Once and again, it is necessary to return to the imperishable work of José Martí. Today we go as far back as March 14, 1892, when the first issue of the newspaper Patria was released, which was founded by the Apostle in New York and soon it would become the mouthpiece of the necessary war.
Patria constituted a kind of consummation of the long road already traveled by Martí in the task of reporter. In this endeavor, the Maestro was accompanied by an integral press team that identified with the urgency of creating a revolutionary newspaper in form and content.
Under the title Nuestras ideas (Our Ideas), Martí expresses in the first number “This newspaper is born, by the will and with the resources of the Cubans and independent Puertorricans of New York, to contribute, without haste and without rest, to the organization of the free men of Cuba and Puerto Rico…”.
After the results of the Ten Years’ War and the Chiquita War, Patria arose out of the need to wage a battle of ideas against the discouragement in the scattered independence ranks, and against the autonomists and annexationists who rejected a dignified future for Cuba.
Thoughts and ideas of José Martí that immortalized his worldview were published in Patria:
“He who rises today with Cuba, rises for all times.”
Further on he states:
“…the independence of Cuba and Puerto Rico is not only the only means of assuring the decent welfare of the free man in just work to the inhabitants of both islands, but the indispensable historical event to save the threatened independence of the free West Indies, the threatened independence of free America, and the dignity of the North American republic. The lazy, respect: the great, go ahead! This is the task of great men”.
The Cuban Revolutionary Party, also founded by José Martí on April 10, 1892, made the newspaper Patria the ideal means to raise the patriotic feelings and the legitimization of the Cuban nation that had begun its definition in 1868.
Thanks to the newspaper Patria, the Cuban Revolutionary Party played a decisive role in achieving unity among revolutionaries, without distinction of class, sex, color or intellectual development; it was able to unite all the dispersed individuals and form a multiclass grouping to prepare for the necessary war that would break out on February 24, 1895 on the island against powerful Spanish colonialism.
In homage to the newspaper Patria and its founder, March 14 was chosen to celebrate every year the Day of the Cuban Press, thus creating the inescapable commitment to maintain the firmness and conviction that we will overcome difficulties, and unity will continue to be the premise of our daily struggle.
