"I am proud of being a Spaniard now that the Spanish people are fighting to save their own culture." Luis Mira, former professor at the University of Barcelona and inspector of psychiatry in the Spanish Republican Army, said at a meeting sponsored by the Teachers' Union in behalf of the Spanish Refugee Campaign.

"The Spanish people are still fighting to preserve their freedom of thought," Mira continued, "and the reason Franco is suppressing all the liberals in Spain is his fear of being assassinated."

Explains Army's Predominance

Mira went on to explain why the army has always been so prominent in Spanish politics. "Constant invasions of Spain," he said, "made a strong army necessary, and the army became so powerful that it has always remained an important factor in Spanish politics."

"The lack of insight on the army's part cost Spain all her colonies in America," he pointed out. He said that when the Spanish Republic was established in 1933, President Azana tried to reform the army and to cut down expenditures which were three times as much as those devoted to education. The army began to plot against the Republic, and this culminated in the Civil War of 1936.

"Intellectual Resistance" to France

Every liberal is being executed or jailed by Franco today in an effort stop "intellectual resistance" to his government. "Books are being burned only because they are written by liberals, even those that deal with mathematics, of all things."