Anarchism and Other Essays
next day his companion, Soledad Villafranca, received the following
letter:
"No reason to worry; you know I am absolutely innocent. Today I am
particularly hopeful and joyous. It is the first time I can write to
you, and the first time since my arrest that I can bathe in the rays
of the sun, streaming generously through my cell window. You, too,
must be joyous."
How pathetic that Ferrer should have believed, as late as October
fourth, that he would not be condemned to death. Even more pathetic
that his friends and comrades should once more have made the blunder
in crediting the enemy with a sense of justice. Time and again they
had placed faith in the judicial powers, only to see their brothers
killed before their very eyes. They made no preparation to rescue
Ferrer, not even a protest of any extent; nothing. "Why, it is
impossible to condemn Ferrer; he is innocent." But everything is
possible with the Catholic Church. Is she not a practiced henchman,
whose trials of her enemies are the worst mockery of justice?
On October fourth Ferrer sent the following letter to L'HUMANITE:
The Prison Cell, Oct. 4, 1909.
My dear Friends--Notwithstanding most absolute innocence, the
prosecutor demands the death penalty, based on denunciations of
the police, representing me as the chief of the world's
Anarchists, directing the labor syndicates of France, and guilty
of conspiracies and insurrections everywhere, and declaring that
my voyages to London and Paris were undertaken with no other
object.
With such infamous lies they are trying to kill me.
The messenger is about to depart and I have not time for more.
All the evidence presented to the investigating judge by the
police is nothing but a tissue of lies and calumnious
insinuations. But no proofs against me, having done nothing at
all.
FERRER.
October thirteenth, 1909, Ferrer's heart, so brave, so staunch, so
loyal, was stilled. Poor fools! The last agonized throb of that
heart had barely died away when it began to beat a hundredfold in the
hearts of the civilized world, until it grew into terrific thunder,
hurling forth its malediction upon the instigators of the black
crime. Murderers of black garb and pious mien, to the bar of
justice!
Did Francisco Ferrer participate in the anti-military uprising?
According to the first indictment, which appeared in a Catholic paper
in Madrid, signed by the Bishop and all the prelates of Barcelona, he
was not even accused of participation. The indictment was to the
effect that Francisco Ferrer was guilty of having organized godless
schools, and having circulated godless literature. But in the
twentieth century men can not be burned merely for their godless
beliefs. Something else had to be devised; hence the charge of
instigating the uprising.
In no authentic source so far investigated could a single proof be
found to connect Ferrer with the uprising. But then, no proofs were
wanted, or accepted, by the authorities. There were seventy-two
witnesses, to be sure, but their testimony was taken on paper. They
never were confronted with Ferrer, or he with them.
Is it psychologically possible that Ferrer should have participated?
I do not believe it is, and here are my reasons. Francisco Ferrer
was not only a great teacher, but he was also undoubtedly a marvelous
organizer. In eight years, between 1901-1909, he had organized in
Spain one hundred and nine schools, besides inducing the liberal
element of his country to organize three hundred and eight other
schools. In connection with his own school work, Ferrer had equipped
a modern printing plant, organized a staff of translators, and spread
broadcast one hundred and fifty thousand copies of modern scientific
and sociologic works, not to forget the large quantity of rationalist
text books. Surely none but the most methodical and efficient
organizer could have accomplished such a feat.
On the other hand, it was absolutely proven that the anti-military
uprising was not at all organized; that it came as a surprise to the
people themselves, like a great many revolutionary waves on previous
occasions. The people of Barcelona, for instance, had the city in
their control for four days, and, according to the statement of
tourists, greater order and peace never prevailed. Of course, the
people were so little prepared that when the time came, they did not
know what to do. In this regard they were like the people of Paris
during the Commune of 1871. They, too, were unprepared. While they
were starving, they protected the warehouses, filled to the brim with
provisions. They placed sentinels to guard the Bank of France, where
the bourgeoisie kept the stolen money. The workers of Barcelona,
too, watched over the spoils of their masters.
How pathetic is the stupidity of the underdog; how terribly tragic!
But, then, have not his fetters been forged so deeply into his flesh,
that he would not, even if he could, break them? The awe of
authority, of law, of private property, hundredfold burned into his
soul,--how is he to throw it off unprepared, unexpectedly?
Can anyone assume for a moment that a man like Ferrer would affiliate
himself with such a spontaneous, unorganized effort? Would he not
have known that it would result in a defeat, a disastrous defeat for
the people? And is it not more likely that if he would have taken
part, he, the experienced ENTREPRENEUR, would have thoroughly
organized the attempt? If all other proofs were lacking, that one
factor would be sufficient to exonerate Francisco Ferrer. But there
are others equally convincing.
