mentioned the assembly gave itself over to unrestrained applause. Bishop Francis J. McConnell of the Methodist Episcopal Church was co-chairman of the meet- ing. The Rev. Herman F. Reissig, Executive Secretary of the Bureau and Committee, Dr. Walter B. Cannon of the Harvard Medical School, and Stanley B. Isaacs, Borough President of Manhattan, were also noticed at the meeting (N. C. W. C. News Service, June 10, 1938). The Medical Bureau and North American Committee has twenty-one affiliates, nine of which are Communistic, three Affiliates of the Socialistic and eight controlled by rad- Medical Bureau and icals, if not actually Communistic or So- the North American cialistic. Its most respectable affiliate is Committee to Aid the American Friends of Spanish De- Spanish Democracy K 7 mocracy. The "Friends" have made a record of some sort for issuing misleading statements, such as the letter imperti- nently addressed to the Catholic hierarchy regarding the bombing of Barcelona. This statement was signed by sixty- ( 8 1 one Protestant Episcopal and Methodist Episcopal Bishops, some of whom later retracted their signatures when they dis- covered the nature of the message. Among the "Friends" are such well-known radicals as Roger N. Baldwin, Josephine Schain, Heywood Broun, John Dos Passos, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and Vito Marcantonio. Communist groups affiliated with the Medical Bureau and the North American Committee include: The American League for Peace and Democracy, the American Student Union, the Book and Magazine Guild, the Communist Party, U. S. A., the International Labor Defense, the International Workers' Order, the Italian Anti-Fascist Committee, the Italian Committee to Aid Children of Spain and the Young Communist League. The three Socialistic affiliates are the Socialist Party, U. S. A., the Church League for Industrial Democracy and the League for Industrial Democracy. Radical-controlled, if not outright Communistic or So- cialistic, groups affiliated with the Medical Bureau and North American Committee include: The American Friends of Spanish Democracy, the Finnish Workers' Federation, the Independent American Labor League, the Lettish Workers' Union, the Lithuanian Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, the Musicians' Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, the Theatre Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy and the Ger- man-American Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy. There are twelve sub-committees of the Medical Bureau and North American Committees, all of which are radical- controlled: the Psychologists, Pediatrists, Social Workers, Federal Employees, Dental, Youth, Lawyers, Engineers, Writers and Artists, Faculty, and Women's Committees and the American Foster Parents Plan. In addition to the above, there are approximately one hundred and fifty branches of the Medical Bureau and North American Committee in various parts of the United States, besides fifty or more different group affiliates. Any club, organization or similar group with "to aid Spanish Democracy" in its name is an affiliate, virtually all of which are Communist, Socialist or radical-controlled. [ 9 ] The Medical Bureau and North American Committee achieved some unwelcome publicity when six Americans captured by Spanish Nationalists while serving with the Spanish Leftist Army informed a correspondent of The New York Times that they had been recruited for service in Spain by the "North American Committee to Aid Span- ish Democracy." This charge was subsequently denied but not refuted. Hence, if it is true, officers of the committee are liable to charges of violating a Federal law in recruit- ing soldiers on American soil for a foreign army. Number three on the list of Spanish Leftist Propaganda agencies in the United States is the Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion. Their publicity director, Rex Pitkin, a radical, has assembled one of the most active staffs of publicity experts in the country. The secretary of this group is Phil Bard, a member of the National Executive Committee of the Communist Party. Though few in num- ber, they work overtime to publicize those Americans serv- ing with the Spanish Leftists. One of their favorite de- vices is to send returned veterans, either wounded or well, on propaganda speaking tours through- Friends of the Q u t t h e country. Although still Amer- Abranam Lincoln „ Battalion i c a n dtizens, these veterans sometimes wear their Spanish Leftist military uni- forms to add glamour to their appearances. David McKelvy White, chairman of the Friends of the Abraham Lincoln Bri- gade, declared that roughly 2,500 to 2,800 Americans have fought with the Spanish Leftists (The New York Times, May 23, 1938). The "Friends" have been accused more than once of expediting the recruiting on American soil and in direct contravention of Federal law, of Americans, mostly radicals, to fight in Spain with the Leftists. I t is estimated that they have raised more than $100,000 to send food, cloth- ing and other supplies to Americans fighting with the Leftist forces. The Spanish Consulate in New York City is number four on the list of Spanish Leftists propaganda agencies. Luis Carreaga, the consul, like Professor de los Rios, ap- parently never misses an opportunity to speak before Amer- [ 10 ] ican audiences on the Spanish crisis. But unlike Pro- fessor de los Rios he is not so astute, skillful or per- sonable. Nevertheless, he is equally as apt in mailing out propaganda material. To his credit, however, it must be admitted that he pays postage. Senor Carreaga has been accused of forging Spanish passports for Americans going to Spain to enlist with the Leftist forces, and to date, as far as is known, he has neither refuted nor even denied the alle- gation. Typical of other Spanish Leftist consuls in the United States, he is busy, like the professor, in propaganda work principally. Number five is the Spanish Information Bureau, the propaganda office in New York City of the Spanish Em- bassy. Its director is the well-known radical, William P. Mangold. The principal function of this organization is to edit, print and distribute "News of Spain," a clip sheet issued fortnightly, printed on a good grade of paper, well-edited and filled l n f o r m a t i o n with the usual Spanish Leftist propa- ganda distortions. Originally issued as "background" or "ex- planatory" material for newspaper editors, it is now sent to thousands of influential Americans. In addition to these agencies, the publicity departments of the Communist Party, U. S. A., the Socialist Party, U. S. A., the American League for Peace and Democracy, and dozens of other radical groups sympathetic to the Spanish Leftists have been active in spreading misleading informa- tion. Innumerable meetings have been held under their aus- pices, at which every mention of Soviet Russia is applauded. They are also responsible for countless street corner gather- ings, parades, mass and individual picketing, as well as other demonstrations. The ambulance approach is a favorite method of the propagandists. In scores of trade union organizations ap- peals are being made for funds to buy ambulances. The same appeal is being made in scores of colleges and univer- sities, under the sponsorship of radical student groups, prin- cipally the American Student Union. One of the most vigor- ous ambulance propaganda campaigns has been carried on in r 113 Hollywood, where prominent movie stars—Joan Crawford, Franchot Tone, Sylvia Sydney, James Cagney, Paul Muni, Lionel Stander, Frances Farmer, among others—have lent their names to radical-controlled organ- Hollywood izations soliciting contributions. Tag Sympathizers , S . , nmrtf days, theater parties and various street car, bus, street corner and subway money solicitations are everyday occurrences in New York City. Although there is no objection to collecting funds for humanitarian purposes, when these collections are exploited for propaganda purposes, there is the condemnation. In Hollywood, for example, two ambulances were shipped recently to be "signed" by several scores of persons promi- nent in the movie industry. The ambulances then were taken on a "triumphal" tour of the country, visiting fifty- six American communities en route to New York City, where, after several more publicity appearances, they were finally shipped to the Leftists. At each city the usual propa- ganda lectures on the Spanish civil war were given. This particular publicity attempt drew a severe censure from Frank Pope, prominent motion picture trade writer of Hollywood. He said, "Why is all this ballyhoo necessary, especially when it reacts to the detriment of the industry which makes it possible for this aid to be given? And that it does react there is no denying. The two ambulances, autographed by one hundred film notables, which were sent across this country on their way to Spain, would help just as many sufferers there if the autographs were missing." Another ambulance was allegedly contributed last spring by the "faculty members, students and employees of Har- vard University," according to large letters printed on both sides of the vehicle. The same ambulance was seen in the 1937 Communist-Socialist May Day parade in New York City, and in another parade in August. It is a question if this ambulance was ever sent out of the country. Sixth on the list of the propaganda groups is the Con- federated Spanish Societies of Brooklyn. This organiza- tion is composed of seventeen Spanish-speaking societies, nearly all of which are either Communist or Socialist in con- [ 12 ] trol and policies. This is the group which sponsored one of the best propaganda devices of the year when eight hundred Spanish-speaking women came to Washington in the interest of the Neutrality Act. The entire demonstration was di- rected by the well-known Spanish-American Communist, Mrs. Ernestine Gonzalez. A prolific and profitable Spanish Leftist propaganda source in the United States is the lecture tour venture. Typical of the other radical propagandists sent to this country by the Spanish Leftist Government are the most recent arrivals José Bergamin, the so-called Catholic editor who once edited a Catholic paper which drifted finally into Red waters; Ramon Sender, "inter- T o u r nationally famous writer," who wrote two books on the Spanish class struggle and by that criterion is hailed by the Communist press with the foregoing appella- tion; Carmen Meana, a hitherto unknown "social" worker at Madrid, and Ojier Precteceille, head of a radical counterpart in Spain of the American Newspaper Guild. They are now on a "personally conducted" tour of thirty-six American cities, under the auspices of the Medical Bureau and the North American Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy. Leftist Spain also has been a favorite "vacation" coun- try for hundreds of American Communists. I t is astonishing to note the number of those who have "toured" Leftist Spain, generally as the honored guests of the Leftist Government. On their return to this country they have joined the ranks of lecture platform artists, or have become just plain "stump" speakers. By visiting Red Spain they have "qualified" as "experts" on the present situation. So many "welcome home" meetings have been given for these "experts" on their return to America that they have ceased to be novelties. Another interesting sidelight of Spanish Leftist propa- ganda is the attempt to