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

Bailey W. Diffie
THE IDEOLOGY O F H I S P A N I D A D

On November 2, 1940, General Franco established the

Consejo de la Hispanidad. Its creation fixed one of the im-
portant milestones in Hispanic history. Looking backward,
the Consejo is observed as the product of a long historical
process; looliing forward, it is seen as the shadow cast by
coming 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 plainly
written on the milestone. Spain has turned her face toward
her own late Middle Ages. The present regime seeks to
recreate the semi-theocratic state which reached its zenith
under Charles V and Philip 11,modernizing it with the tech-
niques of Fascism.l Since the Spanish Empire was in being
at the time, the regstablishment of that Empire is one of the
Consejo's announced objecti~es.~
Pan-Hispanism, usually known to the Spaniards as His-
pawiswzo, has long existed. Its primary objective has been
the restoration of some degree of the unity lost when the
Hispanic-American nations became free. Hispawidad, a term
popularized after 1931, is the particular type of Hispanisfito
advocated by the Falange Espaiiola. The ideology of His-
pawidad differs radically from that of Hispanislno, which
was largely a liberal movement based 011 the principles of the
Enlightenmei~t.~It self-conscionsly cultivated the liberalism
IThe Palangists call Medieval Xpain a 'LTheocracy" and speak of Spain's

Middle Ages reaching into the seventeenth century.

= F a r t h e 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 frequently urged. But the importance of those who predi-
cated this reunion on a renewed attachment to the traditions of sixteenth-century
Spain v a s not great in comparison with the advocates of a cultural Pan-
Hispanism based on Spain's liberal tradition. Hispa?lisn~owas bitterly anti-
458 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

in Spain's own history, and with equal vigor rejected "tradi-

tional" Spanish values. Without renouncing religion, its
advocates urged a liberal Roman Catholicism. The Inquisition
and the intolerance it symbolized were regarded as a shame-
ful inheritance ; the democratic heritage was studied ; co-
lonialism denounced; the Enlightenment embraced; Spain's
cultural contributions extolled; public education advocated;
anti-Semitism denounced and a conscious pro-Semitism
practiced.
Pride in liberalism, was, in fact, one of the outstanding
characteristics of Hispaszismo. Rafael Altamira, Spain's
distinguished historian and jurist, made this the basis of hie
appeal to the Hispanic nations in his numerous writings on
this subject. I n 1917 he wrote: "Spain is Catholic; but in
spite of the tiny group of fanatics here (as elsewhere), it is
tolerant . . . and also liberal, profoundly liberaLM4
Hispanidad, on the other hand, appeals to the Hispanic
world on the basis of Spain's traditional, Roman Catholic
heritage, to which has been added the ideology of modern
Fascism.
11. THE PHILOSOPHY OF FALANGE ESPA"NOLA

The advocates of Hispaqzidad were the victors in the revolt

against the Spanish Republic, 1936-1939. Tlany today occupy
high places in Franco's government, being the official philos-
ophers of the Falange Espaiiola and Hispamidad. Their
writings form the body of the ideology of the Nuevo Esfado.
To understand the meaning of Hispamidad to America, one
must first comprehend the culture which these men would see
prevail in the world. Generally speaking, they want Fas-
cism, but it is a Spanish Fascism which has its own character-
istics and its own peculiar significance for us. The Falange
Espaiiola is the instrument of action; Hispamidacl the export
product, designed for Hispanic America and the world. The
Yankee and anti-Pan-American, naturally, but based much of its opposition on
the argument that the United States was an imperialist power. For a good
account of Pan-Hispanism to 1931 see J. Fred Rippy, The Historical Evolution
of Hispanic America (New York, 1932 and later editions), pp. 461-478.
Rafael Altamira, Espaita ?/ el progranla america?tista (Madrid, 1917), p. 10.
 T H E IDEOLOGY O F HISPANIDAD 459
philosophy of the Falange is the key to Hispanidad; it em-
braces a concept of life today opposed to that which the
democratic world esp0uses.j
While this philosophy is deeply rooted in Spanish tradi-
tion, much of its modern formulation has been borrowed from
German and Italian totalitarianism. Its chief exponents hare
been men who admired Hitler and Mussolini. OnBsimo Re-
dondo and Josh Antonio Primo de Rivera are examples.
Others, however, have greater standing as the philosophers
of Falange. Among the most prominent are Serrano Snfier,
Ramiro de IYlaeztu, Maria cle Maeztn, Sainz Rodriguez,
Ernesto Gim6nez Caballero, Josh Maria PBman, and Josh
Pemartin.
The ambition of the Palangists is in no sense a limited
one; nor is there less boldness in the intellectual concept ~sritl.1
which they intend to accomplish it. They aim at the domi-
nation of the ~vorld,with both arms and intellect, and they
seek to accomplish this with a complete reinterpretation of
history.
Briefly stated, their historical thesis is the following: tlie
Micldle Ages were the great period of man's spiritual and
intellectual development because there was "unity" in all
Christendom. Spain best represented this under Charles V
who combined the physical force of Germany with the spir-
itual force of Spain in the Holy Roman Empire. Unity was
disrupted by the Renaissance with its paganizing influence,
and by the Protestant Reformation, also pagan. This thesis
is cleveloped in the writings of the Palangists. Among the
most prominent is Jos6 Pemartin, an active member of
Accio'n Cato'lica, whose position as chief of university and
secondary education uncler Franco gave him the prestige of
On recent activities of Hispanidad see William B. Bristol, "Hispanidad in
South America," Foveign Affaivs, X X I (January, 1943) ; f o r the philosophy see
the speeches and proclamations of OnQsimo Redondo, organizer of the J.O.N.S.
(Jzcqctas de Ofensiwa Nacio?zal Sindicalista), published after his death b y his fol-
lo~versas O~lBsimoRedondo: Caudillo de Castilla (Valladolid, 1937) ; JosQ Antonio
Primo de Rivera, Discuvsos (Santander, 1938); J u a n Beneyto PBrez, El Ituevo
estccdo espaCol (Madrid-CRdiz, 1939), v i t h a prologue by S. E. Arrigo Solmi,
Minister of Justice of Italy; ancl Jose Maria Costa Serrano and J u a n Beneyto
PBrez, E l Pavtido (Zaragoza, 1939).
460 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL RETTIETT~

