diffie - hispanidad (1943)

8/6/2019 Diffie - Hispanidad (1943)

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THE IDE OLOGY O F H I S P A N I D AD

On November 2, 1940, General Franco established theConsejo de la Hispanidad. I t s creation fixed one of the im-portant milestones in Hispanic history. Looking backward,the Consejo is observed as the product of a long historicalprocess; looliing forward, it is seen as the shadow cast bycoming events. While to predict the future is not the his-torian's province, it is not necessary to do so in this case.The immediate task is only to read the directioiis too plainlywritten on the milestone. Spain has turned her face towardher own late Middle Ages. The present regime seeks torecreate the semi-theocratic state which reached its zenithunder Charles V and Philip 11,modernizing it with the tech-niques of Fascism.l Since the Spanish Empire was in beingat the time, the regstablishment of that Empire is one of theConsejo's announced objecti~es.~

Pan-Hispanism, usually known to the Spaniards as His -pawiswzo, has long existed. I t s primary objective has beenthe restoration of some degree of the unity lost when theHispanic-American nations became free. Hispawidad, a termpopularized after 1931, is the particular type of Hispanis f i toadvocated by the Falange Espaiiola. The ideology of His -pawidad differs radically from that of Hispanis lno, whichwas largely a liberal movement based 011 the principles of theEnlightenmei~t.~It self-conscionsly cultivated the liberalismIThe Palangists call Medieval Xpain a 'LTheocracy" and speak of Spain's

Middle Ages reaching into the seventeenth century.=Far the r on a number of specific statements from Franco and others accent

the imperial ambitions of Spain.Exceptions to this rule can be pointed out. The reunion of Spain with her

former colonies, usually on a cultural basis but sometimes politically and eco-nomically as well, Tras frequent ly urged. But the importance of those who predi-cated this reunion on a renewed attachment to the traditions of sixteenth-centurySpain va s not great in comparison with the advocates of a cultural Pan-Hispanism based on Spain's liberal tradition. Hispa?lisn~owas bitterly anti-

The Hispanic American Historical Review , Vol. 23, No. 3. (Aug., 1943), pp. 457-482.

Bailey W. Diffie


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458 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEWin Spain's own history, and with equal vigor rejected "tradi-tional" Spanish values. Without renouncing religion, itsadvocates urged a liberal Roman Catholicism. The Inquisitionand the intolerance it symbolized were regarded as a shame-ful inheritance ; the democratic heritage was studied ; co-lonialism denounced; the Enlightenment embraced; Spain'scultural contributions extolled; public education advocated;anti-Semitism denounced and a conscious pro-Semitismpracticed.

Pr ide in liberalism, was, in fact, one of the outstandingcharacteristics of Hispaszismo. Rafael Altamira, Spain'sdistinguished historian and jurist, made this the basis of hieappeal to the Hispanic nations in his numerous writings onthis subject. In 1917 he wrote: "Spain is Catholic; but inspite of the tiny group of fanatics here (as elsewhere), it istolerant . . . and also l iberal, profoundly liberaLM4Hispanidad, on the other hand, appeals to the Hispanicworld on the basis of Spain's traditional, Roman Catholicheritage, to which has been added the ideology of modernFascism.

11.THE PHILOSOPHYF ESPA"ALANGE NOLAThe advocates of Hispaqzidad were the victors in the revolt

against the Spanish Republic, 1936-1939. Tlany today occupyhigh places in Franco's government, being the official philos-ophers of the Falange Espaiiola and Hispamidad. Theirwritings form the body of the ideology of the N ue v o E s f ado .To understand the meaning of Hispamidad to America, onemust first comprehend the culture which these men would seeprevail in the world. Generally speaking, they want Fas-cism, but it i s a Spanish Fascism which has its own character-istics and its own peculiar significance for us. The FalangeEspaiiola is the instrument of action; Hispamidacl the exportproduct, designed for Hispanic America and the world. TheYankee and anti-Pan-American, naturally, but based much of i ts opposition onthe argument that the United States was an imperialist power. Fo r a goodaccount of Pan-Hispanism to 1931 see J. Fred Rippy, The Historical Evolutionof Hispanic America (New York, 1932 and later editions), pp. 461-478.Rafael Altamira, Espaita ?/ el progranla america?tista (Madrid, 1917), p. 10.


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T H E I D EO L OG Y O F HISPANIDAD 459philosophy of the Falange is the key to Hispanidad; it em-braces a concept of life today opposed to that which thedemocratic world esp0uses.j

While this philosophy is deeply rooted in Spanish tradi-tion, much of its modern formulation has been borrowed fromGerman and Italian totalitarianism. I ts chief exponents ha rebeen men who admired Hitler and Mussolini. OnBsimo Re-dondo and Josh Antonio Primo de Rivera are examples.Others, however, have greater standing as the philosophersof Falange. Among the most prominent are Serrano Snfier,Ramiro de IYlaeztu, Maria cle Maeztn, Sainz Rodriguez,Ernesto Gim6nez Caballero, Josh Maria PBman, and JoshPemartin.

The ambition of the Palangists is in no sense a limitedone; nor is there less boldness in the intellectual concept ~sritl.1which they intend to accomplish it. They aim at the domi-nation of the ~vorld,with both arms and intellect, and theyseek to accomplish this with a complete reinterpretation ofhistory.

Briefly stated, their historical thesis is the following: tlieMicldle Ages were the great period of man's spiritual andintellectual development because there was "unity" in allChristendom. Spain best represented this under Charles Vwho combined the physical force of Germany with the spir-itual force of Spain in the Holy Roman Empire. Unity wasdisrupted by the Renaissance with its paganizing influence,and by the Protestant Reformation, also pagan. This thesisis cleveloped in the writings of the Palangists. Among themost prominent is Jos6 Pemartin, an active member ofAccio'n Cato'lica, whose position as chief of university andsecondary education uncler Franco gave him the prestige of

On recent act ivi t ies of H ispan idad see Wil l iam B. Bri s to l , "Hispan idad inSo uth America ," Foveign Affaivs , X X I ( J a nua r y , 1943 ) ; for the ph i losophy seeth e speeches an d p roclamat ions of OnQsimo Redondo, o rganizer of th e J .O.N.S.(Jzcqctas de Ofensiwa Nacio?zal Sind icalis ta), published af te r his d eat h b y his fo l-lo ~v er sas O ~lBsimoRedondo: Caudi l lo de Cas t il la (Val ladol id, 1937) ; JosQ AntonioPr imo de Rivera , D iscuvsos (Santand er , 193 8) ; J u a n Beneyto PBrez, El Ituevoestccdo espaCol (Madrid-CR diz, 19 39 ), v i t h a prologue by S. E. Arrigo Solmi ,Mini s t e r of Ju s t i ce of I t a l y ; anc l Jose Mar ia Cos ta Ser rano and Ju a n BeneytoPBrez, E l P a v ti do ( Z a ra goz a, 1939 ) .