influence the editorial and news policies of certain Letter-Writing i i Brigades newspapers by the letter-writing brigades which have been formed by the Communist Party, U. S. A., and other radical organizations. The Federal Writers Pro- ject deserves special mention in this connection. News- [ 13 ] papers which feature anything favorable to the Nationalists immediately are bombarded with letters of protest from members of these organizations. The letters are often writ- ten under assumed signatures. With a Nationalist victory in Spain daily becoming more apparent, the propagandists in America have redoubled their efforts. One of their recent lines of attack was the at- tempt to repeal the United States Act' N e U t r ° l i f y Neutrality Act. Representatives Jere- miah O'Connell of Montana, Byron Scott of California, and John T. Bernard of Minnesota, born in Corsica, their chief propagandists in Congress, made every attempt to get this Act repealed, apparently to permit the shipment of munitions to the Spanish Leftists. The principal argument for the lifting of the embargo was the charge that the Nationalists were alleged to be receiving American war supplies from Italy and Germany, which worked to the discrimination of the Leftists. State Department Records show that Russia and Mexico, to say nothing of France, all supporters of the Madrid-Barcelona regime, have purchased war materials in this country out of all proportion to the amount bought by Italy and Germany over the same period. For the seven months from September, 1937, to March, 1938, inclusive, Germany and Italy bought $725,140.02 worth of war mate- rials in this country, while Russia and Mexico bought $14,754,537.14 worth of such materials. These figures were made known by the writer in a public address at Cornell Uni- versity, Ifhaca, N. Y., May 7, 1938, and were reported in The New York Times the following morning. They were corroborated the same day by the figures released by Secre- tary of State Hull, who even went further and stated that because of the nature of the material sold to Germany and Italy, very little was exportable to Spain for use by the Na- tionalists {The New York Times, May 8, 1938). Hence it may be seen that the need of arms for the Span- ish Leftists was not the major consideration of the repeal propagandists. The discovery of Miles Sherover, president of the Han- 114 1 over Sales Corporation and head of the Soviet Securities Corporation, as one of the leaders in the repeal agita- tion revealed the true nature of this piece of Communistic propaganda. I t Muii^nsTeaier was not so much to help the Spanish Leftists as to promote the cherished Soviet plan of collec- tive security, to weaken the Anglo-French hands-off policy as regards Spain by presenting the United States as the champion of the Leftists, and to permit the shipment of men and munitions to Europe, in the hope that an attack upon ships carrying these consignments might embroil this coun- try in a war with those nations, enemies of the Soviets. The danger that the fanatical propagandists would lead this country into war prompted the Secretary of State to write the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that lifting of the Spanish arms embargo would be unadvisable "since we do not know what lies ahead in the Spanish situation." The Foreign Relations Committee acted upon the recommenda- tion of the State Department and thus this vicious strategy, not only un-American, but anti-American, ended in failure. How determined was the effort to change the Neutrality Act may be seen in the denial of Dr. Mary E. Woolley, President Emeritus of Mount Holyoke College, that she had either signed or authorized the signing of her name to the petition which carried E" W o o , , e y her name for the repeal of the Neutrality Neutrality Act Act and which was presented to the State Department, May 5th, by one hundred signers, headed by Dr. J. A. MacCallum, editor of the Presbyterian Tribune (The New York Times, May 6, 1938). Meanwhile, there was a sudden and an almost terrifying renascence in fund raising, tag days, Spain protest meetings and other propaganda artifices. The propaganda tom-toms are still beating for all they are worth; the Daily Worker and other radical publications are spilling rivers of ink in appeals to "do something" to help the Leftists; and the "comrades" are in the streets in droves appealing for funds, undoubtedly because propaganda costs money, and even the Communists can use that capitalist unit. [ I S ] The tragedy of it all is that this propaganda has been so successful. Even a certain number of Catholics have been taken in by it. And thus another ruse of Moscow— to split Catholic sentiment on vital issues—has been one of the most unfortunate results of Spanish Leftist activities in the United States. Strange as it may seem, the prover- bial sense of fair play, which we have come to look upon as something so typically American, has been practically absent in the treatment of the Spanish crisis. For in- stance, on October 3, 1937, representatives of two great Christian denominations protested against the bombing by the Nationalists of Barcelona. Taken in itself this might have been a noble gesture; but viewed Protest of the j relation to the attitude of these gentle- Protestant Bishops _ , . ° .... men when no less than half a million of innocent victims were butchered by the Madrid-Barce- lona Leftists, this action savored of mental obtuseness or hypocrisy. Mr. Ellery Sedgwick, editor of The Atlantic Monthly, wrote in the New York Journal and American, March 28, 1938, 8th Edition: As an American Protestant, with firm conviction of the right of a free conscience to worship God, I protest against the revolu- tionary social doctrines fostered by theological leaders in Ameri- can Protestantism. The currents flow toward Communism. Why does a Com- munist smoke screen, like the League for the Defense of Spanish Democracy, control 61 Protestant bishops? It is a strange con- tradiction. Either they are dupes of Marxism, or they are deliberately inviting Communism into Protestantism. If only the Protestant clergymen had a little more imagina- tion ! If they would put themselves in the place of their Catholic brethren! If Protestant churches were burned; Protestant grave- yards dug up; Protestant priests beaten before their altars; the sacred element of the Protestant communion swept from the table—then how different would be the feelings of these bishops who, in the safety of their own country, criticize the Spanish Catholics who cry out in agony. A protest came from another quarter, this time from the Protestant War Veterans of the United States who up- braided the offending bishops for causing "a certain reflection [ 16 ] upon the entire Protestant population of the country." In a communication to the Reverend Doctor Joseph F. Thorn- ing, of the faculty of Mount St. Mary's College, Emmits- burg, Maryland, one of the ablest de- fenders of the Christian cause in Spain, Protestant War . . , , , , . M Veterans Denounce who had been misquoted in the epis- ^ e t i o n 0 f copal letter, the Reverend Carl C. Protestant Bishops Underhill, Acting Chaplain of the Prot-estant War Veterans, wrote under date of March 22, 1938: We have asked these leaders of the Church, did they utter one word of protest against the murder of Priests, and Sisters of Mercy in Spain, did they offer one word of protest against the massacre of millions of Christians as well as their Clergymen in Russia, under the Soviet? Did they offer one word of protest against the murder of thousands of Christians in Hungary under Bela Kun in 1920, and last but not least did they lend their voice in protest against the persecution of their Christian Breth- ren (Catholics), in Mexico only a few years ago? . . . We are fighting Communism tooth and nail, asking no quarter and giving none, and the Communistic element will not get us to fight our Christian Brethren of the Catholic Church, for it is a Chris- tian issue and not a secular issue. At the same time, Edward James Smythe, Chairman of the Protestant War Veterans, addressed a similar letter of protest to each of the sixty-one bishops in which he accused them of favoring Communism in Spain as against the Nation- alism of General Franco. In a noteworthy article, "Christian Liberals—To Whom Are They Allied," in America of June 11, 1938, Benjamin L. Masse points out that however disappointing the attitude of the American press toward the Spanish crisis, it has not been nearly so depressing as the attitude of American Protes- tantism. Despite the fact that here and there a lone Protes- tant voice has been raised in protest against the attempted de-Christianization of the Spanish people, American Protes- tants as a group swallowed the worst sort of anti-Catholic Propaganda without a single sign of protest. Prejudiced lies that should have left them as Christians, cold and suspicious, they refused to consider the truth, even when that truth was spoken in calm Christian dignity by the leaders of the Chuith in Spain. . . . I must con- [ 17 ] tinue to fear lest this strange silence be the silence of ap- proval. If it is, then we are living to see a very sad day for Protestantism and for all Christianity. We should never forget that our free institutions, our whole tradition of liberty, is rooted in Christianity; and if Catholics are left to defend alone the Christian cause, and consequently the ideals of our de- mocracy, then American democracy is doomed. We can fight the menace of Communism, and fight it successfully, but if Christian bodies should league themselves with the Soviet in America, or even remain neutral, then Soviet will the America of our ancestors become. The Barcelona bombings also occasioned The Washington Post of March 23, 1938, to print an editorial which may be cited as a typical example of the unfairness which has char- acterized the treatment of the Spanish "The Washington situation by the majority of our Amer-uLS! Bombings H newspapers. After pontifically as- serting that two wrongs do not make a right, referring of course to the attention called to the silence of those who protested the bombing of Barcelona when the Leftists were massacring defenseless religious and civilians, it condemned unreservedly the bombing of the city. All decent persons regret the death or injury of noncombatants.