Salt Lake Herald-Republican | 1909-10-15 | Page 4 | Another Mistake of Spain

ANOTHER MISTAKE OF SPAIN The killing of Francisco Ferrar by b a military court of Spain is another mistake by the troubled nation Ferrar was an educator a thinker a man manof manof manof of progressive ideals and with with a record for great and useful labor He represented too much of the capability the tho sense the value and the of Spain to be condemned to o death for his utterances Men of his kind are worth more alive than dead They are ar armore armore more troublesome after execution than they the could be in their lives hives In the course of our civil war of tf f Ohio became an annoyance to the Union forces and amI President Lincoln directed that he be escorted across the lines so that he could be with the rebels for whom he was an ardent advocate The nation laughed at his punishment escaped to Canada and so returned to Ohio where he again began his tirades against the f of the nation And Lincoln directed that he be left entirely alone People still laughed at him hl for having been sent to the south instead of the gibbet He was a rebel without the rebels reason of home defending He was a secessionist without the secessionists excuse of geography And since he could not get any more attention than was expressed In ridicule he subsided ed And that was the last of If he had really represented a vital element in the north he would not have subsided But he did not Therefore he was not dangerous But if President Lincoln had caused him to be shot and ham defied that fate his taking off would very like likely likely ly Iy have aroused a protest increasing in breath and impressiveness till it would have troubled the loyal states most seriously The blood of or the martyrs Is ts the seed of the church cried the wise men of Christian faith in the older days The slaughter of a man like Ferrar in Spain does not prove the strength but the weakness of the government in which he had made himself felt