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461HE IDEOLOGY OF H I S P A N I D A Dand even more since the Cartesian philosophy of the seventeenth cen-tury, the triumph of relativism has slowly undermined the founda-tions of Truth. Relative truth, methodical doubt and philosophicalskepticism have gained ground. The materialistic interpretation ofhistory has won, and economic values have been elevated above spir-itual values. . . . [But] there is an absolute Truth above relativetruth. There is a creative, living faith above the doubt that destroysand annihilates. There is a true knowledge that enables us to appre-hend objective reality above fanciful opinioils which embrace men ina perennial sophisn~. Xo! Man is not the measure of all things.The assertion of Protagoras, vanquished in the Greece of Socrates,reappeared in the days of the Renaissance, of the Protestant Rev-olution, and of the Freilch Revolution. . . . Because it was believedthat man mas the measure of all things he was able to cut himselfaway from his essential roots and place himself in the center of theworld. During the Protestant Reformation he could subject revealedtruth to the free examination of the individual conscience, and could,with the proponents of the French Revolution, deify reason. . . .But man is not the measure of all things, because he is nothing butone thing among many and in his turn may be measured by a higher,transcendental measure which embraces everything. . . . I do notlmo~v fter all whether my thesis is sufficiently clear. It is nothingless than this: we live in an insane world. . . . This war i s not likeformer wars. . . . The fight is not for territorial limits or nationalindependence. . . . Today they fight to impose one or anotherideology. . . . These are civil wars, social revolution^.^

The alignments in this titanic struggle are clear. Democ-racy and the democracies stand in opposition to Fascism.England is regarded as the eternal enemy; France is de-nounced as an "ill-smelling and infectious hovel. "I0

The choicest invective, however, is reserved for the UnitedStates. T7ox de Espai ia , Sali Sebasti&n,said on December 7,1938:With a cynicism that breaks all world recorcls (what a great happi-ness for the land of records!) the United States of America, throughthe voice of that man they call the Fi rst Citizen of the World, haveconstituted themselves the defenders of the moral values of the Occi-

O Maria de Maeztu, Historia d e la oul tura europea, la Eclad M o d e m a : gvandezay s e ~ v i i l u m b r e (Buenos Aires, 1941), pp. 9-13.

E i e ~ r o ,Bilboa, April 8, 1938, quoted in Julio Hlvarez d e l Vayo, La gueryaempezo' en EspaGa (MBxico, D.F., 1940),p. 338.


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462 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEWdent. Risz~rn eneatis amici? The country of divorce, of Lynch Law,of the Four Hundred sects, of the universities where a doctorate ofphilosophy may be bought for a bagatelle, of the country whosenational monuments had to be torn down at the end of twenty yearsbecause they were about t o fall down, the country of the gangsters,of the thieving mayors, of the odious distinctions of race, tlie countryof birth control, the country of the protection of dogs and thepersecution of the Negroes! Is this the country that can defend theculture and values of the Occident? Of which Occident?ll

The anti-United States campaign is waged by numerousreviews and newspapers in Spain, in Hispanic America, andeven in the United States itself. Significant because of itsofficial character as an organ of ~ i s p & i d a d is the Revis ta deImdias, a publication which began life by filching the title ofthe venerable Colombian Revis ta de las Iadias . Each issuecarries a section called "Cr6nica del Jlundo Hisphnico,"written, until his death in 1942, by Carlos Pereyra. Pereyramade this section a running diatribe against democracy ingeneral and the United States in particular. The tone ofHispamidad's attack on the United States may be judged fromthe following typical example :Roosevelt, a Jew-which he does not deny-snrro~~nded himself withJews and formed the Brain Trust. . . . There are other Jews aroundRoosevelt: Governor Lehman of New York; Mayor LaGuardia; . . .and the proletarian agitator, John L. Lewis. There are many otherJews in the list. Felix Frankfurter is the most influential Jew. Asa judge of the Supreme Court he lllnst maintain a discreet distance,but his inflnence is felt through his students, among whom ThomasG. Coreoran, called familiarly T o m Kork [Tommy, the Cork!], theWhite House buffoon, stands out.''

011 tlie reverse side of the Hispaqzidad medal is admirationof Germany, Italy, and Japan. Gimknez Caballero, forexample, points out that during the First Worlcl ITar"traditionalist and Catl~olic Spain instinctively favoredGermanism. "13 El correo espa6ol exclaimed on October 15,1938 : '6011, Germany! Our sister in the best of Spanis11destinies : the Imperial destiny !" And complimenting Ger-

Quoted in ibid., p. 335. Carlos Pereyra, in Revista de Indias , I1 (No. 5, 1941), 194-206. lWim6nez Caballero, Genio de Espafia, p. 149, note 1.

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463HE I D E O L O G Y O F HISPANIDADmany the same paper continued: "In the days of pour tri-umph in the face of all the secret societies m7e applauded, notwith the clenched fist of the Free Masoas, but with our handsopen, our arms raised while we shouted in tlie stentorian tonesof brothers : Heil Witler !"I4 Support of the dictators comesfrom many other sources, Guzmiin Valdivia and Jose Vas-concelos, of Mexico, for example. Vasconcelos, who oncedistinguished himself for his liberal ideas ~vl~ileerving asMinister of Education, remarks :Nobody detests dictatorship more than I, but vulgar despotism isone thing while quite another and distinct thing is the gei1iu.s oforganizat ion th at has raised I ta ly to the category of a f irst-rate powerin a few years. Whoever does no t become inspired with pride fo rthis New I ta ly is not worthy of belonging to Latin civilization. . . .No descendant of a Spa niard ~ v h o s not a bas tard can fa i l to fee lglad that the AIediterranean is on the point of again becoming aLat in sea . . . the Romance langaages will clomillate the world . . .our America will again be Spanish.16

Democracy is condemned because it "g~~aranteesherights of man Ednardo. . and the rights of ~propert-y."~~Aun6s PQrez, a member of the Consejo de la Hispanidad,asserts that "anarchy is the consequence of this same [Dem-ocratic] system anci sve can almost say the n a t ~ ~ r a lesult ofits evolntioii, its essence being the al~solnte ack of gos7eril-ment."17 FE, official organ of Falange, sta ted in 1938:The liberal-clemocratic state, with its function limited by the politicaldoctrine and customs which i ts moral cl imate permitted, revealeditself a t once as impo tent to assu re the rights of the weak against theuncoiltrollecl assaults of the strong. . . . Fro m fa i lu re to fa i l a re , f romimpotence to impotence, froill one loss of prestige to aaother, theSt ate reaches its sup rem e crisis, the crisis of auth ority , the linlitlesstr i um ph of anco ntrolled inst incts . Such is the end, the las t ac t inthe farce of the dying monients of liberal democracy, clragging clownwith it the nations which had eatrusted themselves total ly to it.18Quoted in Del Vayo, La guerIecc evzpezo' en EspaEa, p. 339.

I6 JOSQ (Mexico, 1936), pp. 91-93.asconcelos, Que es el Conzzinisnzole I saac G u z m j n Valdivia, El (lesti.,~oe Xe'zico (&IQxico, .F., 1939), pp. 39,196 and pclssin~;and Del TTayo, La guewa e?npezo' e n EspaEa, pp. 338-340, with

ntunerous statements f r o m Falangists shon~ing latrecl of the democracies.17 Ednardo Atinhs PBrez, Episfola~io(1916-1942) (Madrid, 1941), p. 45.I s All editorial, ( 'El sentido peninsalar de la revolucihn, ' ' PE : Doctyinn

?zacional sindicalista (Marzo-Ab~il, 938), 13. 157.