- But protests over the bombing of Barcelona come with little grace from those who have been strangely silent about the atrocities of the Leftists. It is common knowledge that the Spanish Reds have been guilty of the murder of thousands of reli- gious and innocent civilians and that they have engaged in the same kind of aerial combat which they condemn in their adversaries. It might be well to repeat here what has never been featured in the American press, namely, that from July 18 to September 26 of 1936 alone, Leftist airmen bombed open or non-military towns more than fifty times; that up to July 1937, Seville was bombed nine times; Bobadilla nine times; Granada, seventeen times; Merida, nine times; and Cordoba, sixteen times. In addition to this, on several occasions peasants were machine-gunned while at work in the fields, and on October IS, 1937, a religious procession in ,Saragossa was bombed by Leftist airmen, with approxi- [ 18] mately four hundred victims, mostly noncombatants. Palma, on the Island of Majorca, underwent twenty-five Leftist air raids between July 25 and August 31, 1936, at a time when it had no defenses of any kind. One Leftist aviator personally told a London Universe writer that he repeatedly tried to blow up the Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar in Saragossa. This is not surprising when we read the following formal statement issued on November 9, 1937, by El Socialista, the official party organ of the Madrid Socialist party: "No moral scruple can " E ' S ° e . i a l i . l , t r " G i v e * • j g -nr R e d Principles hinder U S in our own defense . . . War Concerning Warfare demands the destruction of entire towns and the machine-gunning of women and children. We shall not renounce victory at any price . . . not even at the price of brutality" (pp. 407, 408). It is significant, moreover, that little has been said of the refusal of the Barcelona authorities to permit the powers to superintend the removal of noncombatants from the coast cities to outlying towns, where there were no munition and poison gas factories, barracks or other military objectives, which exist in Barcelona, to the number of at least 180 and render it a legitimate target for bombs from the air or shells from battleships at sea. In a cable from Burgos to the National Catholic Welfare Conference News Service under date of March 21, 1938, the Nationalist Government of Spain gave valuable information on the situation in Barcelona. After making clear that it had in its posses- Borc«Iona sion collateral data in support of its E v o e u a t e declaration, the Nationalist Government Noncombatants revealed the exact location of numerous arsenals, ammunition dumps, barracks and other military stations, which the Leftists have established in innocent-ap- pearing structures in that city. Among those buildings in which they had either concentrated large deposits of war sup- plies or had turned into munition factories were the Univer- sity of Barcelona, the Escolapian school, schools in the sector of Urquinaona Square and San Pedro Ronda, the Northern [ 19 ] Railway Station, the Liceo Theater, the old Bank of Spain, the old Bank of Barcelona, and in the seminary in the zone bounded by Letamendi Square and Grau Via Diagonal and Cortes Catalanas, etc. The planting in the heart of a great city of so many military objectives is but one evidence of the utter dis- regard for the lives of innocent victims on the part of the Barcelona authorities. Even the pronounced Leftist sym- pathizer, Herbert L. Matthews, acknowledged the pres- ence in Barcelona of military objectives often harbored in innocent looking buildings. Writing in the magazine sec- tion of The New York Times of Sunday, March 27, 1938, he said in part: Bombing is done for two reasons: either to destroy definite military objectives or to terrorize and demoralize the rear guard. In most of the earlier Barcelona raids the bombers have gone for specific objects and they have somehow ob- tained remarkable precise information to go on. I recall one raid in which they plunked two bombs down on a garage in the heart of town and incidentally hit a maternity clinic and milk station for babies, which was across the street. There was a lot of indignation about it, but we, being hard-hearted news- paper men, had to investigate before accusing the Rebel bombers of needless cruelty, and in so doing we found that underneath the garage was one of the largest gasoline deposits in Barcelona. Somebody had passed the information across to the Insurgent command; a bomber flying very low had dropped four bombs of which two hit the objective without, however, penetrating deeply enough to get the gasoline. The next day another deposit had to be found. You never know, of course, what there may be in the innocent looking buildings around your home or hotel. When the Loyalists bombed Saragossa in November they got a muni- tions depot the explosion of which must have killed many civilians who never dreamed that danger was so near. In justifying his bombing of open towns recently General Franco stated there were something like 180 military objectives in Barcelona alone. I t does not do to trust anything when you are walking along a quiet residential street thinking that the planes will go elsewhere. Perhaps the big apartment house across the street is a barracks. I t should be remarked in this connection also that while the Pope's appeal to General Franco for moderation in the latter's offensive against Barcelona, as reported by [ 20 ] the Osservatore Romano, was highly. publicized by our daily press, there was no reprint of the report in the Osserva- tore that twenty-seven priests had been slaughtered at that very time by the f T e r u e | ' Leftists at Teruel after that city had been taken from the Nationalists. More serious, however, was the expression of horror of our Secretary of State over the Barcelona bombings. Be- cause of his position, Mr. Hull has sources of information at his command other than the daily newspapers. Surely he must have known about the warning of General Franco of the forthcoming attacks from the air and his offer of assistance in arranging for the evacuation of the civilians; he also must have been aware of the Leftist atrocities, which have already been mentioned, as well as the widespread destruction of ? I e c I r 1 e t a r J y ° f „ S t a t e , , 1 1 1 . 1 . 1 Hull and the Baree-churches, schools, hospitals, social cen- | o n a Bombings ters, art objects and historic monuments. Hence, his description of the situation at Barcelona, which naturally led to a widespread impression of General Franco as a wanton killer was something that cannot be dismissed lightly. One expects from our leading cabinet officer correct information, if he is to offer information on highly conten- tious matters. When that information is partisan, the pro- cedure is highly objectionable to a large part of the Amer- ican people. Much has been said in the secular press regarding the foreign aid, in men and munitions, which Franco is alleged to have received especially from Italy and Germany. The well-known Argentine writer, Ricardo o TT • .• . . Foreign Aid to the Saenz Hayes, in reporting an inter- N a t i o 3 n a h s t s : M e n view with General Franco, wrote in the February, 1938, issue of La Revista Diplomatica y Social of Santiago, Chile, that Franco declared it was only after 35,000 foreign soldiers had crossed the French border into Leftist Spain that he accepted foreign effectives. This agrees with the documented evidence of G. M. Godden in his Communism in Spain and with Douglas Jer- rold in his Georgian Adventure. Here may be seen that [ 21 ] the first aggressors in Spain were France and Russia. I t should be of particular interest to Americans to note that one of the first steps toward foreign intervention was that taken by Fernando de los Rios. The following extracts from a letter he wrote to Don Jose Giral, then Prime Min- ister, July 25, 1936, give a clear indication of the nature of the procedure: We examined our demands and, from the attitude of the Min- isters, I gathered that there existed a divergency of opinions. A new question arose; that Spanish aviators should come to Paris to fetch the machines; I pointed out the semi-impossibility of this owing to our scarcity of personnel and to our intention of retaining the French pilots. I was told, by one in a position to say this, that the whole consignment of airplanes and bombs was ready and could leave in the morning of today. . . . I re- tired to sleep, and one hour later I was urgently aroused; the Air Minister, P . Cot, wished to visit me; he had inquired for me at the Embassy, and not finding me there, I was advised by mutual friends that in order not to awaken more suspicion, I should go to his house; I went there, and he told me it was impossible to convince the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the legality of French pilots in taking airplanes to Spain, the for- mula was to take them to Perpignan, etc.; this is what I com- municated last night, the 24th. When I went this morning to the Air Ministry everything was going well; when I arrived at the Potez firm the difficulties seemed unsurmountable. The press campaign and the publica- tion of the documents in which the Counsellor (of the Spanish Embassy) resigns loom so big, that when Blum went this morn- ing to see the President of the Republic he found him perturbed and in such a state of mind that he said: "What is being planned, this delivery of armaments to Spain, may mean war or revolution in France," and he asked that an extraordinary Cabinet meeting should be summoned at four o'clock in the afternoon. The position of the President of the Republic is shared by several Ministers; the Cabinet was divided in its views and the President of the Chamber, Herriot, has seen Blum and begged him to reflect, for he considers that this has never been done before, and that it may justify a de facto recognition by Germany and Italy of any semblance of government set up in a Spanish city and provide it with arms and ammunition in greater quantities than those France can supply. From half- past two until a quarter to four I have been with the Prime Minister and another Minister at the house of a third party; "my soul is torn," said Blum, who is as convinced as we our- [ 22 ] selves are of the European significance of the struggle that is being fought in Spain. Never have I seen him so profoundly moved: "I shall maintain my position at all costs and in spite of all risks," he said; "we must help Spain that is friendly to us. How? We shall see" . . . The resolution of the Cabinet has been to avoid delivery from Government to Government, but to grant us the necessary per- mits so that private industry may deliver to us and circulate such material as we may purchase. The method of executing M this and facilitating it will be decided by a Committee of Min- isters, on which we have some of our most faithful friends; to- morrow they will hold their most important and decisive meet- ing, and they anticipate that it is almost absolutely certain that we shall be able to take the airplanes out of the country after the 25th on Monday or Tuesday, and we shall organize, or rather I shall organize, aided by Cruz Marin and some other Spanish as well as some excellent French friends, the safe pass- age of the bombs, a difficult matter, especially for one who, like myself, is not an astute fox, but we shall see what necessity makes one capable of. The Potez 54 machines will be con- structed, and we shall endeavor to shorten the terms. As re- gards all the armaments I think we can only deal with Hotch- kiss. . . . Yours, (Signed) FERNANDO DE LOS R I O S . (The American Review, April, 1937.) One should not be surprised at this arming of the Red mob which was roaming the cities of Leftist Spain pil- laging and murdering when it is recalled that this was but a part of the plan of Europe's sovietization. M. Yvon Del- bos, former French Minister of Foreign Affairs, after a visit to Russia in 1932, wrote: "As far as Spain is specially con- 1 cerned, the Iberian Peninsula was considered by the Russian Government as a choice place to conduct propaganda, and as a natural stronghold for the Soviet domination in the Occi- dent" (N. C. W. C. News Service, May 14, 1938). The truth of this statement may be seen in a leaflet re- cently published in London by the Spanish Press Service which shows, in chronological form, the , , , , „ . , w , . , Proof of Russian and record of Russian and French interven- F r e n e h , n f e r v e n t i o n tion in the Spanish war, as well as the extent of the Russian and French intervention of the year 1938. The record is divided into four parts. The chronology [ 23 ] of the first section, which is called "Russia Caused the Civil War," is as follows: 1920—Spanish section of Communist International formed. 