We would fail in the observance of the most elementary rule of courtesy if at the commencement of our task we did not pay our respects first of all to the Spanish press in general and the Barcelona press in particular, trusting that they will receive with love and benevolence our modest publication.

In times like ours when there are periodicals for every taste and reviews for all the intellectuals, it is not fitting to say that we come to the stadium of the press to fill a vacuum. We only seek, we only ask for a place in their ranks in order to share with them the vexations of the battle, the hardships of the contest which the Spanish press without respite endures with intrepid spirit.

Modest, very modest are our aspirations. Our program besides is simple very simple. It is to combat every reactionary movement, prevent any backward step, applaud, accept every liberal idea, defend every progressive move: in one word, it is one more propagandist of all the ideas of democracy in the hope that they may prevail here and beyond and seas.

The purposes of La Solidaridad then are to gather and compile the redeeming ideas that daily are being poured into the field of politics and the spheres of science, arts, letters, commerce, agriculture, and industry.

We shall also discuss the questions pertaining to the general interests of the nation and seek their solutions in a highly democratic and national sense.

The Spanish provinces beyond the seas will find in La Solidaridad a determined supporter of their just and legitimate aspirations, an organ that will respect their needs, and expose the ills that afflict them so that they may be remedied.

With an eminently broad criterion it will deal with political and economic problems that darken the Cuban and Puerto Rican skies.

Without complaisance and without passion it will reveal the gangrene that corrodes society in those Spanish provinces and every immorality committed in the administration and in the

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This is the editorial in the first issue of La Solidaridad, Barcelona, 15 February 1889, whose editor was López Jaena.