being the intellectual mentor of the Nueuo Estado. His book,

Qzce es " L o Nuevo," is accepted as an official expression of
Falangist philosophy. "It is evident, " he remarks, "that,
dating from the Renaissance and the Reformation, most of
Europe (in a quantitative and extensive sense) has apostn-
tized, has fallen away from Cath~licism."~A similar view
is held by other advocates of Hispanidad. Alfonso Janco, a
prominent Mexican writer, points out that while Spain could
not entirely escape the "evils" of the Renaissance and Ref-
ormation, she remained true to the "fundamental truths,"
more than any other nation. "The neo-paganism of the
Renaissance did not catch on in Spain, as neither did the
Protestant Reformation, because the Reformation and the
Renaissance, in so f a r as they were justified and productive,
had been anticipated and incorporated into the life blood of
the Spanish organism-cleansed of deleterious disease.'j7
Spain, it follows from this, is in a position to reject all
modernism, since whatever was good of it had been adopted
as an integral part of Spain before the Renaissance. Ernesto
Gimknez Caballero, prominent in the Falange and member of
its Consejo Nacional, in his Genio de Espaiia, a book that is a
companion-piece to Pemartin's Que es " L o Nzceuo," makes
this point clear in offering a reason for his work. "This
book," he remarks, "offers battle without vacillation, and
fires without blinking, against three centuries of Spanish
bastardizations, and of the material and moral failures of
Spain.
A still more thorough-going denunciation of the modern
world comes from Maria de Maeztu in her H i s t o ~ i ade la
cultura europea. Maria de Maeztu, wife of Ramiro de
Maeztu, has been for many years identified with the prdmi-
nent women intellectuals of Spain. Hers may be considered
an authentic voice of Spain's contemporary thougl~t.
We live in a n insane world [is her thesis]. To this insanity has
contributed no little the fact that f r o m the time of the Renaissance,
JOSB Pemartin, Que es " L o Nzievo" (3rd ed., Madrid, 1940), p. 313.
7 Alfonso Junco, S a l a g ~ ede Hispania (Buenos Aires, 1940), pp. 133-144.
Emesto GilnBnez Caballero, Genio de EspaAa: emaltaoiones a u n a resurrec-
cio'n nacional y del n ~ ~ c l ~(4th
d o ed., Earceloaa, 1939), p. 20.
 THE IDEOLOGY OF H I S P A N I D A D 461
and 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 philosophical
skepticism have gained ground. The materialistic interpretation of
history has won, and economic values have been elevated above spir-
itual values. . . . [But] there is an absolute Truth above relative
truth. There is a creative, living faith above the doubt that destroys
and annihilates. There is a true knowledge that enables us to appre-
hend objective reality above fanciful opinioils which embrace men in
a 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 believed
that man mas the measure of all things he was able to cut himself
away from his essential roots and place himself in the center of the
world. During the Protestant Reformation he could subject revealed
truth 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 but
one thing among many and in his turn may be measured by a higher,
transcendental measure which embraces everything. . . . I do not
lmo~vafter all whether my thesis is sufficiently clear. It is nothing
less than this: we live in an insane world. . . . This war is not like
former wars. . . . The fight is not for territorial limits or national
independence. . . . Today they fight to impose one or another
ideology. . . . 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 United
States. T7ox de Espaiia, 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, through
the voice of that man they call the First Citizen of the World, have
constituted themselves the defenders of the moral values of the Occi-
O Maria de Maeztu, Historia d e la oultura europea, la Eclad M o d e m a : gvandeza

y 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 del Vayo, L a guerya
empezo' e n EspaGa (MBxico, D.F., 1940), p. 338.
462 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

dent. Risz~rnteneatis amici? The country of divorce, of Lynch Law,

of the Four Hundred sects, of the universities where a doctorate of
philosophy may be bought for a bagatelle, of the country whose
national monuments had to be torn down a t the end of twenty years
because they were about to fall down, the country of the gangsters,
of the thieving mayors, of the odious distinctions of race, tlie country
of birth control, the country of the protection of dogs and the
persecution of the Negroes! Is this the country that can defend the
culture and values of the Occident? Of which Occident?ll
The anti-United States campaign is waged by numerous
reviews and newspapers in Spain, in Hispanic America, and
even in the United States itself. Significant because of its
official character as an organ of ~ i s p & i d a d is the Revista de
Imdias, a publication which began life by filching the title of
the venerable Colombian Revista de las Iadias. Each issue
carries a section called "Cr6nica del Jlundo Hisphnico,"
written, until his death in 1942, by Carlos Pereyra. Pereyra
made this section a running diatribe against democracy in
general and the United States in particular. The tone of
Hispamidad's attack on the United States may be judged from
the following typical example :
Roosevelt, a Jew-which he does not deny-snrro~~nded himself with
Jews and formed the Brain Trust. . . . There are other Jews around
Roosevelt: Governor Lehman of New York; Mayor LaGuardia; . . .
and the proletarian agitator, John L. Lewis. There are many other
Jews in the list. Felix Frankfurter is the most influential Jew. As
a judge of the Supreme Court he lllnst maintain a discreet distance,
but his inflnence is felt through his students, among whom Thomas
G. Coreoran, called familiarly Tom Kork [Tommy, the Cork!], the
White House buffoon, stands out.''
011 tlie reverse side of the Hispaqzidad medal is admiration
of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Gimknez Caballero, for
example, points out that during the First Worlcl ITar
"traditionalist and Catl~olic Spain instinctively favored
Germanism. "13 El correo espa6ol exclaimed on October 15,
1938 : '6011, Germany! Our sister in the best of Spanis11
destinies : the Imperial destiny !" And complimenting Ger-

1'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.