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464 THE HISPANIC A ~ I E R I C A N HISTORICAL REVIEWAlfonso Jnuco, quotiilg an imaginary "Great Monarch7'

of the East, has him say:De ~n ocr acy s e i ther a va in word or i t i s the ru le of the m ajor i ty . . . .I am democrat ic , profoundly democrat ic , but I do not bel ieve in suchdemocracy. . . . My democracy i s of another type , s i r : it is the onlyrea l democracy , and the only democracy tha t wil l t r i um ph i n theworld , because i t i s the only type tha t i s in conformity wi th therea l ity o f huma n na tu re . M y democracy has a n indiv id ua l an d socialcha racter . I t consists not of equ ali ty bu t of inequ ali ty . lg

Falange's sharpest shafts are in fact aimed at equality.I n her work, Esc l a u i t z~dy l i b e r t ad , Concha Espina, the Xpan-ish novelist who identifies slavery with the Spanish Republicand liberty with the Falange, refers to people who upheldth e Republic as "poor ignoramuses poisoned by the absurddoctrine of Ramiro de Alaeztu, until his execu-tion a t the beginning of the revolt against the Republic in1936 regarded as the chief exponent of Hispanidad , deroteclmuch of his writing to "proving7' that men are by natureunequal and unfit for self-rule. Men are equal, he says, onlyin "metaphysical liberty" or "free will" but "this is the onlyequality that is compatible with liberty," any other type ofequality being "an absurdity. ' '21

Popular education is also regarded as an evil of the mod-ern age, as it would be by men who despise human kind.The attitude of Falange and Hispa~z idadin this is a part ofthe general contempt they have for people. No other im-pression gathered from reading the literature of Falange isso strong as this: They consider the majority of human beingsas the scum of the earth. Hobbes' dictum that man's life is"solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" seems mild after afern hours with the writings of Gimhnez Caballero, Ramirode Maeztu, and the other philosophers of t,he Falange.W he n we speak of th e crisis of c ul ture [say s M aria de Maeztu] wesee how, ill effect, the excess of li terary production is in a way re-

l%Aonso J u a c o , Sangre de Hispaniu, pp. 105-106.20 Concha Espina, Esclavitztil g libevtad (Bnrgos, 1 9 3 8 ) , p. 18 .Ramiro cle RIaezta, Defensa de la Zlispaniilad (Buenos Aires, 1941), pp. 93-

97. The first edition as published in 1934 and vas t h e chief force in popular-izing the term Hispanidad.


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THE I D E O L O G Y O F HISPr l S I nAD 465sponsible for that crisis. Culture, when diffused, loses its solidarity.And an encyclopedic culture has produced an encyclopedic ignorance.The more people read the less they know. They learn more scienceand have less wisdom. . . .2 2The Modern Age has wished to popularize culture, spread it, inorder to put it within the reach of the people. This is impossible.Culture cannot be popular. . . . Cultnre loses its essential value whenplaced within the reach of the weak. . . . The attempt to devitalizeand enervate culture is a deliberate attack by inferior beings on theforces that have made mall a thinking being. . . .23I t was believed that the eradication of illiteracy would signifythe end of ignorance. Never has there been such a large nunlber ofpeople possessing such a large measure of lrnowledge. Nevertheless,this has not produced a greater sanity in the world. . . . The excessof science has produced an ignorant humanity which .aspires to aspiritual leveling. . . . Science has not elevated the general level ofculture; it has not produced a better man.24

The only remedy for the destructive forces of democracyand equalitarianism is ail hierarchical society. "God hascreated the people to work . . . he clergy for the ministrationof the Faith . . . the nobility to assure virtue and administerjustice. " 2 5I n order to build the "Ne-tv Spaill" the liberal, democraticprinciples must be eradicated, and one way to achieve this isto discredit the men who represent these ideals in Spanishhistory. Such eighteenth-century liberals as Aranda, Cam-pomanes, Jovellanos and the \vliole group of "afrancesados "are subjected to severe attacks. The Falange abhors all thatthe Constitution of 1812 represents, while Ferdinaiid VII,who is called by Carleton J. H. Hayes "rancorous, cruel,ungrateful and unscrupulous" and who, according to thesame author, restored the old r6gime in Spain in 1814 "~vitllall it s inequalities and injustices," is the hero." GeneralR'iego, who led the liberal revolt of 1820, is anathematized,as is every liberal of the nineteenth century. Joaquin Costareceives the most +itriolic abnse, probably because his eco-

2a Maria de Maez tu , G'?~ltztra uro peo , pp. 9-10 . " Ibid. , pp. 22-25 ." Ib id . , pp. 37-38. a6 Ibid. , p. 57.aa Carle ton J. H. Hayes , A Political an d Social H i s t o r y of Modern Europe

( 2 vols., New York, 1916), 11, 20-21.


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466 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEWnomic studies contrast most sharply the liberal and tradition-alist forces in Spain, and still more probably because heconducted a campaign fo r renewal of ties with the SephardicJews throughout tlie world.Anti-Semitism and anti-Freemasonry form importantparts of Falange's ideology.The total Catholicization of Spain [says Pemartin] cannot beachieved without a decided and opportune fight against the anti-Catholic sects: Freemasonry and Judaism. . . . Freeillasonry andJudaism are the tm7o great and powerful enemies of the Fascisms, ofthe regeneration of Europe, and even more specifically, of the regen-eration of Spain in the sense of the total Catholicizatioi~we envisioiz.Hitler is entirely right in his anti-Semitism to the death. Mussolillihas perhaps done more for the g~*eatnessf Italy with his dissolutionof Masonry than with any other measure whatever.27

To be Spanish is to be anti-Semitic, according to Ramirode hfaeztu. Entitling his discussion "Against the Moors andthe Jews" he remarks : "A Jew continues to be a Jew evenwhen he abjures his faith. It was for this reason preciselythat we mere obliged to establish the Inquisition." "Thefundamental characteristics of the Spaniards are, therefore,those that he owes to the fight against Moors and Jews. . . ."2s

The philosophers of the Falange are not indulging in id.lewordiness when they insist on the reversal of modern historyand take historical reinterpretation as their most pol$-erfulweapon. They know where they are going. Fi rs t, they m n lthe Hispanic peoples to accept their thesis that the presentworld is evil. Second, they want it to accept their explana-tions of why it is e~7il. Third, they want to prescribe theremedies. Endless repetition of the same theme is a part oftheir method. They ~van to drum their thesis into the e a r sof their listeners until the subconscious begins to accept it.What is happening today [they say] has its reason for being, itscauses in the course of history. I t is the fa tal a i d inevitable resultof a cloctrine, of a philosophy, of a defiliitioli of man, of an inter-pretation of reality and life that came to the world 011 the decline ofthe Iliddle Ages, in the hours of the Renaissance, and which formd

Peniar t in , L o Xupli'o, p. 322 . 2 8 Rlaeztn, I l l spanzdud , pp. 209-211 .


