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: Plaza Catalunya, between ten and eleven in the morning. Faced with a heat of justice, the appointment only brought together a thousand attendees. It was possible to wait for 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 gunmen and the bombs that proliferated everywhere in Barcelona after a Tragic Setmana that had alarmed the authorities and with a union movement that was increasingly demanding and ready for anything.
The members of the organizing commission, chaired by the radical Cristóbal Litrán, went up to the stage that had been set up more than anything so that the speaker's voice would be well heard.
The speech was as rousing as one could expect, as well as the shouting that broke out to chant the slogans: Down with the death penalty! Down with Gutters! Long live the Republic! And it ended with the emotional and traditional song of La Marseillaise.
The liberal José Canalejas presided over the Government since 1910.
At the end of the act, those gathered headed down the Rambla towards Plaça Sant Jaume and with the Town Hall as their objective. Then more than a few hundred demonstrators joined, who until then had remained at the foot of some shadow, since Plaza Catalunya had been baptized by the popular voice as Plaza dels apis, by virtue of the dwarf palm trees that had been so mistakenly planted when it was inaugurated in 1902. It was said that that crowd already numbered two thousand very combative followers.
At the head, four radical councilors, including Pich i Pon, plus the leader Cristóbal Litrán, who went up to the office of the mayor Marquis of Marianao. He received them without flinching, and a manifesto writ was delivered to him. He read it and commented that it seemed reasonable to him. Then Litrán asked him to go out on the balcony to address the protesters who filled the square.
Well, not only did the mayor agree, but he was surprised to leave together with them. Litrán delivered a somewhat brief harangue. The town vibrated and, satisfied, he took off home.