 THE IDEOLOGY O F HISPANIDAD 463

many the same paper continued: "In the days of pour tri-
umph in the face of all the secret societies m7e applauded, not
with the clenched fist of the Free Masoas, but with our hands
open, our arms raised while we shouted in tlie stentorian tones
of brothers : Heil Witler !"I4 Support of the dictators comes
from many other sources, Guzmiin Valdivia and Jose Vas-
concelos, of Mexico, for example. Vasconcelos, who once
distinguished himself for his liberal ideas ~ v l ~ i lserving
e as
Minister of Education, remarks :
Nobody detests dictatorship more than I, but vulgar despotism is
one thing while quite another and distinct thing is the gei1iu.s of
organization that has raised Italy to the category of a first-rate power
in a few years. Whoever does not become inspired with pride for
this New Italy is not worthy of belonging to Latin civilization. . . .
No descendant of a Spaniard ~ v h ois not a bastard can fail to feel
glad that the AIediterranean is on the point of again becoming a
Latin sea . . . the Romance langaages will clomillate the world . . .
our America will again be Spanish.16
Democracy is condemned because it " g ~ ~ a r a n t e e sthe
rights of man . . . and the rights of ~propert-y."~~ Ednardo
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 result
al of
its evolntioii, its essence being the al~solntelack of gos7eril-
ment."17 FE, official organ of Falange, stated in 1938 :
The liberal-clemocratic state, with its function limited by the political
doctrine and customs which its moral climate permitted, revealed
itself at once as impotent to assure the rights of the weak against the
uncoiltrollecl assaults of the strong. . . . From failure to failare, from
impotence to impotence, froill one loss of prestige to aaother, the
State reaches its supreme crisis, the crisis of authority, the linlitless
triumph of ancontrolled instincts. Such is the end, the last act in
the farce of the dying monients of liberal democracy, clragging clown
with it the nations which had eatrusted themselves totally to it.18
Quoted in Del Vayo, La guerIecc evzpezo' en EspaEa, p. 339.
I6 JOSQ Vasconcelos, Que es el Conzzinisnzo (Mexico, 1936), pp. 91-93.
l e Isaac Guzmjn Valdivia, El (lesti.,~o d e Xe'zico (&IQxico,
D.F., 1939), pp. 39,
196 and pclssin~;and Del TTayo, La guewa e?npezo' e n EspaEa, pp. 338-340, with
ntunerous statements from Falangists shon~ingllatrecl of the democracies.
17 Ednardo Atinhs PBrez, Episfola~io (1916-1942) (Madrid, 1941), p. 45.

Is All editorial,( 'El sentido peninsalar de la revolucihn, ' ' PE : Doctyinn

?zacional sindicalista (Marzo-Ab~il, 1938), 13. 157.
464 THE HISPANIC A ~ I E R I C A N HISTORICAL REVIEW

Alfonso Jnuco, quotiilg an imaginary "Great Monarch7'

of the East, has him say:
De~nocracyis either a vain word or i t is the rule of the majority. . . .
I am democratic, profoundly democratic, but I do not believe in such
.
democracy. . . My democracy is of another type, s i r : it is the only
real democracy, and the only democracy that will triumph in the
world, because i t is the only type that is in conformity with the
reality of human nature. My democracy has an individual and social
character. I t consists not of equality but of inequality.lg
Falange's sharpest shafts are in fact aimed at equality.
I n her work, E s c l a u i t z ~ dy libertad, Concha Espina, the Xpan-
ish novelist who identifies slavery with the Spanish Republic
and liberty with the Falange, refers to people who upheld
the Republic as "poor ignoramuses poisoned by the absurd
doctrine of Ramiro de Alaeztu, until his execu-
tion at the beginning of the revolt against the Republic in
1936 regarded as the chief exponent of Hispanidad, derotecl
much of his writing to "proving7' that men are by nature
unequal and unfit for self-rule. Men are equal, he says, only
in "metaphysical liberty" or "free will" but "this is the only
equality that is compatible with liberty," any other type of
equality 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~zidadin this is a part of
the general contempt they have for people. No other im-
pression gathered from reading the literature of Falange is
so strong as this: They consider the majority of human beings
as the scum of the earth. Hobbes' dictum that man's life is
"solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" seems mild after a
fern hours with the writings of Gimhnez Caballero, Ramiro
de Maeztu, and the other philosophers of t,he Falange.
When we speak of the crisis of culture [says Maria de Maeztu] we
see how, ill effect, the excess of literary 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, 1938), p. 18.

Ramiro cle RIaezta, Defensa de la Zlispaniilad (Buenos Aires, 1941), pp. 93-
97. The first edition as published in 1934 and v a s the chief force in popular-
izing the term Hispanidad.
 THE IDEOLOGY O F H I S P r l S I n A D 46 5
sponsible 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 science
and have less wisdom. . . .22
The Modern Age has wished to popularize culture, spread it, in
order to put it within the reach of the people. This is impossible.
Culture cannot be popular. . . . Cultnre loses its essential value when
.
placed within the reach of the weak. . . The attempt to devitalize
and enervate culture is a deliberate attack by inferior beings on the
forces that have made mall a thinking being. . . .23
I t was believed that the eradication of illiteracy would signify
the end of ignorance. Never has there been such a large nunlber of
people possessing such a large measure of lrnowledge. Nevertheless,
this has not produced a greater sanity in the world. . . . The excess
of science has produced an ignorant humanity which .aspires to a
spiritual leveling. . .. Science has not elevated the general level of
culture; it has not produced a better man.24
The only remedy for the destructive forces of democracy
and equalitarianism is ail hierarchical society. "God has
created the people to work . . . the clergy for the ministration
of the Faith . . . the nobility to assure virtue and administer
justice. " 2 5
I n order to build the "Ne-tv Spaill" the liberal, democratic
principles must be eradicated, and one way to achieve this is
to discredit the men who represent these ideals in Spanish
history. Such eighteenth-century liberals as Aranda, Cam-
pomanes, Jovellanos and the \vliole group of "afrancesados "
are subjected to severe attacks. The Falange abhors all that
the Constitution of 1812 represents, while Ferdinaiid VII,
who is called by Carleton J. H. Hayes "rancorous, cruel,
ungrateful and unscrupulous" and who, according to the
same author, restored the old r6gime in Spain in 1814 "~vitll
all its inequalities and injustices," is the hero." General
R'iego, who led the liberal revolt of 1820, is anathematized,
as is every liberal of the nineteenth century. Joaquin Costa
receives the most +itriolic abnse, probably because his eco-
2a Maria de Maeztu, G'?~ltztraeuropeo, pp. 9-10. " Ibid., pp. 22-25.
" Ibid., pp. 37-38. a 6 Ibid., p. 57.

