Evening star., 1937-04-30
War on Basques' Blot
Proud and Useful Little Race Being Exterminated
in Spanish War;

new technique of warfare, the new
military science: The day was
Monday. That is marketing dav in
Guernlca, when it is certain that
the women with their children
around them will be in the streets,
in the market center of the town.
FIRST, small parties of airplanes threw
heavy bombs and hand grenades all
over the town, choosing area after
area, IN the most orderly fashion.
Inc bombs tore holes 25 feet deep
and brought down buildings over
the heads of their inhabitants.
AS the population scattered in panic
the planes swooped low and opened
machine gun fire on the running
people, whether they were men or
women or children. Even a herd
OF sheep coming to market was moved
OIL the face of the earth. As the
people dove into cellars and under
shelter the planes again few high
and dropped incendiary bombs, and
the village f1ared with fire. And in
the midst of this carnage men aloft
saw priests kneeling by the dead and
dying, administering extreme JUNCTION.
Those fleeing were machine gunned
along the roads-Women and children!
Good God! The game laws of
most of our States prohibit the Shoot
ing OF birds from airplanes. 1t is
unsportsmanlike. Guernica had no
antl-aircraft guns. The democratic
nations do not believe in "interven-
tion.' Instead We sell copper to
Germany and oil to Italy!
Terror and Psychology.
This is Fascist warfare. I mean
Fascist. There has been terror on both
sides of this war This is a civil war,
and a war Of terror. But I have
watched the dispatches as they have
come across the cable desks and there
is no record of the Loyalists bombing
civilians If they did there is no rec
ord. There is an inhuman logic in this
technique. One defeats the soldiers
at the front, not by blowing out their
hearts, but by breaking their hearts.
For what do men fight? For their
wives and their children But if the
wives and the children are to be sacri-
feed will they not submit? 1t is the
psychology of the kidnaper to whom
the victim cries, Give me my child
alive and will do anything"
All. but that is not what the men
of the Basque country have said!
This morning-I write on Thursday
a cry goes up from those men. It Is
not cry for arms. 1t is not cry
for allies. 1t is addressed to Britain,
and to America, and to France, and
to all nations, with ships on the seas,
who still love human liberty. And
they say: Take our women and chill
dren away! Take away our mothers
with unborn children in their wombs,
take away our little boys and our little
girls! Land them somewhere, any,
where, that our breed may not die
out, and the life that we have
begotten may go on! And then we
will fight, here alone on these rocks, to
the last breath, to the last mani"
"Tree of God" Oak.
Ihefe Is an oak IN IuernlCd, winch
is called the Tree of God. It has stood
for 900 years, and from its stump new
sprouts are shooting. The lombard
ment which racked away women and
children and youths and old men never
touched this tree. Under it the Kings
of Spain took the oath to respect the
democratic rights of Vizcaya and were
answered with the oath Of the Basques,
pledging allegiance to the Senor, the
Lord, but not the King of this PROV
ince For the Basques gave obedience
to an equal, knowing that men must
acknowledge leadership, but they gave
subservience to no man.
Were the spirit alive in that SYM
Dol still alive throughout the world,
nations would not sit by meekly, but
there would arise from all civilized
countries, through their governments,
a protest, which even the Fascist
relationships could not ignore. For,
believe it or not, there are such
things in the werld as mortality, as
low, as conscience, as a noble concept
of humanity, which once awake, are
stronger than all biologists.
tCopyright, 1887, New York Tribune, Ine)