1930—Casanellas, one of Prime Minister Dato's assassins (1921), and Andres Nin leaves Russia and begins intensive Communist work in Spain. 1931—Jiminez Azua returns from Russia to be Chairman of Com- mittee arranging Republican Constitution. 1932—January: First attempt to found a Communist State in Spain. 1933—January: "We are engaged in organizing Workers' Soviets in anticipation of the crucial moment when the Workers must be the first to arrive on the scene and to seize power . . . " (Andres Nin, quoted in The Times, January 11). 1934—October: First Soviet Republic in Spain founded in Asturias. 1935—August: Report to VII Communist International Congress claimed for Russia the glory of Asturias revolt. 1936—February 16: Popular Front gains power by violence and fraud. (Ex-President Alcala Zamora, Journal de Geneve, January 17, 1937.) February 27: At a special session of the Comintern it was decided to send two delegates to Spain, one of whom was Bela Kun. One million pesetas was voted to cover the initial expense for the preliminary work of stirring up revolutionary disorder. July 14: Soviet official informs departing American Ambassador in Moscow, Mr. S. M. Bullitt,—"Within a fortnight Spain will be ours, and within 10 months France as well." July 18: After months of anarchy and bloodshed "there remained neither parliament nor democracy, neither liberty nor justice, neither order nor peace. . . . The Army intervened to restore a discipline broken by anti-patriotic traitors and criminal anarchists." (Alexander Lerroux, the Arch-Radical of Spain in L'Illustration, January 30, 1937.) The second section of the leaflet tends to show chrono- logically that "Russia and France were the first to inter- vene." I t is as follows: July 18, 1936—Outbreak of the civil war. July 2S—Ferdinand de los Rios (now Leftist Ambassador to the United States) arranges with French Popular Front Government for present and future deliveries of war material to Spain. July 26—The Bureau du Profintern arranges for first International Brigade of Workmen Volunteers to be assembled in France. August 7—International Brigades begin to assemble in France. August 9—French Government publishes declaration of neutrality. August IS—M. Delbos, French Foreign Minister, informed British Ambassador of French Government's decision to abstain from inter- vention, direct or indirect. Italy, Germany and Portugal suggested [ 24 ] that volunteers be included in non-intervention pact. Russia and France refused. October 17—International Brigades in Spain. November 6—International Brigades held Madrid against Franco. November 13—"It is significant that almost directly after Novem- ber 13 both Germany and Italy began to make preparations for send- ing troops to Spain." ("Spain over Britain," a booklet written against the Nationalists.) December 23—The Confederation Nationale des Anciens Com- battants draw French Government's attention to the fact that the flow of volunteers is draining "the youth of France of its most vigorous and most enthusiastic elements." Thirty-five thousand Leftist sympathizers, the number given by General Franco, were but the vanguard of those Russian, French, German, Italian, American, Polish, Eng- lish, Czech, Bulgarian and other mer- _ » . . , r j Foreign Aid to the cenanes, to the number of around L e f t ¡ s t s . Men 110,000, according to the figures given by the veteran newspaper man, H. Edward Knoblaugh, for five years the Madrid representative of the Associated Press, in his book Correspondent in Spain, published last autumn. His further statement that the foreign assistance to Loyalist Spain has been successfully minimized while that to Nationalist Spain has been grossly exaggerated is corroborated by Brigadier General Groves, writing in the London Observer. More recently, additional independent evidence was furnished by Wing-commander Archibald W. H. James, a member of the British Parliament who went to Spain in March, 1938, and who was given full facilities by the Burgos authorities to go where he pleased in Na- tionalist territory. He declares that only about 13 per cent of Franco's troops are Italian and that, on the other hand, the principal resistance had come from the foreign- ers among the Leftists. This agrees with the authenticated report giving the number of Leftist foreigners captured by the Nationalists. Since it is a well-known fact that rela- tively few prisoners have been taken either by the Leftists or the Nationalists, the presence of 15,000 foreign Left- ists in Nationalist prison camps in January, 1938, is some indication of the foreign complexion of the Leftist forces. In this connection also, it might be remarked that the [ 25 ] objection to the presence of the Moors in the army of Franco is another piece of Leftist propaganda. As a mat- ter of fact, the Spanish Moors have as much right to fight in the Nationalist forces as during the World War, the Algerian Moors had to fight in the French army, or the Canadian or Australian forces had to fight in the British army. Far more ethical, indeed, is their presence in the Nationalist forces than was the arming of the liberated slave during our own civil conflict. Anyone who has lived long enough in Spain to share the affection and respect which the Spaniards them- selves accord these people, can understand the welcome given them on the mainland when they arrived to join their Chris- tian compatriots in fighting a foe which their own religion holds in detestation. The Mohammedan is deeply religious. Militant atheism is as abhorrent to him as to his Christian countrymen. So much for the man power of both Nationalists and Leftists. What about the material help given by the out- side world to the regime of Madrid and Barcelona? Something of this is revealed by no less an authority than the former British Secretary, Anthony Eden, who admitted in the House of Commons, June 26, 1937, that Forei n Aid to the S ° v * e t R u s s ' a had "undoubtedly pro- Leftists: Mottriaf v i d e d B a r c e l o n a with a large quantity of war material." Five months later, in answering David Lloyd George in Parliament, he declared that the result of the futile discussions of the Non-inter- vention Committee had been to facilitate the arrival of such a quantity of fighting material into Government Spain that official Soviet Government figures showed that Spain was Soviet Russia's third best customer (The New York Times, November 1, 1937). Even Herbert L. Matthews, of The New York Times, an avowed supporter of the Spanish Leftists, admitted that Premier Juan Negrin spoke appreciatively of the help both Mexico and Russia had given to the Spanish Government (The New York Times, February 2, 1938). And yet in spite of all this honorable testimony, Left- wing propagandists continue to emphasize 'dnd to magnify [26 ] the assistance given the Nationalist force by Germany and Italy. Especially is this true, since France and Russia, seeing the handwriting on the wall, have largely withdrawn their help from the Spanish Leftists. The result has been a complete collapse of Leftist opposition. This bears out the contention that if Russia and France had not gone to the aid of the Madrid forces, the Spanish Civil War would have been a purely internal affair and would have ended long before this in a victory for the Nationalists. This view is shared by Sir Francis Lindley, former British ambassador to Spain, who states that the revolt was due to Soviet inter- vention in the domestic affairs of the Spanish people (The National Review, February, 1937). One of our former ambassadors to Spain, Irwin Laugh- lin, says that "long before the monarchy fell the agents of the only state (Russia) that follows a systematic foreign policy of subversion had been busily at work, not only in the movement to wreck f ^ " ^ h j " n d l e y the monarchy, but in preparing the crash ¿gj",, ¿"Hammond of the republic that was to follow it, and they had found to help them willing knaves and fools of all classes in the country. At my first interview, a few days after the proclamation of the republic, with its then provisional president, I took occasion to remind him and to warn him of this foreign invasion and its purpose. The Spanish revo- lution was largely brought about by the operation of anti- religious influences" (The Washington Post, March 28, 1938). Ogden H. Hammond, another former American ambas- sador to Spain, says: "The army under Franco revolted because the "Red" government of Spain destroyed religion, murdering priests, nuns and burning churches. The revolt was a call of the decent people of Spain for Franco to come from Morocco where he was stationed and to save Spain from anarchy" {The Providence Visitor, March 24, 1938). America's war-time ambassador to Germany, James W. Gerard, declares that the thinking people of France desire a victory for the Spanish Nationalists {The New York [ 127 ] Times, April 10, 1938), whereas W. Cameron Forbes, former United States Ambassador to Japan who visited Spain with Ellery Sedgwick, compared General Franco to George Wash- James W Gera d * n 2 t o n a n c * declares that the Soviets are wTcameron Forbes b e h i n d t h e Madrid-Barcelona regime Ellery Sedgwick that Moscow's aim is to gain con- trol first of Spain, then France and finally the United States. This last statement is borne out by the account given of the causes of the war in Spain by Eugene J. Young, Cable Editor of The New York Times, in his recent book Looking Behind the Censorships. He also declares that the Spanish War had its origin in the Communist agitation which provoked a resistance strong enough that it finally expressed itself in open warfare. What a different picture is all this highly reputable evidence from the reports contained in the secular press from the outset of the crisis. A splendid analysis of this The American Press h i g h l ? objectionable handling of the Spanish news by the American press was given by the Rev. Dr. Joseph F. Thorning before the Amer- ican Catholic Historical Association, December 29, 1937, in Philadelphia, Pa. The address was reported extensively in The New York Times of December 30th, but the most convincing item of evidence contained was not published because the publisher of The New York Times refused to place on record the photostatic copy of two telegrams which indicate that the Times of London had been the victim of one of its propagan- dizing reporters. The story is this: On April 28, 1937, Mr. G. L. Steer sent as a telegram to the Times of London, a fabricated story of the destruction of Guernica, the so-called Holy The Myth of City of the Basques, and asked not only Guernica that the dispatch be featured in the news columns, but that editorials should de- nounce what he described as the destruction of the city by German aviators and the mass murder of its citizens by the forces of Franco. The Times of London did as it was requested. The New York Times then thundered its de- [ 28 ] nunciations, not only once but three times, of the National- ists. But on May 4, the Times of London sent a tele- gram to Mr. Steer to the effect that it was known that his story was without foundation. These are the two tele- grams that the publisher of The New