A demonstration had been called to protest and demand the abolition of the death penalty. It was August 27, 1911, a Sunday, of course. Place: Plaça Catalunya, between ten and eleven in the morning. With a heat of justice, the meeting only gathered a thousand attendees. They could expect more, many more.
It was about getting Alfonso XIII to agree to commute the maximum sentence imposed on six violent strikers. The moment was not at all favorable, taking into account the gun violence and bombs that were proliferating everywhere in Barcelona, ​​after a Tragic Week that had alarmed the authorities and with a trade union movement that was increasingly vindictive and willing to do anything.
The members of the organizing committee, chaired by the radical Cristobal Litrán, went up to the stage that had been set up more than anything so that the speaker’s voice could be heard well.
The speech was as incendiary as was to be expected, as well as the outcry to demand the slogans: “Out with the death penalty! Out Canalejas! Long live the Republic!”. And it culminated with the emotional and traditional singing of La Marsellesa.
The liberal José Canalejas presided over the Executive since 1910.
At the end of the event, those gathered headed down the Rambla in the direction of Plaça Sant Jaume and with the City Hall as their objective. Then hundreds of demonstrators were added, who until then had remained in some shadow, since Plaça Catalunya had been dubbed by the popular voice as “plaça dels apis”, by virtue of the dwarf palm trees that so much uncertainty had been planted when it was inaugurated in 1902. It was said that that crowd already amounted to two thousand very combative followers.
At the head, four radical councilors, such as Pich and Pon, plus the leader Cristóbal Litrán, who went up to the office of the mayor Marquis de Marianao.
He received them without changing, and they handed him a manifesto. He read it and commented that it seemed reasonable. Then Litrán asked him to go out on the balcony to address a few words to the demonstrators who filled the square.
Well, the mayor not only nodded, but also surprised when he left the City Hall with them. Litran delivered a rather short harangue. The village vibrated and, satisfied, returned home.
