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50 - Worlds Famous Orations - Continental Europe by William Jennings Bryan · Worlds Famous Orations - Continental Europe

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  Speaker 1: Section number fifty of the World's Famous Orations, Volume seven,
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  Speaker 1: Continental Europe. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
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  Speaker 1: are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
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  Speaker 1: please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Bill Jones. The
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  Speaker 1: World's Famous Orations, Volume seven, Continental Europe by William Jennings Bryan,
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  Speaker 1: Section number fifty. Castellar plea for a Republic in Spain
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  Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine born in eighteen thirty two, died in
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  Speaker 1: eighteen ninety nine. After the Uprising of eighteen sixty six,
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  Speaker 1: fled from Spain, became a Republican leader in eighteen sixty eight,
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  Speaker 1: Foreign Minister in eighteen seventy three. Later in the same
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  Speaker 1: year President of the Executive before replying to ministers Segasti's speech,
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  Speaker 1: I desire to say that my public life forbids me
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  Speaker 1: to defend myself against personal attacks such as the gentleman
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  Speaker 1: seems to delight in. The Minister of Government was extremely
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  Speaker 1: kind in speaking of my address as brilliant, but extremely
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  Speaker 1: severe when he declared it to be wanting in truth.
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  Speaker 1: Neither criticism was just gentlemen. I should not have to
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  Speaker 1: defend my own speeches if they had the splendor and
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  Speaker 1: beauty attributed to them by mister Segasta, I should be
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  Speaker 1: content to let them shine, confident with the most eloquent
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  Speaker 1: and greatest of ancient philosophers, that beauty is the splendor
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  Speaker 1: of truth. After all. If there be any grand quality
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  Speaker 1: in this assembly, it is eloquence, the expression of grand
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  Speaker 1: sentiments and sublime ideas in fervent language. I have heard
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  Speaker 1: such speeches come from every side of the Assembly, and
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  Speaker 1: I should like to hear one in the language of
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  Speaker 1: moderation from the government. Discussions carried on in that matter,
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  Speaker 1: with eloquence and good judgment give us hope for the future.
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  Speaker 1: For the laws of history do not permit a dictatorship
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  Speaker 1: to fashion itself upon a people whose faces are lighted
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  Speaker 1: by the fires of eloquence. Mister Sagasta defended the dictatorship,
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  Speaker 1: and in doing so he drew an awful picture of
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  Speaker 1: our social condition, talking of crimes and criminals, and telling
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  Speaker 1: you that our education in the past had been very bad,
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  Speaker 1: and that the corruption of today was very great. And
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  Speaker 1: what have the Republicans to learn from that? For three centuries,
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  Speaker 1: yes more than three centuries, our church has been an
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  Speaker 1: enemy to the human conscience for many centuries. It has
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  Speaker 1: been inimical to the national will. Consequently, if there is
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  Speaker 1: anything very bad or vicious here today, it is owing
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  Speaker 1: to institutions with which we have nothing to do. And more,
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  Speaker 1: this evil, this viciousness, owe their existence to a lack
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  Speaker 1: of respect among the people for law. This lack of
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  Speaker 1: respect for law is born of the systematic abuse of
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  Speaker 1: power by our arbitrary government, judges nominated by a party
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  Speaker 1: and appointed to revise the electoral lists, schools so called
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  Speaker 1: fulfilling convents, and military barracks, the jury outlawed, public life,
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  Speaker 1: closed to democracy, political corruption extending from above down in
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  Speaker 1: all directions. This is the product, and these are the
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  Speaker 1: products of a sore and wounded people painted by mister Sagasta,
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  Speaker 1: people who are the natural offspring of a long heredity
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  Speaker 1: of crime and error. It is impossible to cure the
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  Speaker 1: people if the system be not changed. Well, Deputies, what
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  Speaker 1: form of government has cant come to Spain since the
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  Speaker 1: September Revolution? The republican form has come and is still here.