York Times refused to publish in their photostat appearance. Why? Because, although since May 4, 1937, both the Times of London and The New York Times were in possession of the facts regarding Guernica and knew that public sentiment had been aroused against the Nationalists because of this false atrocity story, these two papers had taken no steps to deny it until December 26, 1937, more than seven months after they had the correct information, and only three days be- fore the telegrams had been made public by Dr. Thorning. And yet this falsehood was repeated May 1, 1938, in The New York Times under the signature of Herbert L. Matthews writing from Barcelona, April 30, despite the fact also that Eyre and Spottiswood of London has pub- lished the findings of a Commission appointed by the Na- tionalist government to investigate the course of Guer- nica's destruction. The English translation carries the foreword of Sir Arnold Wilson, M.P., and substantiates irrefutably the charge that the retreating Leftist army de- stroyed the city before the arrival of the Nationalists. The eminent British soldier, Brigadier General Percy R. C. Groves, says it was impossible that Guernica could have been destroyed from the air (N. C. W. C. News Service, April 8, 1938). I t might be of interest also to note that the so-called "photographs of bombed Guernica" were pictures of Ver- dun in 1917; likewise were the photographs of dead chil- dren, complete with morgue numbers, which were broadcast to American P i c t u r e s o f Verdun newspapers, the pictures of dead French Authentic 6 0 ' ' children of the World War period. This Photographs falsehood was repeated in the April, 1938, issue of Ken over the signature of William L. Hopson, who also recounts the ridiculous story of the supposed Red airman who after being captured by the Nationalists had his [ 31 ] body, with the exception of its head, cut to pieces. The re- mains in this condition were supposed to have been dropped over his home drome by a Nationalist parachute. Knoblaugh exposed the falsity of this atrocity story in his book by re- vealing that the box which contained the remains was traced to a Madrid department store and the dismembered body was identified as that of a Spanish workingman killed near Madrid during a bombardment. The supposed massacre of Badajos is another example of the misinformation that has been handed out by the sec- ular press to an unsuspecting reading public. The story is ii .1 , _ , . this: When the Nationalists took this Myth or Badajos . strategic railway center early m the war, they were reported as having massacred thousands of its citi- zens, and the purported story was given over the signature of N. Reynolds Packard, United Press correspondent. Later not only did Mr. Packard indignantly deny that he had writ- ten or filed this piece of news but it was discovered that there had been no massacre at all at Badajoz. Nevertheless, the American press joined in the widespread denunciation of the "atrocities." Writing in the April, 1937, issue of The Nine- teenth Century, Douglas Jerrold says: "The 'massacre' of Badajos I knew to be a lie, because it was announced in the French press of the Left two days before Badajos fell." He adds that this example is "only one in an unbroken series of deliberately invented fictions which have been foisted on the English and American public." One of the papers referred to by Mr. Jerrold was the Communist organ L'Humanité of Paris. The whole falsehood was exposed by Major McNeill-Moss in his thrilling story The Siege of the Alcazar. Nevertheless, John Gunther in his Inside Europe, even in the revised edition, repeats blandly this stupid story. One of the major tragedies of the war has been the rape of the Basque children. It is inconceivable that propa- Ra of the gandists for any cause, however worthy Basque Children t i l m i S h t t h i n k t o be, should go to such lengths to influence public opin- ion as did the heartless propagandists in this instance. Conservative estimates of French and English social work- n o J ers place the total of these children who were torn from home and country at twenty-five thousand; other repu- table sources place the number as high as one hundred thousand. When the Nationalists were closing in on Bil- bao, thousands of these little ones were herded on unknown ships, like cattle, deprived even of identification, to be sent to some unknown destination, undoubtedly Russia. Today, hundreds of parents are besieging the Nationalist author- ities for news of their children, only to be told that if they are not in England, France, or in Belgium there is no record of them. A relatively small number have been returned to their parents, often after pressure has been brought to bear upon the agencies holding the children. Paul McGuire writes in the America of April 9, 1938: On one morning in Bilbao, hundreds of mothers came to Monsignor Antoniutti's Secretariat to ask for their children. More than half had not even heard of their children since they were sent away. They did not know who had taken them, where they had gone. I am afraid we must assume that they are in Russia or in Mexico, for the children in the other coun- tries have been now listed. At Gijon, when the Nationalists took the town, they found thousands of cards relating to the children sent from there. No effort had been made to complete the necessary details on the cards. Each, had only a number and a child's Christian name; no surname, no name of parent, no address, no record of the ship on which it was sent, no record of the place to which it was sent. Nothing could better illustrate the callous cynicism of the affair. I t is a fair assumption that there was complete indifference to the final fate of the children. All that was cared for was to use them as propaganda. . . . While I have been writing, I have had before me the memory of a woman who came to Monsignor Antoniutti at Bilbao. All five of her children were gone, irrevocably. Let the Catholic mothers, let all the mothers of America remember her. I t is now known that there was no starvation in Bilbao nor were there any children killed by the Nationalists. A food shortage did threaten and this was made one excuse for the dispatch of the children, not for their own good but for the comfort of the Red soldiery. To effect this end a terroristic campaign was kept up against the mothers. Their children were to be slaughtered by the Moors, if [ 31 ] they did not send them into safety! "I t needed strength of will and more," writes Paul McGuire, "it needed love and trust in God to withstand that sort of thing. I always regard it as an extraordinary testimony to the Christian mothers and fathers of Vizcaya that the majority resisted" (America, April 9, 1938). There was one terrible danger the Basque children faced who were not sent away from Bilbao. But it did not come from the Moors or from Gen- eral Franco. Aware that Bilbao could not hold out much longer the Reds gave vent to their wanton lust for destruction and wrecked the water supply several weeks before the Na- tionalists took the city. A foul, commercial river was the only source of water for Bilbao's thousands. Typhus was just setting in when the city surrendered. I t was to be ex- pected that the Leftist propagandists in America would sup- press this bit of damaging evidence; it was also passed over in silence by the American press, the Methodist and the Epis- copal bishops, the Secretary of State, and those others who later were to become articulate over Barcelona. But beyond the purpose of food curtailment in sending the children away from the Basque country was the more sin- ister one of propaganda. Five hundred of the children were Bo Ch'ld destined for this country and would in Hollywood f e n have arrived here only that the true pur- pose of the exodus was exposed, chiefly through the efforts of His Eminence, the Cardinal Archbishop of Boston. Unfortunately, however, they were sent to Mex- ico. That they were to be used for propaganda purposes in this country is proved by the presence this year in Hollywood of two of the children who had been brought from Mexico to stir sympathy for the Leftists. Protest against so heartless an exhibition was made by the Junípero Serra Council of the Knights of Columbus to the Attorney General of the United States and to the two United States senators from California. I t was argued that these children are being held in custody "without consent of parents, natural guardians, rights of kindred, legal guardians under Basque law, or consent of the present de jacto government replacing the autonomous [ 32 ] Basque government" (N. C. W. C. News Service, March 19, 1938). The almost unbelievable treatment of these helpless little ones in Mexico is given by Peter Arrupe, S.J., former pupil of the Leftist Spanish premier at the National University of Madrid, in Basque Children the America of May 21, 1938. „ n d R™"' Even more horrible, perhaps, is the fate of the unknown thousands who are in Russia. Indeed, it is not rash to believe that they will be brought up as fu- ture atheistic propagandists in Spanish-speaking countries. In the Daily Worker of May 1,1938, it was revealed that one hundred of these child refugees were to have been the "hon- ored guests of the whole Soviet people" at the May Day festi- vals in Moscow. The following statement of Captain John Eoghan Kelly— a Protestant, it should be noted—is worthy of being quoted in full: If Spain cannot be conquered by force and terror, it can be destroyed later by poison; so reason the masters in Moscow and they have put in effect a plan as deadly as inoculating the body of an enemy with cancer. For Communism is a cancer, to be fought as such. On November 27, 1937, 1,600 Spanish children arrived in Leningrad, the last contingent of 10,000 mostly boys between the ages of twelve and fourteen, shipped from Valencia during the past four months. The youngsters are divided into groups and sent to various institutions or camps near the great Soviet cities. The largest group, numbering over 3,000 is in a former prison camp near Moscow. The Soviet government has allotted two million rubles as the first of a series of sums for the support of these children during their educa- tion in Communism. 