My only experience in politics was gained with Lerroux.

One Sunday, seven or eight years ago, on coming out of my house and crossing the Plaza de San Marcial, I observed that a great crowd had gathered.

"What is the matter?" I asked.

"Lerroux is coming," they told me.

I delayed a moment and happened on Villar, the composer, among the crowd. We fell to talking of Lerroux and what he might accomplish. A procession was soon formed, which we followed, and we found ourselves in front of the editorial offices of El Pais.

"Shall we go in?" asked Villar. "Do you know Lerroux?"

I had met Lerroux in the days when El Progreso was still published, having called once with Maeztu at his office; afterwards I saw him in Barcelona in a large shed, which, if I recall rightly, went by the name of "La Fraternidad Republicana," and then I was accompanied by AzorÍn and Junoy.

Villar and I went upstairs and greeted Lerroux in the offices of El
Pais.

"EstÉvanez has spoken of you to me," he said. "Is he well?"

"Yes, very well."

A few days later, Lerroux invited me to dinner at the CafÉ InglÉs. Lerroux, Fuente and I dined together, and then fell to talking. Lerroux asked me to join his party, whereupon I pointed out the qualifications which were lacking in me, which were necessary to a politician. Shortly after, I was nominated as a candidate for the City Council, and I addressed a number of meetings, although always coldly, and never at high tension.

While I was with Lerroux, I was never treated save with consideration.

Why did I leave his party? Chiefly because of differences as to ideas and as to tactics. Lerroux wished to organize his party into a party of law and order, so that it might be capable of governing, and also to have it friendly with the Army. I was of the opinion that it ought to be a revolutionary party, not in the sense that I was thinking of erecting barricades, but I wished it to contest, to upset things, and to protest against injustice.

What Lerroux wanted was a party of orators who could speak at public meetings, a party of office-holders, councillors, provincial deputies and the like, while I held, and still hold, that the only efficacious revolutionary weapon is the printed page. Lerroux was anxious to transform the radical party into something aristocratic and Castilian; I desired to see it retain its Catalan character, and continue to wear blouses and rope-soled shoes.

I withdrew from the party for these reasons, to which I may add Lerroux's attitude of indifference upon the occasion of the execution of the stoker of the "Numancia."

Not many months after, I met him on the Carrera de San JerÓnimo, and he said to me:

"I have read your diatribes."

"They were not directed against you, but against your politics. I shall never speak ill of you, because I have no cause."

"Yes," he replied, "I know that at heart you are one of my friends."