aa Carleton J. H. Hayes, A Political a n d Social History of Modern Europe

(2 vols., New York, 1916), 11, 20-21.
466 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

nomic studies contrast most sharply the liberal and tradition-

alist forces in Spain, and still more probably because he
conducted a campaign for renewal of ties with the Sephardic
Jews throughout tlie world.
Anti-Semitism and anti-Freemasonry form important
parts of Falange's ideology.
The total Catholicization of Spain [says Pemartin] cannot be
achieved without a decided and opportune fight against the anti-
Catholic sects: Freemasonry and Judaism. . . . Freeillasonry and
Judaism are the tm7o great and powerful enemies of the Fascisms, of
the 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. Mussolilli
has perhaps done more for the g~*eatnessof Italy with his dissolution
of Masonry than with any other measure whatever.27

To be Spanish is to be anti-Semitic, according to Ramiro

de hfaeztu. Entitling his discussion "Against the Moors and
the Jews" he remarks : "A Jew continues to be a Jew even
when he abjures his faith. It was for this reason precisely
that we mere obliged to establish the Inquisition." "The
fundamental 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.le
wordiness when they insist on the reversal of modern history
and take historical reinterpretation as their most pol$-erful
weapon. They know where they are going. First, they m n l
the Hispanic peoples to accept their thesis that the present
world is evil. Second, they want it to accept their explana-
tions of why it is e~7il. Third, they want to prescribe the
remedies. Endless repetition of the same theme is a part of
their method. They ~ v a n tto drum their thesis into the ears
of their listeners until the subconscious begins to accept it.
What is happening today [they say] has its reason for being, its
causes in the course of history. I t is the fatal a i d inevitable result
of 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 of
the Iliddle Ages, in the hours of the Renaissance, and which formd
Peniartin, L o Xupli'o, p. 322. 28 Rlaeztn, Illspanzdud, pp. 209-211.
 THE IDEOLOGY O F H I S P A N I D A D 467
its course and its developlnent in the Protestant Reformatioii, in the
Cromwellian Revolution in 1661 [ s i c ] , in the political revolution of
the United States in 1776, in the philosophical-rationalist revolution
. .
in Prance in 1789, in the Industrial Revolution . , in the Positivist
theories of Auguste Comte, in Spencer's Darwinian evolution, and in
Marx's economic interpretation of history.29
The world has profited nothing, they reiterate, from the
Enlightenment. A tree is known by its fmit, and the fruit
of 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 is
the triumph of defamation. The encyclopedic bachelor's de-
gree? Like almost all the content of public edncation it serves
for nothing more than to instill in the human spirit the horror
of
But if the eighteenth century inspires horror in the advo-
cates of Hispn+zidc~d, the ninetenth century is even more of a
nightmare to them. For this is the century of Auguste
Comte, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Herbert Spencer.
Why they condemn Marx needs no explanation. Comte
arouses hatred because his philosophy of Positivism rejects
all knowledge of which man can have 110 sensual perception,
thus ruling out the spiritual values on which Hispamidacl
allegedly is based. Comte's Positivism refutes metaphysics,
and with Positivism as the weapon one may demolish the
whole galaxy of spiritual concepts, from God througli his
agent, the Church. Darwin's evolutionary theories rule out
the special creation of man, essential to religion. Spencer's
social evolution removes all "eternal" values from the social
structure, leaving man to manage his own affairs without
supernatural 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, the
Protestant Reformation and the Renaissance, thereby ma$-
ing room for tlie return of spirituality. Only when this is
done can Spain again achieve her former greatness. This is
M a ~ i ade Naeztu, C u l f z i ~ neulopen, p. 14.
?O Maeztn, Hispanidad, pp. 273-274.
468 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

the negative, destructive side of the Falange's philosophy.

But a positive program is ready at hand. Spain, says Ramiro
Naeztu, has only to accept as her objective the "return to
our Faith9'-the Roman Catholic
Catholicism thus becomes the official policy of Palmz-
gismo; its program includes "maximum respect for the Cath-
olic tradition of our race." Furthermore, "the spirituality
and 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 always
been Catholic in spirit. . . . Franco, moreover, is a religious man. . . .
The new Spanish State, with a inoral unity, has definitely a religious
and spiritual basis. The Catholic tradition is intimately linked in it
with 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 have
been only planets and satellites receiving indirect light, dim and re-
flected, from the Church, depositary of Truth. Spain in temporal
matters is merged with the Church in spiritual matters . . . [and
has always been the defender of Europe against paganization and
bolshevism which is] nothing but the last consequence of the Reforma-
tion and of Cartesian Rationalism, from which i t is derived through
the Encyclopedia, Liberalism and Democracy, just exactly as Ein-
steinian Relativism-that bolshevist ravager and destroyer of the
physical sciences-is deduced, point by point, from the Principles of
Descartes. . . . Because bolshevism was born in Eisleben with
Luther.34
Inevitable minor premises come from the coiiclusion that
to be Spanish is to be Catholic. "From primary instrnction
. . . to university teaching" all instruction mnst be Catholic
and all schools rigoroasly inspected to guarantee that no
31 Maeztu, Hispamidad, pp. 297-300, 166 and passim.
3 V n S ~ i r nRedondo,
~ p. 35.
33 Joaquin Arraras, Pranoisco Pranco: T h e Times and t h e Ma?c (enlarged
edition, Milwaukee, 1938-39), pp. 241-244.
34 Pemal.tiii, LO N t ~ e v o ,pp. 33-34.
 T H E IDEOLOGY O F H I S P A N I D A D 469
teaching contrary to Catholicism is a l l o ~ v e d . Intolerance
~~ is
also fundamental. "We shall never have respect for, nor tol-
erance of, those erroneous opinions which cannot be either
respected or tolerated, but we would hare compassion and
charity for those who uphold them, whom we would hold to
be 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 values
of Spain's liberal tradition. For example, when Juderias
published his Leyelzda lzegra in 1914 he sought to show that
the Spain of the Inquisition was gone, and that it had never
been just to condemn Spain for what had also existed in other
countries. The Falange, however, hails the Inquisition as the
true Spanish Catholic tradition. Maeztu brings the evidence
of 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 ~ i n e . 8 ~The Inquisition was "immensely popular
during the centuries of its greatness, loved and respected by
the ignorant and learned alike, whose ~ulanimousreligion it
defended against foreign dangers. "38
Philip I1 is hailed as the great defender of the Faith. His
intolerance meets with entire approval and the failure to
eradicate Protestantism can be attributed to the fact that
"God wished that experiment to be made, perhaps so that it
might be seen with all clarity that Protestantism leads to
pagani~m."~' Being Catholic, Spain is opposed to all that is
hot, particularly to the Anglo-Saxon nations, which are Prot-
e~tant.~O"Latinity, on the contrary, is linked . . . with the
interests of C a t h ~ l i c i s m . " ~T
~hus, Catholicism is the first
positive requirement of Spain's Nzbevo Estado.
Fascism is the second requirement. The philosophers of
the Falange agree with Hitler on "fiVe fronts or lines of
battle : (1) anti-Democratic ; (2) anti-Capitalistic ; (3) anti-
3 " e i l ~ a ~ t i n , Lo iVtceco, pp. 113, 128. 3 V b i d . , p. 149.
' f a e z t n , Hispnnidnii, pp. 192-195. Junco, S n n g r ~r7e H i s p a n i a , p. 24.
3"1aeztu, H i s p c ~ n i d n d ,pp. 195-196.
40 G u z n ~ &S nTaldiria, Destino d e X.IBzico, p. 4 0 ; Afaeztu, Hispanidad, pp. 116-117.
41 Vasooiieelos, Comzcnismo, p. 85.
470 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