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467HE I DEOLOGY O F HISPANIDADits course and its developlnent in the Protestant Reformatioii, in theCromwellian Revolution in 1661 [ s i c ] , in the political revolution ofthe United States in 1776, in the philosophical-rationalist revolutionin Prance in 1789, in the Industrial Revolution . . . , in the Positivisttheories of Auguste Comte, in Spencer's Darwinian evolution, and inMarx's economic interpretation of history.29

The world has profited nothing, they reiterate, from theEnlightenment. A tree is known by its fmit, and the fruitof the eighteenth century is conspicuously evil. "Free econ-omy? It is the origin of social problems. . . . Democracy?It is incapacity for government. Spiritual liberalism? It isthe triumph of defamation. The encyclopedic bachelor's de-gree? Like almost all the content of public edncation it servesfor nothing more than to instill in the human spirit the horrorof

But if the eighteenth century inspires horror in the advo-cates of Hispn+zidc~d,he ninetenth century is even more of anightmare to them. For this is the century of AugusteComte, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Herbert Spencer.Why they condemn Marx needs no explanation. Comtearouses hatred because his philosophy of Positivism rejectsall knowledge of which man can have 110 sensual perception,thus ruling out the spiritual values on which Hispamidaclallegedly is based. Comte's Positivism refutes metaphysics,and with Positivism as the weapon one may demolish thewhole galaxy of spiritual concepts, from God througli hisagent, the Church. Darwin's evolutionary theories rule outthe special creation of man, essential to religion. Spencer'ssocial evolution removes all "eternal" values from the socialstructure, leaving man to manage his own affairs withoutsupernatural aid.

The first task of the Falange is to destroy these "false"philosophers, to clear away all modernism, democracy, lib-eralism, rationalism, Cartesian-Newtonian mathematics, theProtestant Reformation and the Renaissance, thereby ma$-ing room for tlie return of spirituality. Only when this isdone can Spain again achieve her former greatness. This is

M a ~ i ade Naeztu, C u l f z i ~ n u l op e n , p. 14.?O Maeztn, H i s p a n i d a d , pp. 273 -274 .


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468 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEWthe negative, destructive side of the Falange's philosophy.But a positive program is ready at hand. Spain, says RamiroNaeztu, has only to accept as her objective the "return toour Faith9'-the Roman CatholicCatholicism thus becomes the official policy of Palmz-gismo; it s program includes "maximum respect fo r the Cath-olic tradition of our race." Furthermore, "the spiritualityand culture of Spain are interwoven with the prestige of re-ligious values. " 3 V e n e r a l Franco proclaims that his move-ment was "inspired by the teachings of the Catholic Church."His biographer, Joaquin Arraras, enlarges on this, saying :This, history clearly reveals, is Spain's heritage. Spain has alwaysbeen Catholic in spirit. . . . Franco, moreover, is a religious man. . . .The new Spanish State, with a inoral unity, has definitely a religiousand spiritual basis. The Catholic tradition is intimately linked in itwith the national tradition. Religion gives character to Spanish civil-ization and culture.38

Spain has a great responsibility :Spain is the true heir of Catholic Europe. The other nations havebeen only planets and satellites receiving indirect light, dim and re-flected, from the Church, depositary of Truth. Spain in temporalmatters is merged with the Church in spiritual matters . . . [andhas always been the defender of Europe against paganization andbolshevism which is] nothing but the last consequence of the Reforma-tion and of Cartesian Rationalism, from which i t is derived throughthe Encyclopedia, Liberalism and Democracy, just exactly as Ein-steinian Relativism-that bolshevist ravager and destroyer of thephysical sciences-is deduced, point by point, from the Principles ofDescartes. . . . Because bolshevism was born in Eisleben withLuther.34

Inevitable minor premises come from the coiiclusion thatto be Spanish is to be Catholic. "From primary instrnction. . . to university teaching" all instruction mnst be Catholicand all schools rigoroasly inspected to guarantee that no

31 Maeztu, Hispamidad, pp. 297-300, 166 and passim.3 V n S ~ i r n ~edondo, p. 35.33 Joaquin Arraras, Pranoisco Pranco: T h e T i m e s and t h e Ma?c (enlargededition, Milwaukee, 1938-39), pp. 241-244.3 4 Pemal.tiii, LO N t ~ e v o ,pp. 33-34.


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469H E I D E O L O G Y O F H I S P A N I D A Dteaching contrary to Catholicism is allo~ved.~~ntolerance isalso fundamental. "We shall never have respect for, nor tol-erance of, those erroneous opinions which cannot be eitherrespected or tolerated, but we would hare compassion andcharity for those who uphold them, whom we would hold tobe weak in understanding, infirm of mind. "36

The Inquisition must be reeraluated in the light of Cath-olic tradition, rather than maligned as it has been by Ration-alistic writers. This calls for a direct rerersal of the valuesof Spain's liberal tradition. For example, when Juderiaspublished his Leyelzda lzegra in 1914 he sought to show thatthe Spain of the Inquisition was gone, and that i t had neverbeen just to condemn Spain for what had also existed in othercountries. The Falange, however, hails the Inquisition as thetrue Spanish Catholic tradition. Maeztu brings the evidenceof foreign writers to aid in the task of rehabilitating this in-stitution. He cites Louis Bertrand, W. T. Walsh, David Loth,a n i Cecil J~ ine .8~ he Inquisition was "immensely popularduring the centuries of its greatness, loved and respected bythe ignorant and learned alike, whose ~ulanimous eligion itdefended against foreign dangers. "38

Philip I1 is hailed as the great defender of the Faith . Hisintolerance meets with entire approval and the failure toeradicate Protestantism can be attributed to the fact that"God wished that experiment to be made, perhaps so that itmight be seen with all clarity that Protestantism leads topa ga ni~m. "~ ' Being Catholic, Spain is opposed to all that ishot, particularly to the Anglo-Saxon nations, which are Prot-e~ tant .~O Latinity, on the contrary, is linked . . . with theinterests of C a th ~ l ic i sm."~~hus, Catholicism is the firstpositive requirement of Spain's Nzbevo Estado.

Fascism is the second requirement. The philosophers ofthe Falange agree with Hitler on "fiVe fronts or lines ofbattle : (1) anti-Democratic ; ( 2 ) anti-Capitalistic ; (3) anti-

3 " e i l ~ a ~ t i n , Lo iVtceco, pp. 1 1 3 , 1 2 8 . 3 V b i d . , p. 149 .' f a e z t n , H i s p n n i d n i i , pp. 1 9 2 -1 9 5 . J un co , S n n g r ~ 7e H is pa ni a , p. 24 .

3"1aeztu , Hispc~nidnd ,pp. 195-196 .4 0 G u z n ~ & n T a l d i r i a , D e s t i n o d e X.IBzico, p. 4 0 ; A f a e z t u , H i s p a n i d a d , pp. 116-117 .41 Vasooiieelos, Comzcnismo, p. 85.