For the very date of the outbreak, July twenty-fifth, Ferrer had
called a conference of his teachers and members of the League of
Rational Education. It was to consider the autumn work, and
particularly the publication of Elisee Reclus' great book, L'HOMME ET
LA TERRE, and Peter Kropotkin's GREAT FRENCH REVOLUTION. Is it at
all likely, is it at all plausible that Ferrer, knowing of the
uprising, being a party to it, would in cold blood invite his friends
and colleagues to Barcelona for the day on which he realized their
lives would be endangered? Surely, only the criminal, vicious mind
of a Jesuit could credit such deliberate murder.
Francisco Ferrer had his life-work mapped out; he had everything to
lose and nothing to gain, except ruin and disaster, were he to lend
assistance to the outbreak. Not that he doubted the justice of the
people's wrath; but his work, his hope, his very nature was directed
toward another goal.
In vain are the frantic efforts of the Catholic Church, her lies,
falsehoods, calumnies. She stands condemned by the awakened human
conscience of having once more repeated the foul crimes of the past.
Francisco Ferrer is accused of teaching the children the most
blood-curdling ideas,--to hate God, for instance. Horrors!
Francisco Ferrer did not believe in the existence of a God. Why
teach the child to hate something which does not exist? Is it not
more likely that he took the children out into the open, that he
showed them the splendor of the sunset, the brilliancy of the starry
heavens, the awe-inspiring wonder of the mountains and seas; that he
explained to them in his simple, direct way the law of growth, of
development, of the interrelation of all life? In so doing he made
it forever impossible for the poisonous weeds of the Catholic Church
to take root in the child's mind.
It has been stated that Ferrer prepared the children to destroy the
rich. Ghost stories of old maids. Is it not more likely that he
prepared them to succor the poor? That he taught them the
humiliation, the degradation, the awfulness of poverty, which is a
vice and not a virtue; that he taught the dignity and importance of
all creative efforts, which alone sustain life and build character.
Is it not the best and most effective way of bringing into the proper
light the absolute uselessness and injury of parasitism?
Last, but not least, Ferrer is charged with undermining the army by
inculcating anti-military ideas. Indeed? He must have believed with
Tolstoy that war is legalized slaughter, that it perpetuates hatred
and arrogance, that it eats away the heart of nations, and turns them
into raving maniacs.
However, we have Ferrer's own word regarding his ideas of modern
education:
"I would like to call the attention of my readers to this idea: All
the value of education rests in the respect for the physical,
intellectual, and moral will of the child. Just as in science no
demonstration is possible save by facts, just so there is no real
education save that which is exempt from all dogmatism, which leaves
to the child itself the direction of its effort, and confines itself
to the seconding of its effort. Now, there is nothing easier than to
alter this purpose, and nothing harder than to respect it.
Education is always imposing, violating, constraining; the real
educator is he who can best protect the child against his (the
teacher's) own ideas, his peculiar whims; he who can best appeal to
the child's own energies.
"We are convinced that the education of the future will be of an
entirely spontaneous nature; certainly we can not as yet realize it,
but the evolution of methods in the direction of a wider
comprehension of the phenomena of life, and the fact that all
advances toward perfection mean the overcoming of restraint,--all
this indicates that we are in the right when we hope for the
deliverance of the child through science.
"Let us not fear to say that we want men capable of evolving without
stopping, capable of destroying and renewing their environments
without cessation, of renewing themselves also; men, whose
intellectual independence will be their greatest force, who will
attach themselves to nothing, always ready to accept what is best,
happy in the triumph of new ideas, aspiring to live multiple lives in
one life. Society fears such men; we therefore must not hope that it
will ever want an education able to give them to us.
"We shall follow the labors of the scientists who study the child
with the greatest attention, and we shall eagerly seek for means of
applying their experience to the education which we want to build up,
in the direction of an ever fuller liberation of the individual.
But how can we attain our end? Shall it not be by putting ourselves
directly to the work favoring the foundation of new schools, which
shall be ruled as much as possible by this spirit of liberty, which
we forefeel will dominate the entire work of education in the future?
"A trial has been made, which, for the present, has already given
excellent results. We can destroy all which in the present school
answers to the organization of constraint, the artificial
surroundings by which children are separated from nature and life,
the intellectual and moral discipline made use of to impose
ready-made ideas upon them, beliefs which deprave and annihilate
natural bent. Without fear of deceiving ourselves, we can restore
the child to the environment which entices it, the environment of
nature in which he will be in contact with all that he loves, and in
which impressions of life will replace fastidious book-learning. If
we did no more than that, we should already have prepared in great
part the deliverance of the child.
"In such conditions we might already freely apply the data of science
and labor most fruitfully.
"I know very well we could not thus realize all our hopes, that we
should often be forced, for lack of knowledge, to employ undesirable