Communist ; (4) anti-Semitic ; (5) anti-i\Iasonic. " This pro-

gram, which Gimknez Caballero calls a copy of Fascism, is "a
new 'universality, ' the latest 'ecumenicality. ' " This point is
emphasized in his La Nueva Catolicidad, published in 1933.
"The difference between the two Fascisms is that Germany
has 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 worked
out a complete Fascist philosophy, which they see as the
essence of Spain. Under the heading of "SPANISH ~ASOISM,"
Pemartin malies the orientation of Spain clear beyond cavil:
Heye, then, is the solution of the Spanish problem : Fascism, Hegelian
juridical absolutism, not only can and should be 'ealized in Spain,
but Spain is the only European nation where it beloi~gsin an absolute
sense. For our Fascism, our Hegelian-juridical absolutism, must
necessarily 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 religious
concept," Mussolini has written. Spanish Fascism will be, then, the
religion 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. I n the sixteenth century
IV-hen it vTas united, great, free and really Spain, the State
and Nation identified with the Eternal Catholic Idea, Spain
mas the Model Nation, the Alma Mater of Christian and
Western Civilization. . . . 744 ' ' Conseque~itly,if Spain is to
be ATutio~zaland Fascist, the Spanish State must necessarily
be Catholic. "45
The Spain of the past is to be projected into the future,
divested of the uli-Spanish excrescences which, according to
E'alange's philosophers, it has accunnula'ced. Spain's mission
is 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.
 THE IDEOLOGY OF H I S P A N I D A D 471
back to Catholicism. Spain can never be anything but
Catholic.
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 Faith, " as
Hillaire Belloc has so admirably said. . . . The Spanish Nation is
Catholic, yes, Catholic. For this reason there is no need trying to
square the circle. The problem is resolved in stating it. Spanish
Fascism must be Catholic Fascism. But, and let this be well under-
stood, not merely Catholic, but Spanish Catholic. . . .40

If any further evidence of this is needed, GimBnez Caba-

llero supplies it when he writes: "Fascism for Spain is not
Fascism, but Ca-th o-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 "Impevio
Espaiiol" : 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 brought
the "New Spain" into existence. I n its early days the
J.O.N.S. proclaimed "the imperial expansion of Spain," pass-
ing this on as the Falange's policy for the one-party state
formed in 1939.
Germany furnished the model for the formative period of
the Falange. Every victory of Germany over the democracies
was 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 also
come through national revolution. A united Germany will be the
bastion of a revived Hispanidad. Just as Germany has recovered. . . .
National-Sindicalist Spain will restore the united empire of all nations
of Spanish speech. . . . Spain will renew her historical urge to con-
vert barbarous peoples, and the German-Spanish alliance will place
us at the head of the world.4s
46 Ibid., pp. 34-36.

47 Gim6nez Caballero, Genio de Bspaiia, p. 225.

48 0 ~ ~ 6 s i ? n
Redondo,
o
p. 140.
472 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

German-Spanish union is a n important part of Hispa-

qzidad. As strange 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 Spain a t the head of an
international ideal, a "superaation." "Spain was the na-
tional instrument of a universal ideal, " represeated in tem-
poral matters by a "Caesar" and ill the spiritual by a "God."
A return to the "Caesar-God" union will restore Spain to its
imperial status." "Today it is known that the reigns of
Charles V and Philip I1 were epochs of magnificent t7~0z~gJ~t,
of scieuzce, of virtue and art, of tolerance and 7zamzolzy, of
~ see Charles V as our Hit-
Hu.ma.izism and T h e o c r a ~ y . " ~"I
lerian, our German racist," Gimknez Caballero exclaims.51
With ~erman-sp;nish unioa will come the regeneration
of Europe, which is only a preliminary, because Fascism is
"the new, vigorous upsurge of the Civilizatioil of the Future,"
with Spain its most important force. "On us, the Spaniards,
in this historic moment, falls the glorious task of contributing
more perhaps than any other Fascist nation . . . to the histor-
ical renovation of Western C i v i l i ~ a t i o n . " ~ ~
Militarizatioll of Spain will be one of the first steps toward
imperial recovery. This will bring "DISCIPLINE . . . embracing
the basic, component concepts : UNITY, ORDER, EIERARCHY, COK-
TINUITY. . . . Thus we shall return to the true being of Spain,
which has been a military nation throughout its history."53
Militarized Spain mill carry out its ~ t ~ o r mission,ld which
is to be the "SENTINEL ON THE WALI, OF THE CITY OF GOD."
Spain's duty is
the collaboration with Christ and his Church in the Salvation of the
World. There could be no higher destiny. For if we do not con-
sider the Spanish nationality formed, more than ally other, precisely
to 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 Espnfia, pp. 30-31.
60 Ibid., p. 230. K1 Ibid., p. 233.

Pemarth, Lo Nltevo, p. 7.

63 Ibid., p. 1 9 ; see also Maeztu, Hispu?~idacZ,pp. 297-301.

6 4 Pemartin, Lo Nuevo, pp. 312-313.