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470 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEWCommunist ; ( 4 ) anti-Semitic ; ( 5 ) anti-i\Iasonic." This pro-gram, which Gimknez Caballero calls a copy of Fascism, is "anew 'universality, ' the latest 'ecumenicality. ' " This point isemphasized in his La Nueva Catol icidad, published in 1933."The difference between the two Fascisms is that Germanyhas a pagalz Fascism, while that of Italy is Chri.stia~z."~"Spain is identified with Christian Fascism.

The philosophers of the "New Spain7'have thus workedout a complete Fascist philosophy, which they see as theessence of Spain. Under the heading of "SPANISHA S O I S M , "Pemartin malies the orientation of Spain clear beyond cavil:Heye, then, is the solution of the Spanish problem : Fascism, Hegelianjuridical absolutism, not only can and should be 'ealized in Spain,but Spain is the only European nation where i t beloi~gsn an absolutesense. For our Fascism, our Hegelian-juridical absolutism, mustnecessarily be based . . . on a traditional-Catholic historical reality,that is to say, founded on a transcendental truth. We have said be-fore that in Spain me have the right to be more papist than the Pope;and in the same way we can be more fascist than Fascism itself, be-cause our Fascism must be perfect, absolute. "Fascism is a religiousconcept," Mussolini has written. Spanish Fascism will be, then, thereligion of Religion.43

Fascism, the Palangists hold, is nothing new to Spain.Italy and Germany had little to teach her. "Spain was Fas-cist four centuries before they mere. In the sixteenth centuryIV-hen it vTas united, great, free and really Spain, the Stateand Nation identified with the Eternal Catholic Idea, Spainmas the Model Nation, the Alma Mater of Christian andWestern Civilization. . . . 7 4 4 ' Conseque~itly,f Spain is tobe ATutio~zaland Fascist , the Spanish State must necessarilybe Catholic. "45

The Spain of the past is to be projected into the future,divested of the uli-Spanish excrescences which, according toE'alange's philosophers, it has accunnula'ced. Spain's missionis to restore European civilization, that is, to bring Europe

42 Ginimenez Cab:rllero, Gewio de Espakn, pp. 110-111.43 Pemartiu, LO Xuevo, p. 50.4 4 Ibid., p. 50. '"bid., p. 55.


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471HE IDEOLOGY OF HISPANIDADback to Catholicism. Spain can never be anything butCatholic.Exactly stated, our thesis consists of considering all modern Ration-alism, derived from the Renaissance, as a degeneration of the first,fundamental Europeall civilization. "Europe is the Fai th," asHillaire Belloc has so admirably said. . . . The Spanish Nation isCatholic, yes, Catholic. For this reason there is no need trying tosquare the circle. The problem is resolved in stating it. SpanishFascism must be Catholic Fascism. But , and let this be well under-stood, not merely Catholic, but Spanish Cathol ic . . . .40

If any further evidence of this is needed, GimBnez Caba-llero supplies it when he wri tes: "Fascism for Spain is notFascism, but C a- t ho-li-ci-ty. To repeat, Catholicism. "47

Fascist-Catholic Spain has a mission: the Catholic regen-eration of the ~vorld and the creation of the "ImpevioEspaiiol" : the Empire of Nispa.l-zidacl.

"Be Catholic and Imperial !" enjoins Gimknez Caballero.And this has become the official foreign policy of Spain, in-herited from and formed by the political parties that broughtthe "New Spain" into existence. I n its early days theJ.O.N.S. proclaimed "the imperial expansion of Spain," pass-ing this on as the Falange's policy for the one-party stateformed in 1939.

Germany furnished the model for the formative period ofthe Falange. Every victory of Germany over the democracieswas a cause for rejoicing.The redemption of the great oppressed peoples of the mrorld is coming[Oni.simo Redondo aiinoanced] . The liberation of Spain mill alsocome through national revolution. A united Germany will be thebastion of a revived H i s p a n i d a d . Just as Germany has recovered. . . .National-Sindicalist Spain will restore the united empire of all nationsof Spanish speech. . . . Spain will renew her historical urge to con-vert barbarous peoples, and the German-Spanish alliance will placeus at the head of the world.4s

46 Ibid . , pp. 34-36. 4 7 Gim6nez Caballero, Genio de Bspa iia , p. 225. 48 0 ~ ~ 6 s i ? n o e d o n d o , p. 140.


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472 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEWGerman-Spanish union is an important part of Hispa-qzidad. As st range as it may seem to outsiders, to the pro-ponents of Hisyalzidacl it has historical logic. Charles V and

Philip 11, they say, put the nation Spa in at the head of aninternational ideal, a "superaation." "Spain was the na-tional instrument of a universal ideal," represeated in tem-poral mat ters by a "Caesar" and ill the spiritual by a "God."A re turn to the "Caesar-God" union will restore Spain to itsimperial status." "Today it is known that the reigns ofCharles V and Philip I1 were epochs of magnificent t7~0z~gJ~t,of scieuzce, of virtue and art, of tolerance and 7zamzolzy, ofHu.ma.izism and Theocra~y."~~I see Charles V as our Hit-lerian, our German racist," Gimknez Caballero exclaims.51With ~erman-sp;nish unioa will come the regenerationof Europe, which is only a preliminary, because Fascism is"the new, vigorous upsurge of the Civilizatioil of the Future,"with Spain it s most important force. "On us, the Spaniards,in this historic moment, falls the glorious task of contributingmore perhaps than any other Fascist nation . . . to the histor-ical renovation of Western Ci v i li ~a t io n ." ~~Militarizatioll of Spain will be one of the first steps towardimperial recovery. This will bring "DISCIPLINE . . . embracingthe basic, component concepts : UNITY, ORDER, EIERARCHY, COK-TINUITY.. . Thus we shall re turn to the true being of Spain,which has been a military nation throughout its history."53Militarized Spain mill carry out its ~t~orldission, whichis to be the "SENTINEL ON THE WALI, OF THE CITY OF GOD."Spain's duty isthe collaboration with Christ and his Church in the Salvation of theWorld. There could be no higher destiny. For if we do not con-sider the Spanish nationality formed, more than ally other, preciselyto accomplish this centenary Catholic inission of defense and exten-sion of the City of God in the World, the coiicept of "Spain" van-ishes for

*O Gim6nez Caballero, Genie de Espnf ia , pp. 30-31.60 Ibid., p. 230. K1 Ibid. , p. 233.P e m a r t h , L o N lte vo , p. 7.

