Our Aims (The Founding of La Solidaridad, Organ of The Propaganda Movement) (Barcelona, February 15, 1889)

Our aims
(The Founding of La Solidaridad, Organ of the Propaganda Movement)

(Barcelona, February 15, 1889)
We shall be remiss in a duty, a very fundamental act of courtesy if at the start of our
task we do not extend sincere greetings publicly to the Spanish Press in general and to
our pres of Barcelona in particular. Confident are we that they will receive our modest
publication with kindness and affection.
In times like ours when there are newspapers to suit everybody’s taste and
reviews with all kinds of information, it is not correct to say that we join the press to fill a
vacuum. We only aspire and hope for a place along the line so that we can share with
them the agonies of the struggle, the anguish of battle which increasingly sustains with
audacious courage the Spanish press.
Modest, very modest indeed are our aspirations. Our problem aside from being
harmless is very simple; to fight all reaction, to hinder all steps backward, to applaud
and to accept all liberal ideas, and to defend progress; in brief, to be a propagandist
above all of ideals of democracy so that these might reign over all nations here and
beyond the seas.
The aims therefore of La Solidaridad are defined; to gather, to collect liberal

ideas which are daily exposed in the camp of politics, in the fields of science, arts,
letters commerce, agriculture, and industry,.
We shall also discuss all problems which deal with the general interest of the
nation, seeking solutions that are purely national and democratic.
The Spanish overseas provinces will find in La Solidaridad a zealous supporter of

their just and lawful aspirations, an organ which will voice their needs and make them
public, which will expose the evils which afflict those faraway places so that these
conditions may be remedied.
It will be fair in discussing and judging the political and economic problems which
becloud Cuban and Puerto Rican skies.
It will expose fearlessly and dispassionately the disease that corrupts those
societies. All phases of corruption which undermine justice and retard the economic
development of our precious Antilles whose present state and whose future are the
concern of all parties and administrators.
Its political program therefore with respect to the colonies is not limited to any
particular field nor to any school of thought.
We shall pay special attention to the Philippines because those islands need the
most help having been deprived of representation in the Cortes. We shall thus fulfill our
patriotic duty in the defense of demoracy in those islands.
That nation of eight million souls should not and must not be the exclusive
patrimony of theocracy and conservation.
In the beginning of our constitutional period, the Philippine Archipelago was

represented in our Cortes. Her voice was heard. She was consulted in the formation of
the fundamental law of the state in 1812. But in 1837 she was dispossessed of this
national right which was taken from her with the pretext that it was being done for the
good of the people and the country’s welfare.
From then on, all political parties seem tacitly agreed to ignore, to forget, to be
indifferent to our overseas possessions. And if the need to study and effect remedies to
evils which affect our home-country to its very core should come up, everyone enjoins
caution because the belief is that the evil is so deep-rooted that it is past cure.
Other nations employ different procedures. The British press and that beyond
the Pyrenees lavish praise on the development of the natural resources of their
possessions. Spain on the other hand sleeps and let foreigners develop all her
agricultural, industrial, and commercial interests – all, except monastic interest.
Indifference in our Archipelago will not be good for Spain’s integrity in the
Philippines. The country is attuned to progress, The heart of that nation longs for
legitimate hopes of a better life and we do not believe in any political theory which would
discuss such pleas with the classic “We shall see.”
We believe thereofre that by offering to sutdy the problems mentioned avoce and
those relationg to them, we shall be, in our humble way, of service tot he nation and her
institutions.
Under del Pilar, the aims were expanded to include:
1) the removal of the friars and the secularization of the parishes;

2) active participation in the affairs of the government;
3) freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly;
4) a wider social and political freedom;
5) equality before the law
6) assimilation; and
7) representation in the Spanish Cortes

Our Aims (The Founding of La Solidaridad, Organ of The Propaganda Movement) (Barcelona, February 15, 1889)

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Our Aims (The Founding of La Solidaridad, Organ of The Propaganda Movement) (Barcelona, February 15, 1889)

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Our aims

(The Founding of La Solidaridad, Organ of the Propaganda Movement)

The aims therefore of La Solidaridad are defined; to gather, to collect liberal

The Spanish overseas provinces will find in La Solidaridad a zealous supporter of

In the beginning of our constitutional period, the Philippine Archipelago was

Under del Pilar, the aims were expanded to include:

1) the removal of the friars and the secularization of the parishes;

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