 T H E I D E O L O G Y OF H I S P A K I D A D 473
World 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 only
repeat but magnify itself.
A new Middle Ages-which transcendental spirits divine-must begin
again. . . . Germany must acquire a new impetus of formidable ex-
pansion. On one side she will throw the Mongolian muscovite horde
to the limits of Asia. . . . On the other she will conquer Europe
again, invade anew the Roman Empire. . . . On the ruins of apostate
Europe . . . will be reconstructed a new and powerful Latinidadh5

This mill be a Catholic Latinity, which Germany will seek

to dominate. But she will fail since Latinity is the stronger
spiritual force. Just as "Greece by Rome conquered, con-
quered Rome," the new Latinity, "which should be called
Hispanidad" will prevail over the German Europe. Spain's
task in this accomplishment will be a double one:
. . . a political 'task . . . endowing Western Civilization with Model
. . . of sharing with
Institutions and a task of cultural tra~snzissio.1~
the young nations of Hispanic America-with whom it has a common
heritage-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 Hispanic
States of the A t l a n t i ~ . ~ ~

Hispamidccd is the instrnment designed to make the dream

of empire come true. Such disclaimers of political ambition
as are made by the Palangists are qniclily refuted by their
own announced plans. Spain's geographical position, they
say, makes inevitable a strong place in the world. Hispa-
~%idacl'smission is "to extend, to expand our great Hispanic,
Latin Christian culture and our political grandmastership
(?naestraxgo politico), especially over those American coun-
tries of Hispanic-Iberian son1 and language. ' ' 5 8
Imperialism is an integral part of Falangism. The battle
cry during the revolt against the Repnblic was "For Cathol-
icism ancl the Empire!" The decree of August 4, 1937, estab-
66 Ibid., pp. 24-25.

67 Iliid.) p. 328.

474 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

lishing 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 concept
of empire. GonzBlez Oliveros, a close associate of Serrano
Suiier, in his book Fala~zgistasy Reqzcete's, ztqz todo ol-gklzico,
calls the "imperial idea" the guiding star of Spain ~vhicli
"implies the adoption of a policy of expansion. ' ' Professor
Bacuelos of the University of Valladolid, in his Revolzcciolzes
politicas y seleccidlz Jzz~mana,makes expansion a prerequisite
of Spain's existence.
Our coticept of natiofls as organisms that are born, grow, decline and
die leads us to cosisider this problem from the postulate that Spain
has changed ideology and that she is not content to live within her
actual frontiers, since this moulcl imply a state of decadence and
inevitably precede ruin and extinctioii. . . . Let us prepare to main-
tain and amplify our frontiers. Let us take a defensive position until
we are in condition to take the offeiisi~rewith certainty of success.
Today the limits of my Spain are the existing frontiers. Toniorro~~~,
I hope that its boundaries mill be larger and its dependencies vaster.59
General Franco himself is the best witness to Spain's
imperial ambitions. Speaking before a group of Italian
aviators, he promised that Spain's air force tvould "consti-
t ~ ~ the
t e muscles of steel that will build the empire to make
Spain again a great nation." And still a few tmeelis later,
speaking from tlie great Atlantic port and fortification, he
said: "El Ferrol cannot turn its back on the ocean; in its
arsenal me shall build the mar machines that will return to
Spain her empire." Of what will this empire consist? From
Falangist publications ancl from Franco himself tve learn that
it will include Gibraltar and parts of Africa. But most impor-
tant for us, the official Falangist publication FE lays claim to
"The Spanish World for Spain."60 General France also
points 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 should
have 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.

 THE IDEOLOGY O F H I S P A S I D A D 475

and the might of Spain will grow."61 On March 24, 1940,
while visiting the Archivo de Indias in Seville, he wrote in
the guest book: "Before the relics of our Empire, with the
promise of another. Franco. 9 ) 6 2
The Empire will include "all the people who owe their
civilization 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 bolshevism
on one side and liberalism on the other, "they must return to
the 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 quite
as complete a reversal of historical trends for Hispanic
America as for Europe. Hispanic America has traveled a
long way on the road to liberalism. Turning back is not easy.
But jnst as the philosophers of Falange demand that Europe
cleanse itself of the "evils" arising ont of the Renaissance,
they assert that Hispanic America must do likewise.
First will come a reinterpretation of Hispanic-American
history. This begins with the colonial period and a t first
treads on firm ground. It is with very legitimate ex-idence
that modern scholars have begun to call for a reappraisal of
Spain's work in the New World. The liberal advocates of
Hispnaisnzo and the Fascist advocates of Hispaltidad have an
aim that is identical up to a point : both want to secure greater
appreciation of Spanish contributions to the New World. But
where Hispnlzisv~o holds that Spain's colonial r8girne was
good because of its liberal features, Hisgaqzidad attributes
colonial greatness to "Catholic civilization and . . . a n author-
ity also common to all and by all respected, the King of
Spain," corruption setting in with liberalism.
From this comes the exaltation of the Roman Catholic
Quoted in ibid., pp. 344-345.
0aLa Prensa, New York, March 26, 1940, quoted in A. Randle Elliott, "Spain
After Civil War," Foreign Policy Reports, XVI, NO. 5 (May 15, 1940), p. 67,
note 78.
Maeztu, Hispanidad, pp. 21-22. " Ibid., pp. 300-301.
476 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