63 Ibid. , p. 19; see also Maeztu, Hispu?~idacZ, p . 297-301. 64 Pemar t in , Lo Nuevo , pp. 312-313.


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473H E ID E O LO G Y O F H I S P A K I D A DWorld expansion will not be nearly so difficult as would

at first appear. It will be accomplished by the German-Spaaish Empire already mentioned; history m7ill not onlyrepeat but magnify itself.A new Middle Ages-which transcendental spirits divine-must beginagain. . . . Germany must acquire a new impetus of formidable ex-pansion. On one side she will throw the Mongolian muscovite hordeto the limits of Asia. . . . On the other she will conquer Europeagain, invade anew the Roman Empire. . . . On the ruins of apostateEurope . . . will be reconstructed a new and powerful La t i n i d adh5

This mill be a Catholic Latinity, which Germany will seekto dominate. But she will fail since Latinity is the strongerspiritual force. Just as "Greece by Rome conquered, con-quered Rome," the new Latinity, "which should be calledHispanidad" will prevail over the German Europe. Spain'stask in this accomplishment will be a double one:. . . a political 'task . . . endowing Western Civilization with ModelInstitutions and a task of cultural tra~snzissio.1~. . of sharing withthe young nations of Hispanic America-with whom it has a commonheritage-the immortal spirit of our Catholic Culture66. . . [Spaiii]. . . will be the strongest and principal Pillar of Christian, Mediter-ranean Latinity, vanquisher of the satanic revolution and of Bol-shevism, and the Imperial Head of the Amphictiony of the HispanicStates of the A t l a n t i ~ . ~ ~

Hispamidccd is the instrnment designed to make the dreamof empire come true. Such disclaimers of political ambitionas are made by the Palangists are qniclily refuted by theirown announced plans. Spain's geographical position, theysay, makes inevitable a strong place in the world. H i s p a -~%idacl 'smission is "to extend, to expand our great Hispanic,Latin Christian culture and our political grandmastership(?naestraxgo poli t ico) , especially over those American coun-tries of Hispanic-Iberian son1 and language. ' ' 5 8

Imperialism is an integral pa rt of Falangism. The battlecry during the revolt against the Repnblic was "For Cathol-icism ancl the Empire!" The decree of August 4, 1937, estab-

66 I b i d . , pp. 24-25. 67 Il i id.) p. 328.


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474 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN H ISTOR ICAL REVIEWlishing the single political party, tlie Falange Espaiiola,accepted empire as one of the principal points of the program.Numerous speeches, articles and books propagate the conceptof empire. GonzBlez Oliveros, a close associate of SerranoSuiier, in his book F a l a ~ z g i s t a sy Reqzcete's, ztqz todo ol-gklzico,calls the "imperial idea" the guiding star of Spain ~vhicli"implies the adoption of a policy of expansion. ' ProfessorBacuelos of the University of Valladolid, in his Revolzcciolzespoli t icas y seleccidlz Jzz~mana,makes expansion a prerequisiteof Spain's existence.Our coticept of natiofls as organisms that are born, grow, decline anddie leads us to cosisider this problem from the postulate that Spainhas changed ideology and that she is not content to live within heractual frontiers, since this moulcl imply a state of decadence andinevitably precede ruin and extinctioii. . . . Let us prepare to main-tain and amplify our frontiers. Let us take a defensive position untilwe are in condition to take the offeiisi~rewith certainty of success.Today the limits of my Spain are the existing frontiers. Toni or ro~ ~~,I hope that its boundaries mill be larger and its dependencies vaster.59

General Franco himself is the best witness to Spain'simperial ambitions. Speaking before a group of Italianaviators, he promised that Spain's air force tvould "consti-t ~ ~ t ehe muscles of steel that will build the empire to makeSpain again a great nation." And still a few tmeelis later,speaking from tlie great Atlantic port and fortification, hesaid: "El Ferrol cannot turn its back on the ocean; in itsarsenal me shall build the mar machines that will return toSpain her empire." Of what will this empire consist? FromFalangist publications ancl from Franco himself tve learn thatit will include Gibraltar and parts of Africa. But most impor-tant fo r us, the official Falangist publication FE lays claim to"The Spanish World for Spain."60 General France alsopoints the way directly toward a restoration of Spain's em-pire in America. At CBdiz, on April 19, 1939, he proclaimed:"You should recall those Conquistadores who spread through-out the world the faith and tlie will of the nation. We shouldhave a will to empire. . . . Our glory will reach the summit

50 Quoted in Del Vayo, La guewa empezb en Espniia, p. 345. Quoted in (bid.,pp. 346-351.


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475HE IDEOLOGY O F H I S P A S I D A Dand the might of Spain will grow."61 On March 24, 1940,while visiting the Archivo de Indias in Seville, he wrote inthe guest book: "Before the relics of our Empire, with thepromise of another. Franco. 9 ) 6 2The Empi re will include "all the people who owe theircivilization or being to the Hispanic peoples of the Peninsula.Hispamidad is a concept that embraces them all. . . . Hispa-~zidadinhabits no one land, but many and diverse lands."63

What, then, ties the Hispanic nations together? It is re-ligion, the only force that can save them. Beset by bolshevismon one side and liberalism on the other, "they must re turn tothe principles of Hispanidad if they are to emerge victorious."To do this they must become more C a t h ~ l i c . ~ ~To become more Hispanic and more Catholic implies quiteas complete a reversal of historical trends for HispanicAmerica as fo r Europe. Hispanic America has traveled along way on the road to liberalism. Turning back is not easy.But jnst as the philosophers of Falange demand that Europecleanse itself of the "evils" arising ont of the Renaissance,they assert tha t Hispanic America must do likewise.Firs t will come a reinterpre tat ion of Hispanic-Americanhistory. This begins with the colonial period and a t firsttreads on firm ground. It is with very legitimate ex-idencethat modern scholars have begun to call for a reappraisal ofSpain' s work in the New World. The liberal advocates ofHispnaisnzo and the Fasc ist advocates of Hispaltidad have anaim that is identical up to a point : both want to secure greaterappreciation of Spanish contributions to the New World. Butwhere His pn lz is v~o holds that Spain's colonial r8girne wasgood because of its liberal features, Hisgaqzidad attributescolonial greatness to "Catholic civilization and . . . an author-ity also common to all and by all respected, the King ofSpain," corruption setting in with liberalism.From this comes the exaltation of the Roman Catholic

Quoted in ibid., pp. 344-345.0a La Prensa, New York, March 26, 1940, quoted in A. Randle Elliott, "SpainAf t e r Civil War," Foreign Policy Reports, XVI, NO. 5 (May 15, 1940),p. 67,note 78.Maeztu, Hispanidad, pp. 21-22 . "Ibid., pp. 300-301.


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476 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEWculture and the condemnation of tlie Enlightenment. Thisreinterpretation of Hispanic-American history has been agradual development. The dividing line between the twoschools of thought is easily discernible: on one side are thosewho believe in progress as conceived by liberal and demo-cratic ideology; on the other are those who advocate totali-tarianism in government and society. Both movements arestrongly imbued with the desire to combat Indiatzismo, whichattributes to the Indians cultural contributions equal to orgreater than those of the Spaniards.