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  Speaker 1: It so happens that you have not been able yet
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  Speaker 1: to implant monarchical institutions in its place. After being fifteen
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  Speaker 1: days in power, you declared yourselves for the monarchy. Did
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  Speaker 1: the monarchy come after the elections? You declared yourself monarchists
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  Speaker 1: and us outlaws? Did you create the monarchy in the
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  Speaker 1: primaries when the Assembly convened the monarchy was proposed? There
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  Speaker 1: we had great battles. Has the monarchy been established? The Conservatives,
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  Speaker 1: although they have not said so, have I believe, agreed
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  Speaker 1: upon a candidate. The radicals, more loquacious, have named theirs.
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  Speaker 1: But have you separated or united produced a monarchy? The
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  Speaker 1: Conservatives have a candidate who really represents the latest privilege
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  Speaker 1: granted to the middle classes. Why is it that they
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  Speaker 1: do not bring him here? Because they know that this
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  Speaker 1: is a democratic monarchy, based as it is nominally on
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  Speaker 1: universal suffrage, and because the candidate has not had and
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  Speaker 1: never will have, the votes, the endorsement, the backing of
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  Speaker 1: the people. And you you want a monarchy to keep
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  Speaker 1: up appearances, a monarchy in order that europe may say,
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  Speaker 1: see how prudent, how god fearing, how wise, how intelligent
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  Speaker 1: are the Spaniards? They have a disguised republic after a
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  Speaker 1: provisional government and a provisional regency. You want a provisional
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  Speaker 1: monarchy Also, you do not expect or want to be
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  Speaker 1: strong in the right, in liberty, in the will of
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  Speaker 1: the people, or in national sovereignty. All you want is
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  Speaker 1: a king who shall represent the predominance and the egotism
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  Speaker 1: of a party. You ought to know that as the
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  Speaker 1: candidate of the Conservatives cannot come here with the consent
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  Speaker 1: of the people. Your candidate cannot come without the consent
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  Speaker 1: of the Conservatives. Do you believe that your candidate will
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  Speaker 1: last if all the Conservative forces do not support him?
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  Speaker 1: Notwithstanding all that the Conservatives have declared to their representatives here,
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  Speaker 1: not one of them has said that he renounces his
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  Speaker 1: dynastic faith. Therefore, Deputies, you cannot establish the monarchy. On Saturday,
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  Speaker 1: I picture to you in colors more or less vivid
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  Speaker 1: the prestige which monarchical institutions have enjoyed in our country,
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  Speaker 1: and for this the Minister of State upbraided me, without
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  Speaker 1: understanding my arguments. I ask you to concentrate your attention
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  Speaker 1: for a moment upon the parallel which I am going
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  Speaker 1: to present, and which may be called a summary of
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  Speaker 1: this speech. I said the other afternoon that to establish
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  Speaker 1: monarchical institutions it was necessary to possess monarch faith and sentiment.
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  Speaker 1: One must have the poetry and the traditions of monarchy.