180 instructors, skilled in the Spanish language and in child psychology, have been assigned to their care. After a careful grounding in Russian and in atheism, the young students will receive a thorough education in Com- munism. On attaining manhood they will be turned loose, in the Spanish-speaking nations and elsewhere, to carry the deadly virus of Communism. Cut off from family and from God, they may yet prove the most deadly weapon in the devil's arsenal of Moscow. Perhaps the most astounding example of Leftist propa- gandist success is the almost universal belief that there [ 3 3 ] exists a government in Spain other than that of General Franco's. The newspapers have kept up the fiction, taking sides openly in favor of the Reds by calling them "Loyal-ists," as Fletcher Pratt points out in his article "Hot-Air Castles in Spain" in the April, 1938, issue of The Amer-ican Mercury. The nonexistence of any government to which the Reds can be "loyal" is demonstrated conclusively by Irwin Laughlin: . . . the movement which is properly called "Nationalistic"— for there was no longer an administration worthy of the name of "duly elected Government"—and this protesting mani- festation was soon joined by all the respectable parties in the country. Even the intellectuals, who had so greatly contrib- uted to the success of the republican movement, and the more moderate men outstanding in the formation of the republican state, could no longer stomach the excesses of the extremists of the Left, and have practically all abjured the so-called Govern- ment, even when they have not openly joined its militant op- ponents. Among them I mention only the Provisional Presi- dent and first elected President of the Republic, who was put out by the Communists when they usurped and destroyed the duly elected Government; the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the first Cabinet who was repeatedly in office until the Communistic regime began; the first Ambassador to the United States; the first Ambassador to Great Britain; and Professor Unamuno, the distinguished and widely known intellectual of the Uni- versity of Salamanca. . . . Arnold Lunn in his book Spanish Rehearsal says that Red atrocities were the cause and not the consequences of the Nationalist rising. That is merely a state- ment of established fact, and I may add that the immediate occasion for the epiphany of this protesting movement was the brutal murder of a moderate member of the Cortes in the Opposition, Senor Calvo Sotelo, who, in spite of his legal im- munity from arrest as a legislator, was dragged at night from his own house by Government agents and done to death in the out- skirts of Madrid. The decency of Spain could stand no more. The military rising that followed was not a rebellion against established Government—good or bad—but an instinctive re- action for self-preservation of people who were bent on restor- ing social order when they saw that the Government had crumbled and was powerless to control the conflagration it had lighted. And we must remember that at the bottom of all this was an element that has shown itself capable of bestial ex- cesses, animated by a fierce hatred of religion and all its manifes- tations—(N. C. W. C. News Service, March 28, 1938.) No Government in Spain Other Than That of General Franco's [ 34 ] Without going into the history of the Spanish Republic it should be stated that in few respects it resembled the American Republic. The Spanish Republic of 1931 was not democratic in origin, nor in its con- stitution or functioning. The founda- »^mer i c« . . " tion of this Republic was the 1930 con- Republic spiracy of San Sebastian, which produced the abortive revolution of the same year and the downfall of the monarchy in 1931. The constitution was enacted by a Cortes, which was not representative of the nation, but chosen by electors who in turn had been intimidated by a reign of terror which increased in intensity from April, 1931. Nevertheless, the people accepted the constitution in the belief that they could amend the articles which violated the rights of conscience and other liberties. But they were dis- appointed. Additional anti-democratic legislation was voted in until the President, Alcalá Zamora—now hiding in Paris from the Madrid-Barcelona Reds—was obliged by popular insistence to dissolve the Cortes and call for new elections. Although the majority of the newly-elected members pledged to amend the constitution the opposition of the minority was so great that the anti-democratic forces began their agitation to overthrow the government. The situation therefrom was adequately described by William F. Montavon, Head of the Legal Department of the National Catholic Welfare Confer- ence, in The Washington Post of February 3, 1938: President Alcalá Zamora, violating the constitution, dissolved the Cortes to prevent the debate on constitutional amendment. He did more. He dismissed the cabinet approved by the Cortes and over protest of the majority appointed a prime minister to control and manipulate the election of a, new Parliament, and especially to prevent the election of advocates of amendment. T i e Leftist parties, not strong enough to stand on their own legs, adopted the strategy of the Popular Front, invented by the Comintern at its 1935 session in Moscow. Official returns of the February, 1936, election, published throughout the world, showed that the C. E. D. A. (Rightist coalition) under the leadership of Gil Robles, polled 4,570,744 votes and the Popular Front polled 4,356,559 votes and the Center party and the Basque Nationalists together both op- posed to the Popular Front, polled 481,207 votes. Briefly, the facts are these: The cabinet was forced to re- [ 35 ] sign before the credentials of newly elected members had been passed on by the Cortes. A new ministry, approved by the Popular Front, was named by Alcalá Zamora and the Popular Front was placed in control of the organization of Parliament. A large number of district elections were rejected by the Pop- ular Front credentials committee. The country was put under martial law, free speech and free assembly were suppressed, anarchists were permitted to create a reign of terror. It was announced by the Popular Front min- istry that elections had been held in disputed districts and that the final result of the elections gave to the Popular Front 256 seats in the Parliament, to the C. E. D. A. 123 seats, to three anti-republican parties 23 seats and to the Center SS seats. I t is to be noted that in this Cortes the extremists, Com- munists on the Left and anti-republicans on the Right, had equal representation. Dissensions arose in the Popular Front. Anarchists de- nounced the ministry and President Azafia as bourgeois. The new government could not function without martial law, the suppression of free speech and assembly and was utterly power- less to preserve order. Three months of turmoil and crime ended in the assassination of the head of the anti-revolutionary parties in the Cortes, on July 13, 1936. The Popular Front even with its great majority in the Parliament refused to face the situa- tion thus created. The Cortes recessed. There was no compe- tent government in Spain. The civil war resulted. One searches in vain for any evidence of true democracy in Spain, from the date of the San Sebastian Pact in 1930 down to the meeting of this handful of parliamentarians in Barcelona on February 1, 1938. Had the Leftist minority been willing to listen to the people of Spain, to respect the rights which civilized peoples respect everywhere, the Spanish nation would have been spared the horrors of civil war and civilization the dangers of an inter- national conflict. Much has been said in the American press about the sev- eral plebiscites which have been held in Germany under the regime of Hitler. They are mild when Elections of compared with the Spanish February, February, 1936 1936, elections. Armed bands surround- ed the polling booths, challenging and bullying the people into voting for "X"—the extreme Left. Additional pertinent information on this point is given by Doctor von Vollenhoven, the former ambassador of Holland at Madrid: [ 36 ] Another system was to withdraw all the police from the streets; and the non-Red elements stayed at home rather than take the chance of receiving a thrashing or being shot at. In other places, the president of the voting bureau, on realizing that the voting was not going as he desired, smashed the glass urn containing the votes, with the purpose of later "leading" the elections more satisfactorily to himself. . . . In many districts, e. g., Cuenca, Communists had destroyed the voting urns . . . and had them refilled with votes from the "Left." . . . In order to prepare for the elections, the Government had replaced all high officials with its own creatures, and on February 1st it had dismissed in addition 1,000 urban councils and replaced them with others, which were to "assist" the Government . . . voters of the Left went from district to district and recorded their votes a number of times. . . . The parties of the Left brought in voting papers with names of people who were dead. . . . I t is abundantly clear that this Government has not title to legitimacy whatever.—(The Universe, London, April 14, 1938.) The Leftist sympathizers cannot contend that although not originally a government de jure the Madrid-Barcelona regime has constituted itself a government de facto, in the same way that General Franco has ^ done in the Spain of the Nationalists. |_eftfst Spain ' From the very beginning the Leftist officials were either unwilling or unable to maintain law and order. As a matter of fact not only did the Madrid offi- cials fail to prevent but they directed the Civil Guards to interfere in no way in the outrages which became a daily oc- currence all over Spain. In failing to protect life, liberty or property, the officials proved to the world that there was no Spanish Government either de jure or de facto. Nor has there been a Government either de jure or de facto since the war broke out. There is a Red army sup- ported by Red propaganda and there have been the senseless gestures of a supposed Cortes, meeting now and then. But with no attempt at interference with these meetings, the at- tendance has been twenty per cent or less of the total num- ber elected in 1936. The group remains in session only for a few minutes, an address by the so-called government follows, and then comes a viva voce ratification of the dis- bursements of public funds made since the last session with- out legislative approval. Many of the eighty per cent absen- [ 37 ] tees are in exile; a majority repudiate the Negrin "govern- ment." Red propaganda, however, has kept alive the fic- tion of a "real government" of Spain, for otherwise it would have to acknowledge that the anarchy which obtained in the early summer of 1936 gave General Franco every moral right to oppose by force those elements which were at once anti-democratic, anti-National and anti-Christian. The intelligence of the American people is done no serv- ice by those who justify their half-hearted support of General Franco by saying that the Nationalists merely con- f Fran stitute the lesser of two evils, the infer- to Revolt e n c e being that General Franco is a Fas- cist, and on that score should also be opposed. If one may believe the Generalissimo, and there is no reason for not believing him, the following statements are to the point. On February 19, 1937, he declared: The composition of the forces fighting on the Nationalist side clearly shows that the movement is not one that can be called exclusively Fascist. . . . The fact is that our enemies, the Bolshevists, call us Fascists as an accusation to arouse the animosity or coolness of attitude of some countries in which the Liberal tradition lives on. But they are well aware that in doing so they are deliberately misrepresenting the facts. On January 19, 1937, Franco said: This new Spain will represent a great national family, one without masters or vassals, without poor or potentate. . . . We want a fraternal Spain, an industrious and working Spain, where parasites can find no lodging. A Spain without chains and tyrannies: a nation without Marxism and Communism; a State for the people and not a people for the State (The Catholic Transcript, March 3, 1938). General Franco's final words are worthy of special no- tice: The only possible justification for attributing Fascism to the Nationalists is their acceptance of Italian and Ger- Ge e I Franco m a n ^ a t as it may, this is No Fascist ^ business of the Spaniards and it does not necessarily compromise them in their political idealogy, no more