Liberal Pan-Hispanism has sought to show that the col-onies shared in the Enlightenment. To this effort have beenadded the researches of such United States scholars as Lan-ning, Leonard, Hussey, Whitalcer, Marchant, Bernstein andothers. Hispaaidctd holds precisely an opposite point of view:that Hispanic America was enlightened when it was scholas-tic, and ignorant after it embraced the Enlightenment. Anexample of this view may be found in the Right ReverendGuillermo Furlong Cardiff of the Argentine Academy of His-tory who, in the address made upon entering the Academy,upheld the thesis that the colonies mere not backward bydemonstrating that the ~vorksof Rousseau, Montesquieu,Bayle ancl other writers of the Enlightenment circulatedfreely. Yet, in the same address, he condemned the Enlight-enment as a materialistic and anti-Christian influence. Fromsuch self-contradictory argument Hispul.zidnd's advocates con-clude that colonial Hispanic America was enlightened andmodern Hispanic America ignorant. Concerning educationFurlong Cardiff remarks: "The real and true fact is tha tprimary education, from the first days of the Concluest tothe AIay Revolution, was universal, wise and methodical suclias there has not been among us in later epochs. . . . Aboveeverything else it was a totalitarian education of the child.''G'

Holding the colonial period superior to the modern, His-pa+%idadregards independence as a tragedy, not a triumph.As the Mexican, Guzmin Valclivia, remarks :

O 5 Cui l l e ~ r noFurlong Cardiff , LiB ibl io teeas coloniales ," Bolet in de la AcademiaN a c i o ~ ~ n Z e H i s t o ~ i a ,XI11 (1 94 0) , 119-120.


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THE IDEOLOGY O F HISPAXIDAD 477Spain gave us our life; but this life miscarried from the beginning.What could have beell an uninterrupted and free progress becamedecline and slavery. The tragedy of Spain was our tragedy. Thedisintegration of the greatest empire . . . threw a shadow over the~netropolisand cast the colonies into absolute darliness. . . . Theliberty taught us is false. . . . Democracy is false. . . . I t is neces-sary to tear out all, absolutely all, the principles by which we areaccustomed to regulate our existence. . . . GG We have a mission toaccomplish: the reintegration of onrselves into Hispanic life. Wehave but one destiny: TH E DESTINY O F HIS PAN ID AD.^'

The restoration of Hispa~zidncldepends on the restorationof the traditional values. Hispanic America must be made tosee liberalism in its true light-as the destroyer of the His-panic tradition. Those who have clung to tradition have beenHispanic America's true sons. The greatest evils camefrom those who introduced liberalism: Hidalgo and lforelos,G6mez Farias, Guerrero, and, worst of all, Benito Ju&rez inMexico. The heroes are Iturbide, Alamfin, Santa Ana, Maxi-milian, Mirarnbn, and Porfirio Diaz. Chile is called on tocondemn Manuel Salas, O'Higgins, Nanuel Bilbao and theliberal ancl democratic parties and what they advocated,namely: separation of Church and State, secularization ofcemeteries, and public education. Argentina's Map Revolu-tion is anathematized, with Mariano Moreno and BernardinoRivadavia cast as the villains. Alberdi is condemned, anclSarmiento portrayed as an enemy of Argentina fo r advo-cating immigration and popular education. Rosas the dic-tator, is exalted. In Uruguay, opprobrium is heaped uponJose Batlle y Ordbhez, father of one of the most moderncodes of social legislation in the world.

The past is citeci as a guide for the fature. "What willnot be the surprise of the Hispanic nations on realizing thatwhat they need most, which is a guide to the future, is f o ~ ~ n din their own past? Not in that of Spain precisely, but in thatof Hispamidad daring the two creative centaries, the six-teenth and se ~e nt ee nt h. ' '~ ~Hispawidad will take the form of Church-State gorern-

Guzman Va ld iv i a , Des f i n o d e Me'xico, pp. 62-63. O T Ibid., p. 199. 8 8 Maeztu , Hispanidad , 11. 186.


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478 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEWmeat. Spain's former empire will furnish the model since it ssuccess came from its tlieocratic character. "The ef f icacy,na tura lly , of th is civilixijzg ac tion depezzded o n th e perfectblendirzg of the two po w em : tem po ra l arzd spi rit ua l, therebeing no similar example in history, and which is the originalcharacteristic of Spain before the world."69 The Augustinian,P. VBlez, in speaking of the nature of the Spanish State-Church relationship, remarks :To justify and evaluate adequately the Spanish Inquisitioii it isnecessary to take into account, above everything else, its nationalcharacter, especially the intimate union of the Church and the Statein Spain during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to the pointwhere the State was theocratic, orthodoxy being the duty and thelam of every citizen like any other civil obligation.'O

IV . I J T ~ a r ispalzidnd RIEA~-s AMERICAOTTe hare arrived at the crux of II ispanidad. Unless its

advocates misrepresent it, it is Roman Catholic Fascism, theofficial foreign policy of the Falange Espahola, designed toreunite the Hispanic peoples around the concept of privi-lege, hierarchy, autocracy, and intolerance. HOTVmuch realstrength it has in Spain and America only time can tell.There are eviciences of both strol~gupport a-nd violent oppo-sition among tlie Hispanic peoples. An example of the lattercomes from one of the believers in the older, liberal Hispa-.~zisvno,F. Carmona Nenclares. He remarks :Hispanidad is a part of the Nazi concept of the world. I t was broad-cast over America with the aid of the Theocratic-Fascist r6gime im-posed on Spain by the recent civil war. . . . Hispan idad is thereconquest of Ibero-America for Spain. Not just any Spain, but forTheocratic-Falangist Spain. . . . I t is a spiri tual reconquest in prin-ciple, and material reconquest when international conditions are right.Spain declares herself an Empire and demands her ex-Empire. I l i s -punidad represents a retrogression to the s ta tus quo ante 1800, atleast. Nothing less. Iberian Fascism aspires to eliminate time. ButHispa~z idad is something more than Fascism; it is Spnnis lz Fascismfor Ibero-American Fascis ts . Yes. Hispanidad, Creole Fasc ism:such it is, whether we like it or not. . . . In other words, in addition

Ib id . , p. 111. Quoted in i b id . , p. 112.


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479HE I DE OL OGY O F H I S P A X I D A Dto despotism, cruelty, stupidity, bullying, hunger, terror, desperation,etc., Hispanidad is something else. . . . It is Theocracy . It has beenimposed by a cynical, ambitious and belligerent Church in the nameof political Catholicism. I t is with reason that Spanish history . . .may be interpreted as a fight of the State to constitute itself in oppo-sition to the Roman Church. . . . It is apparent at a glance that His -pawidad projected from the Iberian Peninsula the premise introducedthere by the triumph of Fascism. Nothing succeeds like success!And what triumphed in Spain is tiying now, wrapped in the sheep'sclothing of Hispan idad , to slip into American political life. Frointhis comes our definition. fIispa.iziclacl is Fascism seasoned to theCreole taste.71

Judging from the supporters it is attracting in HispanicAmerica, Creole taste is finding Hispamidad's type of Fascismto it s liking. Some of these have been mentioned already, andwhile the object of this stuciy is to examine the ideologyrather than the acts of Hispalaidad, it is pertinent to notebriefly a few of the sources of its strength.Three chief classes support Elispalaidad: the conservative,propertied classes; a large nnmber of intellectuals; anclstrong elements of the Catholic Church.The propertied people see in Hispaaidad a philosophy'chat will protect their interests. I t s strong stand againstcommunism, socialism, and clemocracy enclears it to thosewho see these as threats to themselves. Lumping the threetogether, although i t is apparent t hat commtlnism is the antith-esis of democracy and much more akj~l o Hispamidad in itsconcept of society, the propertied elements support Hispa -$aidad as a counter cioctrine. Democracy and liberalism arepictured as the seed gronnd of proletarian revolution.Intellectual support of Hispalaidad is more ciifficalt toaccount for, less logical, but more likely to spread the ideo-logy. The most apparent ideology of Hispanic America fromthe late eighteenth century was drawn from the Enlighten-ment. The chief poets, novelists, essayists, historians, andother writers were strong supporters of humanitarianism,secularism, liberalism, and democracy, though often in modi-

