No Anglo-Saxon ever really understands what a Spaniard means by his honor. It has little or nothing to do with honesty— a fact which often causes painful misunderstanding. Last week the millions of Spanish-blooded folk who live outside of Spain were thrilled to the marrow by a lengthy and ornate oration, the text of which had been smuggled past Dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera’s censors and frontier guards at risk of life and limb. These smuggled words are the very avatar of Spanish honor. They are the stenographic minutes of the successful but mercilessly suppressed plea which Don José Sanchez Guerra, four times Prime Minister of Spain, made to a court martial in Valencia, before whom he stood accused of High Treason (TIME, Dec. 9). The 70-year-old rebel is living quietly in Madrid today with his daughters, and when he goes walking is sometimes cheered by irrepressible students of the University of Madrid who shout, “Long live Sanchez Guerra! Death to the Dictator! Down with the King!”
Facing his accusers, the “Grand old Democrat” began by proudly confessing to the treasonable charge against him— that he had indeed come from France to Valencia in a leaky old tramp steamer for the sole purpose of leading an insurrection against the present Government of Spain. Whole volumes of typically Spanish controversy have arisen as to whether Revolutionist Sanchez Guerra was received by the Captain General of Valencia “with a closed door”—i.e. whether the highest military official of the province was himself ready to become a party to the revolution.
“The famous door, was it open or shut?” cried Don José. “Good God! Open or shut? It was half open, and so I went in by it, as I am not accustomed to getting through closed doors. . . . My good name, my dignity, my integrity . . . is not mine but the sole inheritance of my sons. . . . I could not consent to being considered more or less as an aristocratic reveller calling late at a house of ill-fame and knocking at the door!”
Anglo-Saxons may well ask what such words mean, if anything. They are a circumlocution worthy of a Grandee of Spain. Without compromising the Captain General, they sufficiently imply his support of the revolution, and the subsequent seemingly nonsensical allusion to a house of ill-fame may be considered a Spanish masterpiece. It is another way of saying: “I will not be taken for a lecherous old swine like Primo de Rivera.” For any Spaniard would recognize the allusion to an occasion when the Chief of Police of Madrid personally conducted a raid on a celebrated bawdy house, thundered on the door, and then slunk away as the proprietor whispered through the chink, “I can’t let you in, because Primo is already here!”
Having taken a crack at the man who wields power of life and death in Spain, the white-bearded prisoner proceeded to flay none other than Monsignor Melo y Alcalde, Archbishop of Valencia, who, although he had been one of the revolutionaries, turned state’s evidence and betrayed them to the Government. Declaring that the prelate had advised him to flee Spain while there was yet time to escape arrest, the prisoner in the dock observed: . . . I had asked for no one’s advice, bearing always in mind the happy saying of the great Don Francisco Silvela, that He who asks for advice as to what he ought to do shuns his duty.”
In his grand conclusion, which moved the judges to acquit a prisoner who had confessed his crime, Don José Sanchez Guerra recalled that Dictator Primo de Rivera has suppressed the Spanish Constitution. Dramatically he cried:
“I came to Valencia not to transgress but to carry out my vows—which I took four times as Prime Minister—to protect and carry out the Constitution, serving at the same time my convictions and ideas.
“If successful, this rising might have been as glorious as many others in our disturbed history. Spanish opinion is very decadent, very cowardly and very egoistic; but I declare that it has retained sufficient sensibility of mind and heart to appreciate and reward the independence of the judge, the brave uprightness of the soldier, and the noble conduct of the citizens who carry out their duty as they conceive it, acting and passing judgment with no thought for the consequences.
“It is your duty now to pass judgment, gentlemen. I repeat that I allowed for all eventualities when I came [to Spain], because a Government de jure or de facto could shoot me in defending itself when . . . bearing always in mind the happy saying of the great Don Francisco Silvela. attacked. That might perhaps have been a worthy end to a life which I have always tried to make an honorable one. But I now say, gentlemen, that I am sure the inspiration governing your judgment will not come to you (to quote the famous words of Vegacon) as a ray of light, but will arise in a blinding flash!”
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