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  Speaker 1: I said this because I know that although the Assembly
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  Speaker 1: and the official authorities can make laws, they cannot decree
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  Speaker 1: ideas or sentiments, those real and solid foundations of institutions. Formerly,
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  Speaker 1: in other times, kings were representative of the national dignity,
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  Speaker 1: And now from those same benches we have heard that
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  Speaker 1: they sold their native soil to a foreigner and even
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  Speaker 1: prostrated themselves at his feet. The people in the meantime
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  Speaker 1: answering the enemy with the Second of May and the
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  Speaker 1: siege of Saragosa. Formerly art sketched the apotheosis of Charles
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  Speaker 1: the Fifth with Titian's brush, or the ladies in waiting
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  Speaker 1: of Philip the six with the brush of Velasquez. Now
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  Speaker 1: it sketches the image of the communists of Paris, of
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  Speaker 1: the victims of Charles the Fifth, or the ship in
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  Speaker 1: which which the Puritans took the soul of a republic
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  Speaker 1: to the bosom of Virgin America. Formerly, the Gala days
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  Speaker 1: of the people were the birthdays of kings and the
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  Speaker 1: anniversaries of the beginning of their reigns. Now the Great
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  Speaker 1: Days of celebration are the tenth of August, the thirtieth
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  Speaker 1: of July, the twenty fourth of February, and the twenty
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  Speaker 1: ninth of September, days which mark the expulsion of kings. Formerly,
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  Speaker 1: when a navigator landed in America or an explorer went
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  Speaker 1: into the interior of a new country, the purest piece
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  Speaker 1: of gold, the largest pearl, the clearest diamond, was reserved
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  Speaker 1: for the king. Now, your Minister of the Treasury claims
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  Speaker 1: from the King even the clasp which holds the royal
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  Speaker 1: mantle about his shoulders. As there is no possibility of
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  Speaker 1: establishing the monarchy, as no candidate acceptable to all can
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  Speaker 1: be found, it is necessary, it is indispensable to get
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  Speaker 1: rid of the s spense. And I say that we
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  Speaker 1: should establish a republic. Have you not said that the
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  Speaker 1: forms of government are accidental? Gentlemen? You know the republic
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  Speaker 1: I want it is a federal republic. I shall always
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  Speaker 1: defend the federal republic. I am a federal But deputies
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  Speaker 1: understand one thing. The republic is a form of government
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  Speaker 1: which admits many conditions and which has many grades, from
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  Speaker 1: the Republic of Venice to that of Switzerland. There is
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  Speaker 1: an immense scale Adjoining Mexico, where church and states are separated,
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  Speaker 1: there is Guatemala, where the clergy have great power. Close
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  Speaker 1: to the decentralized and federal Argentine Republic is the Chilean Republic,
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  Speaker 1: another decentralized country, enjoying great prosperity, its paper money being
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  Speaker 1: quoted in all the markets of Europe as high as
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  Speaker 1: that of England. Consequently, amid this great affliction, this trouble,
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  Speaker 1: this unstable ea equilibrium which surrounds you, you can establish
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  Speaker 1: a form of government which is of the people and
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  Speaker 1: for the people, a form in harmony with the institutions
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  Speaker 1: you have proclaimed, and with the sentiment which all of
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  Speaker 1: you guard in the bottom of your hearts. Have you
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  Speaker 1: not observed in history the inability of an assembly or
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  Speaker 1: any other power to establish a form of government in
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  Speaker 1: conflict with great ideas? Remember the eighteenth century. Never had
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  Speaker 1: a monarchy attained more power. Never was absolutism so strong,
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  Speaker 1: Never was the destruction of obstacles in the way of
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  Speaker 1: kings more complete. Philosophy ascended the throne with them, ascended
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  Speaker 1: with Charles the Third and Aranda and Tomball. It ascended
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  Speaker 1: with Joseph the First, with Frederick the Great with Leopold
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  Speaker 1: of Tuscany, all seemed to conspire to establish the same idea,
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  Speaker 1: the idea of a philosophy and a liberal life. And
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  Speaker 1: did they succeed. No, They were the baptists of the revolution.
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  Speaker 1: They repented late, and the philosophy they had thrown at
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  Speaker 1: the feet of the thrones came to naught. And what happened.
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  Speaker 1: Some were sentenced by the Assembly, the crowns of divine
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  Speaker 1: right were melted into cannonballs by the soldiers of the revolution.
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  Speaker 1: What does this signify that great powers cannot place absolutism
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  Speaker 1: above philosophy any more than you can build monarchical institutions
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  Speaker 1: on individual rights. Therefore, I beseech you to establish the republic.
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  Speaker 1: You are assured of our patriotism, our great interest in
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  Speaker 1: the country, our abnegation. Cato committed suicide because he found
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  Speaker 1: a caesar. Radicals of Spain do not commit suicide because
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  Speaker 1: you cannot find a monarch. End of Section number fifty
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  Speaker 1: read by Bill Jones, dearborn, Michigan, three October twenty twenty two.