11 F. Carmona Nenclares, ' 'Hispailislllo y Hispanidad,' C ~tu de m os ?nevicanos,No. 3 (Mayo-Junio, 1942), 43-55.


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480 THE HISPANIC. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEWfied forms. Less prominent, but perhaps always latentlystronger, was an iiitellectual current reaching back to Scholas-ticism for it s support. Held down and seemingly defeated,this intellectual current was on the defensive for well over acentury. Recently it has come into the open, advocatingmilitantly a "reevaluation" of the Hispanic inheritance. Wehave noticed sufficiently the content of this "new" thought.Repndiating what i t calls "materialism" and scoffing at "sci-ence" and "progress" (terms almost invariably placed inquotation marks to indicate disbelief in their existence) theproponents of this allegedly new thought which is drawnmainly from Tllomas Aquinas, vituperate ceaselessly againstprecisely those things which most Americans and many His-panic Americans have come to consider as yardsticks ofprogress.

Church support of Hispamidad is unofficial in most cases,but, in truth, it is the most important and powerful factorof all. We may demonstrate this by noting the position ofthe Church on other matters. I t strongly condemns com-munism, socialism, Marxism, anarchism, and in the case ofSpain, republicanism. Democracy too is frequently attackedby Church organs, and seldom defended. Totalitarianism onthe other hand is frequently defended; and until very recentlymany Bind words were found for Germany and Italy, wheredenunciation of the United States was the rule. The fre-quency and venom of the attacks on the United States andits characteristic iastitutions, democracy, secularism, freepublic eclncation, political parties and religious tolerance, areenough to indicate that the term Good Neighbors has a one-sided meaning for millions of Hispanic Americans. After afew months of reading literature of this type emanating fromsuch widely separated sources as Mexico and Argentina, oneis tempted to come to the conclusion that the United Statesis expected to pay a very high price indeed for the GoodNeighbor Policy: the price is the snrrender of all the idealswhich have gone to make the term United States synonymous~ 6 t h n ideology of human freedom rather than svitlt ageographical region.


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TIIE ~ D E O L O G YOF H I S P A N I D A D 481 Hispaaidad has cleveloped many meclia of expressionthroughout Hispanic America. Some of these have beenmentioned; others ar e worth noting. I n Mexico, the weekly,

La aacio'a, carries regular articles attacking liberalism anddemocracy, and upholding what we may accurately describeas an anti-United States ideology. Lectzcra, a semi-monthlyreview, is more subtle but comes to the same conclusions.El Silzarquista ancl Orclea, official organs of the S i f i a r q t ~ i s t amovement, express the same contempt for liberalism anddemocracy. Abs ide is also numbered among the supports ofHispalticlad's ideology. Not the least important of the i\Iex-ican periodicals working for Hispamidad are O m e g a and Elhombre l ibre, two of the most prominent Roman Catholicpapers.12

Colombia, too, has a strong contingent of Hispa+zidnd ad-vocates. Ame'r icn Espa gola , published by G. Porras Troconisin Barranquilla, is one of the foremost. More widely read isthe influential daily, El siglo, official organ of the Conserv-ative Party and edited by the Party's leader, LaarcanoG6mez. Tts pages reverberate with anti-United States, anti-liberal and pro-Hispaqzidad sentiment. Other publications inColombia favoring the Falange and Hispa9tidad are L atvadicio'm, Medellin; Falalzge, Barranquilla; and more impor-tant, the Revistct Javcl-innu, organ of the Pontificia Univer-sidad Cat6lica Javeriana of Bogotk.;\lost, if not all the co~uitries , ave or hare had pro-Falange,

pro- l l i spanidad publications. Others which Hispa.tzidad'sadvocates ia America publish or have published are: A r r i b aEspaGa, Havana ; dnzanecer., Santo Domingo ; A w i b a E s pa f i a,La Paz ; Ar.riba Espafia, Panam&;Avalwe , San Juan , PuertoRico ; Arr iba EspaGn, Ecuador ; Ult idad, Lima ; Jer ar qu ia ,EogotA; C a r a a1 sol , Ponce, Pnerto Rico; A r r i b a , Sullana,Peru ; C a ra a1 sol, New Yorlc ; and Unidad , Mexico.7372 Verna Carleton Milljn, ( (P ropaga nd a War in Mexico,'' The Inter-Anzerican

X n n t 7 ~ 1 y ,I (December, 1942), 16-10, 48.78 Revista hisptinica ?~lorle??in,V (July, 1939), 247. Some of these puhlica-tions have since been discontinued. While the Falange has been officially disbanded in America, i ts ideology, v~liich s the subject under discussion, is stillstrong.


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482 THE HISPANIC AJIERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEWArgentina has perhaps the largest contingent of pro-

Falangista publications. Among these are : Arr iba , El p m -pero, Crisol, Clnrinadn, Los pri+zcipios, of Cbrdoba, and theCatholic paper, Critel-io.Other newspapers and reviews throughout Latin Americaprint pro-Falange, anti-liberal, anti-Democratic materialstvitlzout devoting themselves exclusirely to this propaganda.Some of these also carry pro-Democratic material, or at leastpro-United Nations articles. No exact balance sheet can bedrawn, and none has beell attempted here, but it seems safeenough to say that Hispanic America is one of the battlegrounds on which the struggle between Fascism and Democ-racy is being ~vaged,and that Hispa~zidccd definitely rep-resents Fascism. Democracy has numerous and stroizgsupporters, b ~ ~ t is significant is that the concept ofhatdemocracy has been challenged and its enemies have provedto be extremely vigorous.

The unlimited ambitions of Hispa~&icla(lmay be seen in afinal quotation from Pemartin :I f we leave the exclusive ly European vie~vl~ointo take in a n-iderview of world affairs, there in America is certainly reserved for theapparent ly weak and ' ' backward " FIispanic America the same noblemission that fal ls to Lat in idad i n Europe-the conversion of K or thAm erica to Catholicism. This will pe rh ap s seem to be an impossiblefa nt as y to some sliallow spir its. Remem ber, nevertheless, how easilythe m aterial pros peri ty of the Unitecl Sta tes has fal len since thedebBcle in Wall Street in November, 1929, anci remember also itsalr ea dy low mo ral level. Th in k also of this iminense couglolneratio~zof peoples aiicl races-which is no t a nation -that compose th e U ni te dStates, sufYering the moral depression that defeat by J a p a n m u s t i n -flict on them sooner or later. Thinlr, finally, of th at c lear nzoralsuperiori ty that Hispanic America has over Korth America.74

BAILEYMT.DIFFIE.The College of the City of New York.

7Vemar t i n , Lo Aruevo, pp. 26 - 27 .

diffie - hispanidad (1943)

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