than the nature of the foreign help accepted in the American War of Independ- ence determined the nature of the philosophy which went into the making of the United States. One of the most [38 ] objective treatments of General Franco's character is that of Professor Robert Davis, of Middlebury College, Middle- bury, Vt. (New York Herald Tribune, March 25, 1938), in which he refutes the generally accepted theory that Franco is a n o t h e r Hitler or Mussolini. Indeed, the charge of Fascism against Franco and the Nationalists is but part of the campaign of Left-wingers to defend Com- munism against the anti-Communist bloc. The "Fascism" of Franco is another one of those propaganda words which with "democracy," another prize in the hands only of the radicals, may be placed in the same category which Fletcher Pratt calls "a booby-trap for gullible Anglo-Saxons." The recent legislation passed by the Nationalist Govern- ment contained in the Manifesto to the Spanish People of February 2, 1938, and the Labor Statute of March 9, 1938, shows that the Nationalist Government is based on a system of Vertical Syndicates, which is removed both from Fascism and from Communism. No one can read the moving letter of the Spanish Bish- ops without realizing that Communism brought the Span- ish people to their present condition. Hatred of religion only _ H , could have been responsible for the out- The Number , . , . , . , 0 f S | a | . n rages on persons and things which varied in intensity but which continued, never- theless, in some degree all during the time in those places controlled by the Leftists. The Osservatore Romano has pub- lished a list of 1,324 religious who are known definitely to have been slain in Red territory. To this list must be added the 6,000 diocesan priests, the number given by Cardinal Goma of Toledo, the religious orders of women, the laity—perhaps the exact number of the latter will never be ascertained—and those other orders of men, such as the Dominicans and Fran- ciscans, the verified number of whose slain members is not available at this writing. Some authorities declare that 400,000 would be a conservative estimate of those who were put to death because they would not raise the clenched fist and curse the Saviour. Douglas Jerrold in his Georgian Ad- venture states that how many thousand people were mur- dered will be never known. He says: r 391 One thing is certain, in Malaga, as in Madrid, there were no trials. The same was, and still is, true of Barcelona. These things have not been done in secret, but before the eyes of the world. In any town in Spain you can meet eye-witnesses and refugees from these cities, the fortunate few who escaped through the kindness of some foreign power, but seldom through the British, and never through the French Embassy (p. 398). All this is corroborated by a recent statement coming from a different but equally reliable source. Dr. Felix Schlayer, Norwegian Consul at Madrid, states that between 35,000 and 40,000 people were killed at Madrid during the first six months of the war and that the "criminals" were not always "uncontrollable," as alleged by the Government, but in many cases the Government was directly responsible for these crimes. He estimates the total number of victims in Red Spain at more than 300,000. When the war broke out, Dr. Schlayer was the only Norwegian official in Madrid and the direction of the Norwegian Embassy was turned over to him. From then until the summer of 1937, when he had to flee from Madrid to escape death, he was a close observer of what he calls the "bloody tyranny of the Reds." On many occasions, he says, he witnessed the famous "promenades," when a little group of Bolshevists conducted groups of the nobility, the bourgeoisie, women and children outside of the city to execute them (N. C. W. C. News Service, June 20, 1938). Three special correspondents of French metropolitan dailies—Figaro and Le Matin of Paris, and Le Nouvelliste _ . , de Lyon—are among the latest wit- Devastation of i ,, , . . . , , the Reds nesses to the devastation wrought by the Reds as evidenced in the cities liberated by the Nationalists. It is unnecessary to mention the de- struction of national and religious monuments, many of them of the most priceless artistic value, libraries, art objects and scientific instruments. Juan de la Palma in El Heraldo de Aragon of April 23, 1938, describes the rains, which the Na- tionalists found when they entered Fortosa, of the once fa- mous astronomical observatory. Instruments of great value had been destroyed when the Reds discovered that the Na- tionalists were approaching the city. The Jesuits who [ 40 ] had been in charge of the observatory had been dragged off to Barcelona. Had the revolt of April, 1936, and the one that was planned for the late summer of the same year, succeeded the whole of Spain today would be as desolate as that part which fell into the hands of the Leftists in July, 1936. Confirmation of this statement may be had in the as yet undisputed facts given by the distinguished member of the Institute of France, M. Jacques Bardoux, in the Revue des Deux Monies of October 1, 1937. The question has been asked, why should a people essentially Catholic give themselves over to such hatred of religion or at least why did they allow the forces of anti- religion to gain such headway that it was necessary to resort to a military uprising , / D , d t h e Forces . , , . , ' of Irreligion Make to save themselves from atheism and to sue(, Headway? restore order? As Robert Sencourt, former professor in the University of Lisbon and now Vice- Dean of the Faculty of Arts in the University of Egypt, says in The Catholic World of May, 1938, the Church was at- tacked in Spain because it was uncompromising, and often rightly so, first toward the monarchy, then toward liberalism, and finally toward the atheistic Communism of the present day. For a long time, there were two camps in Spain, each determined upon the other's destruction, and those camps were the Church and the liberalistic tendencies which often meant denial of the Faith. The Church herself was loved be- cause she was poor, industrious and enterprising, a fact which is brought out definitely by the Anglican Professor, Allison Peers, of the University of London, who says "If the Church in Spain was unpopular, it was not among the orphans, the sick or the hungry." Indeed, most of the teaching and most of the charitable work was in the hands of the Church. Pro- verbial Anglo-Saxon disdain for anything Spanish, a relic of the sixteenth-century bitterness between Philip I I and Eliza- beth, is greatly responsible for the current misconceptions regarding the educational and charitable institutions of the Iberian peninsula. Robert Sencourt in his Spain's Ordeal disproves the fable of the Church's wealth and shows up the [ 4 1 1 fallacy of the argument that the present situation is a result of "the large number of illiterates in Spain." He also points out that whatever anti-clericalism there was in Spain was the result of the propaganda broadcast by those who were in reality anti-God. And yet if the Church was so loved why was it not de- fended when attacked? An answer may be found to this in several facts: the anti-clerical government gave directions that the mobs were not to be restrained clthoiks Defend w h e n t h e y w e r e b u r n i n g a n d looting the the Church? property of the Church; because the les- son of Christian nonresistance and obe- dience to authority—both taught by the Church—had de- veloped in the faithful a spirit of passivity, fatal in this case; and finally because the faithful feared for their lives since they knew the violence with which such things are done in Spain. I t was only in the end did they turn to the army for help. Whenever anarchy was making things possible in Spain (contin- ues Robert Sencourt) it had been the army, with the armed civil guard, which had restored order, and kept the country together. I t was to the army that the Catholics turned to vindicate their free- dom. . . . At this point they saved themselves by alliance with the army, and when that did not shield them with its strength, they faced death praying for forgiveness of their enemies. There is no proof of faults against the clergy, but such as are common to men; and no one can be surprised if their exemplary lives awoke hostility from immoral and violent forces, organized for the destruction of religion. Catholics need not apologize for their religion be- cause Spain produced martyrs and crusaders. Not Pharisaism, but honor and thankfulness is what we owe to Spanish Catho- lics: they are different from us, but they have not less the dignity of heroes (The Catholic World, May, 1938, p. 142). These are the people who have been accused of "atroc- ities" which have existed only in the minds of the Leftist propagandists. Just as there was no massacre at Badajoz and no bombing of Guernica, just as there was no machine- gunning of the residents of Malaga, who were reported to be fleeing along the coast road from the city as it fell into Nationalist hands, neither have there been any au- [42 1 thenticated atrocities on the Nationalist side. The stories which have been circulating are so fantastic that it is difficult to understand why intelligent people should give them any credence. Undoubtedly there have been individual excesses Side" attendant upon military hostilities. But in no sense could these be construed as similar to those of the Soviet type of wholesale liquidations. And yet there are those who pretend objectivity by blandly as- serting there have been atrocities on both sides. They ad- mit that the Leftists have acknowledged "excesses in the be- ginning," usually on the plea that it was quite impossible to handle the mob—an unwitting testimony of the inability of the Red authorities to govern—but they cannot explain away the atrocities which have been going on in Barcelona, Valencia, Lerida, Teruel, Madrid, and in the thousands of villages and hamlets in the Spain of the Leftists. The out- rages are generally of a religious nature. Colonel Turner states that in all his travels in Nationalist Spain he found no evidence of any actual atrocities committed by the troops of General Franco. "Some Christian democracies—less Christian than demo- cratic—have not succeeded in comprehending this sublime page of the Spanish religious persecution, which with its thousands of martyrs, is among the most glorious that the Church has suffered," said General Franco at Zaragoza in April, 1938. "Not an abjuration, not an apostasy, not a word of rancor. They had only generous forgiveness before death" (N. C. W. C. News Service, May 2, 1938). The unwillingness of non-Catholic religious bodies and leaders to acknowledge this truth is an evidence of their un-Christian mentality, declared the Most Reverend John T. McNicholas, O.P., Archbishop of Cincinnati, April 17, 1938. Pointing out that it is impossible to find perfection in everything that has been done by the Nationalists, His Excellency declared that the Christians of the world, nevertheless, should approve of the struggle in Spain for the things of God, and of His divine and natural law. Messages of sympathy have been dispatched by non-Catholic denomi- [ 43 ] nations in America to sufferers in Germany and elsewhere but no word of courage or hope has been sent to their Chris- tian brethren in Spain. Instead, there has been a certain amount of open alliance with the anti-Christian