culture and the condemnation of tlie Enlightenment. This

reinterpretation of Hispanic-American history has been a
gradual development. The dividing line between the two
schools of thought is easily discernible: on one side are those
who 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 are
strongly imbued with the desire to combat Indiatzismo, which
attributes to the Indians cultural contributions equal to or
greater than those of the Spaniards.
Liberal Pan-Hispanism has sought to show that the col-
onies shared in the Enlightenment. To this effort have been
added the researches of such United States scholars as Lan-
ning, Leonard, Hussey, Whitalcer, Marchant, Bernstein and
others. 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. An
example of this view may be found in the Right Reverend
Guillermo 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 by
demonstrating that the ~vorks of Rousseau, Montesquieu,
Bayle ancl other writers of the Enlightenment circulated
freely. Yet, in the same address, he condemned the Enlight-
enment as a materialistic and anti-Christian influence. From
such self-contradictory argument Hispul.zidnd's advocates con-
clude that colonial Hispanic America was enlightened and
modern Hispanic America ignorant. Concerning education
Furlong Cardiff remarks: "The real and true fact is that
primary education, from the first days of the Concluest to
the AIay Revolution, was universal, wise and methodical sucli
as there has not been among us in later epochs. . . . Above
everything 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 Cuille~rnoFurlong Cardiff, LiBiblioteeas coloniales," Boletin de la Academia
Nacio~~nZ de H i s t o ~ i a ,XI11 (1940), 119-120.
 THE IDEOLOGY O F H I S P A X I D A D 477
Spain gave us our life; but this life miscarried from the beginning.
What could have beell an uninterrupted and free progress became
decline and slavery. The tragedy of Spain was our tragedy. The
disintegration of the greatest empire . . . threw a shadow over the
~netropolisand cast the colonies into absolute darliness. . . . The
.
liberty taught us is false. . . Democracy is false. . . . I t is neces-
sary to tear out all, absolutely all, the principles by which we are
accustomed to regulate our existence. . . . GG We have a mission to
accomplish: the reintegration of onrselves into Hispanic life. We
have but one destiny: THE DESTINY O F HIS PAN ID AD.^'

The restoration of Hispa~zidncldepends on the restoration

of the traditional values. Hispanic America must be made to
see liberalism in its true light-as the destroyer of the His-
panic tradition. Those who have clung to tradition have been
Hispanic America's true sons. The greatest evils came
from those who introduced liberalism: Hidalgo and lforelos,
G6mez Farias, Guerrero, and, worst of all, Benito Ju&rez in
Mexico. The heroes are Iturbide, Alamfin, Santa Ana, Maxi-
milian, Mirarnbn, and Porfirio Diaz. Chile is called on to
condemn Manuel Salas, O'Higgins, Nanuel Bilbao and the
liberal ancl democratic parties and what they advocated,
namely: separation of Church and State, secularization of
cemeteries, and public education. Argentina's Map Revolu-
tion is anathematized, with Mariano Moreno and Bernardino
Rivadavia cast as the villains. Alberdi is condemned, ancl
Sarmiento portrayed as an enemy of Argentina for advo-
cating immigration and popular education. Rosas the dic-
tator, is exalted. I n Uruguay, opprobrium is heaped upon
Jose Batlle y Ordbhez, father of one of the most modern
codes of social legislation in the world.
The past is citeci as a guide for the fature. "What will
not be the surprise of the Hispanic nations on realizing that
what they need most, which is a guide to the future, is f o ~ ~ n d
in their own past? Not in that of Spain precisely, but in that
of Hispamidad daring the two creative centaries, the six-
teenth and s e ~ e n t e e n t h . ' ' ~ ~
Hispawidad will take the form of Church-State gorern-
Guzman Valdivia, Desfino d e Me'xico, pp. 62-63.

OT Ibid., p. 199. 8 8 Maeztu, Hispanidad, 11. 186.

478 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

meat. Spain's former empire will furnish the model since its
success came from its tlieocratic character. " T h e efficacy,
naturally, of this civilixijzg action depezzded on the perfect
blendirzg of the two powem: temporal arzd spiritual, there
being no similar example in history, and which is the original
characteristic 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 is
necessary to take into account, above everything else, its national
character, especially the intimate union of the Church and the State
in Spain during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to the point
where the State was theocratic, orthodoxy being the duty and the
lam of every citizen like any other civil obligation.'O

IV. I J T ~ aHispalzidnd
r RIEA~-s
TO AMERICA

TTe hare arrived at the crux of IIispanidad. Unless its

advocates misrepresent it, it is Roman Catholic Fascism, the
official foreign policy of the Falange Espahola, designed to
reunite the Hispanic peoples around the concept of privi-
lege, hierarchy, autocracy, and intolerance. HOTV much real
strength it has in Spain and America only time can tell.
There are eviciences of both strol~gsupport a-nd violent oppo-
sition among tlie Hispanic peoples. An example of the latter
comes 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. . . . Hispanidad is the
reconquest of Ibero-America for Spain. Not just any Spain, but for
Theocratic-Falangist Spain. . . . I t is a spiritual reconquest in prin-
ciple, and material reconquest when international conditions are right.
Spain declares herself an Empire and demands her ex-Empire. Ilis-
punidad represents a retrogression to the status quo ante 1800, at
least. Nothing less. Iberian Fascism aspires to eliminate time. But
Hispa~zidad is something more than Fascism; it is Spnnislz Fascism
for Ibero-American Fascists. Yes. Hispanidad, Creole Fascism:
such it is, whether we like it or not. . . . I n other words, in addition
Ibid., p. 111. Quoted in ibid., p. 112.
 THE IDEOLOGY O F H I S P A X I D A D 479
to despotism, cruelty, stupidity, bullying, hunger, terror, desperation,
etc., Hispanidad is something else. . . . I t is Theocracy. I t has been
imposed by a cynical, ambitious and belligerent Church in the name
of 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. . . . I t is apparent at a glance that His-
pawidad projected from the Iberian Peninsula the premise introduced
there by the triumph of Fascism. Nothing succeeds like success!
And what triumphed in Spain is tiying now, wrapped in the sheep's
clothing of Hispanidad, to slip into American political life. Froin
this comes our definition. fIispa.iziclacl is Fascism seasoned to the
Creole taste.71

