page_title: Tomàs Caylà i Grau
section_title: Restoration and dictatorship
hierarchical_section_title: Tomàs Caylà i Grau / Restoration and dictatorship
caption_attribution_description: Español: Bendición de la redaccion del semanario Joventut per la Fe i per la Pàtria (1919)
context_page_description: Tomàs Caylà i Grau was a Spanish publisher and a Carlist politician.
context_section_description: In 1919 young local activists led by Caylà founded a Valls-based weekly titled Joventut. Spanning across modest 4 pages and appearing with the sub-heading Per la fe i per la pátria, the periodical was issued in Valls and partially other comarcas of the Tarragona province; its circulation remains unknown. Contemporary scholar classified its political line as conservative, another present-day biographer underlines that it was based on ideas of Christian humanism and justice. Caylà and the co-founders explained their political identity in a clear-cut manifesto, declaring themselves to be first Catholics, then Spaniards, then Catalans, then Traditionalists and finally legitimists. Caylà emerged as the moving spirit, manager, chief author and organizer of the weekly, which remained sort of his personal tribune for the next 17 years. He contributed under his own name or using various pen-names, most commonly "C.V." and "Almogáver"; his contemporaries admired him for writing ease.
  Freshly graduated, launching his law career and active in the local Circol Jaumista, in 1920 Caylà ran on the Carlist ticket in elections to the municipal council, but was reprimanded by the party leader of the province, Joaquín Avellá, who made public that Caylà had not been nominated by the party. Local Carlists responded by claiming that Avellá only intended to favour the candidacy of his own brother, a member of the Conservative Party. Caylà could not get elected. However, in 1922 he ran again and was elected regidor as one of the most popular candidates. His career did not last long; the coming of the Primo de Rivera dictatorship in 1923 spelled replacement of elected bodies with the appointees; Joventut could have only lambasted the new regime for its corrupted political machinery. Things went from bad to worse in 1924, when Caylà and the young Jaimistas attempted to stage Festa dels Veterans and celebrate the 50th anniversary of Carlist takeover of the province; the regime reacted by closing circulos, suspending Joventut for 2 weeks and detaining Caylà, who spent 5 days in Tarragona prison and was ordered a month of exile in Lleida. Also during the years to come Joventut refused to endorse attempts to institutionalize the regime and rebuked its inefficiency and disregard for genuine representation, in result suffering 5 fines, 2 suspensions and 2 detentions.
  Joventut was euphoric about Primo's fall. During Dictablanda Caylà was administratively reinstated as member of the local council and actively resumed his public activities, like staging the Carlist Fiesta de los Mártires de la Tradición celebrations in 1930. Since Spanish politics seemed dominated by bewilderment, he advocated Catholic principles as general guidance and prayer, sacraments and mass as 3 ordinary day duties. In terms of political solutions he championed spiritual role of Vatican and papal teaching, which translated into his hostile stance towards Liberalism. Though loyal to the Carlist king Jaime III, unlike most Carlists he was not vocal as a monarchist. Demonstrating some accidentalism and what was already becoming his typical conciliatory and non-belligerent tone, he rather advocated common work for Spain, be it a kingdom or a republic, far more important having been a new constitution, centered on traditional values.
caption: Cayla launching Joventud, 1919
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