forces which are attempting to destroy Christianity. In a letter signed by Guy Emery Shipler, Editor of The Churchman, Protestant religious journal, which was circulated to members of the Seventy-fifth Congress, relative to the arms embargo, Cath- olics are vigorously attacked and Protestants are urged to unite in defense of Leftist Spain (N. C. W. C. News Service, May 16, 1938). But the Protestant sects of America have not been alone in their apathy and bias. I t is a regrettable fact that world Jewry has been openly hostile to the Spanish Nationalists, and this in spite of the S aineWS ° n fact that there has been no authenti- cated account of antipathy to the Jews in Nationalist Spain. If in the end—and it is to be hoped this will not be — there should be any attempt at re- prisals against the Spanish Jews, because of the violent anti- Franco propaganda and material assistance given the ene- mies of the Nationalists by the Jews in practically every country of the world, then it should be remembered that international Jewry was the first to pick up the gauntlet in the Spanish crisis. According to The American Hebrew (May 6, 1938), thirty-five thousand Jews entered the Inter- national Brigade in defense of the Leftists. As yet the influence of Freemasonry in the crusade against Franco cannot be gauged accurately. But certain in- dications of an anti-Masonic movement in Nationalist Spain seems to bear out the contentions of Judge Pierre Crabitfcs, in his Unhappy Spain, that Freemasonry of the Grand Orient type played no unimportant part in preparing the _ stage for the tragedy of Spain. What The Freemasons , . , .. , r , , . and Spain part international Freemasonry has had in the attempt to destroy Spanish Ca- tholicism, and with it all religion in Spain, is something that soon may be revealed. But more disturbing than all this is the widespread [ 44 ] ignorance among Catholics of the issues at stake. And it is positively shocking to see some allowing their apathy and their ignorance to carry them into absurdities of speech when the subject of the Spanish conflict is being discussed, the Spanish S t̂ua»^« Some have made themselves ridiculous by upholding the Madrid Government and by repeating charges that have been disposed of time after time. Fortu- nately, American Catholicism has been spared the humiliation which has come to many French Catholics because of the unfortunate attitude which some of their co-religionists have adopted towards Spain. But, nevertheless, the Church in America has its Westbrook Pegler, columnist and self- styled Catholic, who admits he knows little about Spain, yet who declares the wholesale slaughter of clergy and laity "seems but natural" since "the religious were agents of an institution which the people had learned to hate," and its Kathleen Norris who makes the pitiful statement that "The issue is not between Christian ideals and the Red rule of Russia," given in the stupidly conceived Leftist propa- ganda brochure Writers Take Sides, issued by the radical League of American Writers. Charity suggests that such Catholics be regarded as victims of this '«sidious propaganda which attempts to split the Catholic group on matters hav- ing a direct bearing on their faith. Undoubtedly, they do not realize that the Catholic who bends backward in the inter- pretation of the Spanish War in order to appear detached and objective furnishes ammunition for the enemies of the Church to be used against her and themselves in the last analysis. While Kathleen Norris was allowing herself to be ex- ploited by the so-called League of American Writers, Ger- trude Atherton, well-known author, refused to be duped into identifying Franco with Fascism. As I was perfectly aware that the word democracy in Spain at the present moment is a euphemism for Communism (she de- clared), I wrote them a rather hot letter, telling them exactly what I thought of them and declaring for Franco. . . . No doubt they hoped to 'show me up,' but unwittingly they have given me the place of honor—as the only one out of 418 more or less [ 45 ] distinguished writers (less, for the most part) who did not fall for Spanish propaganda—the most subtle, persuasive and per- sistent with which this country has been flooded since the World War. As my own mail has been cluttered up with it, I am able to realize how and why my fellow scribes have succumbed to its charms. (N. C. W. C. News Service, June 4, 1936.) Because Lenin's maxim that "Truth is a bourgeois virtue" is the guiding principle for Leftist propaganda, as well as for the Soviet press, it is necessary that we know the importance of propaganda. In fact so important is it that the General Staff of the United States Army set aside one section of the G-2 of the Military Intelligence to deal entire- ly with propaganda in war time. At present, Communists are making constant efforts to distribute subversive propa- ganda in American Army and Navy establishments, particu- larly in the larger cities, whereas they publish papers for various national guard workers, vessels and naval bases. One of their chief methods to undermine the national defense is through the Oxford pledge, otherwise known as the slacker's oath; those who take this pledge swear not to defend the United States in case of war. At a recent Senate investigation in Washington, Carl Ross, head of the Young Communist League, when asked by Senator Lee, of Oklahoma, if he would bear arms for the United States in case of war against Russia refused to answer. He could not answer because the first loyalty of every Communist is to Moscow. Representative Hoffman, on the floor of the House of Representatives, April 27, 1938, denounced the Young America movement and its quasi- auxiliary, the American Youth Congress as a disguise for the most dastardly attack ever perpetrated on the American constitutional government. The tragedy of it is that too few of these zealous young Americans realize that they are being used as front and shock troops for a vicious world revolu- tionary movement concocted and executed by a group of God- denying and God-defying men whose philosophies are those of Karl Marx, Frederick Ingalls, Nicolai Lenin, and Dictator Stalin, of Russia—men who are the sworn enemies of what we today term "Americanism"—American ideals and traditions (Con- gressional Record, April 28, 1938). Several months ago the Communist Party issued a [46] general order for all members eligible to join the National Guard or the R.O.T.C. for two principal reasons: to learn military tactics and science, particularly the nomenclature •of the rifle and machine gun so that there will be a trained Communist military nucleus to obey the will of the Third International, and secondly to establish, if possible, Com- munist cells in the Regular Army, National Guard and R.O.T.C. This is synonymous with treason. As regards Spain, the Communist Party, U. S. A., issued on December 27, 1937, an order stipulating that thereafter at least 80% of the Amer- Commu^st'pJlty ican "volunteers" must be non-Com- munist. The reason for this order was first, that so many American Communists have been killed or wounded fighting with the Spanish Leftists and, secondly to communize the non-Communists, a relatively easy matter since each Leftist division is under a political commissar taking his orders from Moscow. The same order also directed Communist women to fraternize with non-Communist American men in restaurants, bars, dance halls and other public places to recruit these men for service with the Spanish Leftist forces. Finally it should be said that no one who has studied the International situation closely can doubt that the next striking point for the Third Communist International will be America. Fantastic?, asks Captain John Eoghan Kelly in the April issue of The Sign: So said the uninformed Spaniards of 1932 (he replies), when already the Communist machine was boring at high speed beneath their feet. The Russian "Liberal" government of Alexander Kerensky fell beneath the determined assault of 79,000 Bolsheviks; the Communist Party of the United States, section of the Third International, counts upon two million followers and affiliates, led by the fifty thousand card-holding members. The Red movement in the United States is now presumably self-supporting; informed observers place its domestic income at close to six million dollars annually. Catholics should not be concerned with whether or not those outside the Church consider them objective; they should be concerned solely with objectivity. To those [ 47 ] who know the real story of Spain, any attitude of Catholic truculence is simply despicable. When the Christian armies of the land which gave to two-thirds of the Western hemis- phere its religion and its culture are presented as monstrous regiments, made up of reactionaries, of Moors and of foreign mercenaries, fighting against democracy, the Catholic should not be content with defensive tactics, but should carry the The Pos't'o battle into the enemy's territory. I t of Catholics should be made clear that if the princi- ples of those who favor the Spanish Reds prevail, this country will no longer be a democracy. Hence, Americans should be alert to the situation, for the sym- pathizers of the Leftist regime are just as potentially dan- gerous to the welfare of this nation as are the emissaries of Moscow or the propagandists of Berlin. Whether the American radicals are actual members of the Communist party or wear the thin disguise of membership in such radical groups as the American League for Peace and Demo- cracy, they are luring the people into organizations bent upon the destruction of American democracy. Since propaganda is the chief weapon of Moscow, a propaganda which Douglas Jerrold calls "a deliberate cir- culation of lies," it is imperative that Americans be alert to the danger of Leftist activities in the United States. What these organizations have done in the Spanish crisis is proof sufficient that they do not hesitate to violate every canon of truth and decency in order to gain their ends in this country. Hence the pressing need of A congressional investi- gation of the radical groups working in favor of the Spanish Reds, an investigation in which Catholics should be particu- larly interested. For in denying to the Spanish people lib- erty of conscience and other inalienable rights atheistic Com- munism attacks religious and civic liberties in the United States. [ 48 ] Study these excellent pamphlets and watch for new ones which we will publish shortly on Communism! . . . . SPAIN AND THE CHRISTIAN FRONT ARNOLD LUNN THE WAR IN SPAIN PASTORAL OF SPANISH BISHOPS COMMUNISM AND UNION LABOR REV. RAYMOND T . FEELY, S.J. ENCYCLICAL ON ATHEISTIC COMMUNISM POPE PIUS XI CATHOLICISM, AMERICANISM AND COMMUNISM REV. FABIAN FLYNN, C.P. A CATECHISM OF COMMUNISM FOR CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS REV. FABIAN FLYNN, C.P. JUST WHAT IS COMMUNISM? REV. RAYMOND T . FEELY, S.J. COMMUNISM AND MORALS (formerly titled "Morals and Moscow") REV. RAYMOND T . FEELY, S.J. FASCISM, COMMUNISM, THE U. S. A. REV. RAYMOND T . FEELY, S.J. THE TACTICS OF COMMUNISM RT. REV. MSGR. FULTON J . SHEEN, D.D. LIBERTY UNDER COMMUNISM RT. REV. MSGR. FULTON J . SHEEN, D.D. COMMUNISM ANSWERS QUESTIONS OF A COMMUNIST RT. REV. MSGR. FULTON J . SHEEN, D.D. COMMUNISM AND RELIGION RT. REV. MSGR. FULTON J . SHEEN, D.D. 5 cent* each, $3.50 the 100, $30.00 the 1,000, carriage extra THE PAULIST PRESS - 401 West 59th Street - New York, N. Y.