Judging from the supporters it is attracting in Hispanic

America, Creole taste is finding Hispamidad's type of Fascism
to its liking. Some of these have been mentioned already, and
while the object of this stuciy is to examine the ideology
rather than the acts of Hispalaidad, it is pertinent to note
briefly a few of the sources of its strength.
Three chief classes support Elispalaidad: the conservative,
propertied classes; a large nnmber of intellectuals; ancl
strong elements of the Catholic Church.
The propertied people see in Hispaaidad a philosophy
'chat will protect their interests. I t s strong stand against
communism, socialism, and clemocracy enclears it to those
who see these as threats to themselves. Lumping the three
together, although it is apparent that commtlnism is the antith-
esis of democracy and much more a k j ~ lto Hispamidad in its
concept of society, the propertied elements support Hispa-
$aidad as a counter cioctrine. Democracy and liberalism are
pictured as the seed gronnd of proletarian revolution.
Intellectual support of Hispalaidad is more ciifficalt to
account for, less logical, but more likely to spread the ideo-
logy. The most apparent ideology of Hispanic America from
the late eighteenth century was drawn from the Enlighten-
ment. The chief poets, novelists, essayists, historians, and
other writers were strong supporters of humanitarianism,
secularism, liberalism, and democracy, though often in modi-
11 F. Carmona Nenclares, ' ' Hispailislllo y Hispanidad,' ' C~tudemosa?nevicanos,
No. 3 (Mayo-Junio, 1942), 43-55.
480 THE HISPANIC. AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

fied forms. Less prominent, but perhaps always latently

stronger, was an iiitellectual current reaching back to Scholas-
ticism for its support. Held down and seemingly defeated,
this intellectual current was on the defensive for well over a
century. Recently it has come into the open, advocating
militantly a "reevaluation" of the Hispanic inheritance. We
have noticed sufficiently the content of this "new" thought.
Repndiating what it calls "materialism" and scoffing at "sci-
ence" and "progress" (terms almost invariably placed in
quotation marks to indicate disbelief in their existence) the
proponents of this allegedly new thought which is drawn
mainly from Tllomas Aquinas, vituperate ceaselessly against
precisely those things which most Americans and many His-
panic Americans have come to consider as yardsticks of
progress.
Church support of Hispamidad is unofficial in most cases,
but, in truth, it is the most important and powerful factor
of all. We may demonstrate this by noting the position of
the Church on other matters. I t strongly condemns com-
munism, socialism, Marxism, anarchism, and in the case of
Spain, republicanism. Democracy too is frequently attacked
by Church organs, and seldom defended. Totalitarianism on
the other hand is frequently defended; and until very recently
many Bind words were found for Germany and Italy, where
denunciation of the United States was the rule. The fre-
quency and venom of the attacks on the United States and
its characteristic iastitutions, democracy, secularism, free
public eclncation, political parties and religious tolerance, are
enough to indicate that the term Good Neighbors has a one-
sided meaning for millions of Hispanic Americans. After a
few months of reading literature of this type emanating from
such widely separated sources as Mexico and Argentina, one
is tempted to come to the conclusion that the United States
is expected to pay a very high price indeed for the Good
Neighbor Policy: the price is the snrrender of all the ideals
which have gone to make the term United States synonymous
~ 6 t han ideology of human freedom rather than svitlt a
geographical region.
 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 expression

throughout Hispanic America. Some of these have been
mentioned; others are worth noting. I n Mexico, the weekly,
La aacio'a, carries regular articles attacking liberalism and
democracy, and upholding what we may accurately describe
as an anti-United States ideology. Lectzcra, a semi-monthly
review, is more subtle but comes to the same conclusions.
El Silzarquista ancl Orclea, official organs of the Sifiarqt~ista
movement, express the same contempt for liberalism and
democracy. Abside is also numbered among the supports of
Hispalticlad's ideology. Not the least important of the i\Iex-
ican periodicals working for Hispamidad are Omega and El
hombre libre, two of the most prominent Roman Catholic
papers.12
Colombia, too, has a strong contingent of Hispa+zidnd ad-
vocates. Ame'ricn Espagola, published by G. Porras Troconis
in Barranquilla, is one of the foremost. More widely read is
the influential daily, El siglo, official organ of the Conserv-
ative P a r t y and edited by the Party's leader, Laarcano
G6mez. Tts pages reverberate with anti-United States, anti-
liberal and pro-Hispaqzidad sentiment. Other publications in
Colombia favoring the Falange and Hispa9tidad are L a
tvadicio'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,have or h a r e had pro-Falange,
pro-llispanidad publications. Others which Hispa.tzidad's
advocates i a America publish or have published a r e : Arriba
EspaGa, Havana ; dnzanecer., Santo Domingo ; A w i b a Espafia,
L a P a z ; Ar.riba Espafia, Panam&; Avalwe, San Juan, Puerto
Rico ; Arriba EspaGn, Ecuador ; Ultidad, Lima ; Jerarquia,
EogotA; Cara a1 sol, Ponce, Pnerto Rico; Arriba, Sullana,
Peru ; Cara a1 sol, New Yorlc ; and Unidad, Mexico.73
7 2 Verna Carleton Milljn, ((Propaganda 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 dis
banded in America, its ideology, v~liich is the subject under discussion, is still
strong.
482 THE HISPANIC AJIERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

Argentina has perhaps the largest contingent of pro-

Falangista publications. Among these are: Arriba, El p m -
pero, Crisol, Clnrinadn, Los pri+zcipios, of Cbrdoba, and the
Catholic paper, Critel-io.
Other newspapers and reviews throughout Latin America
print pro-Falange, anti-liberal, anti-Democratic materials
tvitlzout devoting themselves exclusirely to this propaganda.
Some of these also carry pro-Democratic material, or at least
pro-United Nations articles. No exact balance sheet can be
drawn, and none has beell attempted here, but it seems safe
enough to say that Hispanic America is one of the battle
grounds on which the struggle between Fascism and Democ-
racy is being ~vaged, and that Hispa~zidccd definitely rep-
resents Fascism. Democracy has numerous and stroizg
supporters, b ~ what
~ t is significant is that the concept of
democracy has been challenged and its enemies have proved
to be extremely vigorous.
The unlimited ambitions of Hispa~&icla(l may be seen in a
final quotation from Pemartin :
If we leave the exclusively European vie~vl~oint to take in a n-ider
view of world affairs, there in America is certainly reserved for the
apparently weak and ' 'backward " FIispanic America the same noble
mission that falls to Latinidad in Europe-the conversion of Korth
America to Catholicism. This will perhaps seem to be an impossible
fantasy to some sliallow spirits. Remember, nevertheless, how easily
the material prosperity of the Unitecl States has fallen since the
debBcle i n Wall Street in November, 1929, anci remember also its
already low moral level. Think also of this iminense couglolneratio~z
of peoples aiicl races-which is not a nation-that compose the United
States, sufYering the moral depression that defeat by J a p a n must in-
flict on them sooner or later. Thinlr, finally, of that clear nzoral
superiority that Hispanic America has over Korth America.74
MT.DIFFIE.
BAILEY
The College of the City of New York.
7 V e m a r t i n , Lo Aruevo, pp. 26-27.