[16] Following his earlier education in 1911 Tomàs moved to Barcelona, where he started to study law;[17] he graduated in derecho in 1916[18] and commenced practicing in his native Valls,[19] gaining anecdotal reputation for his honesty and dedication.

[39] His career did not last long; the coming of the Primo de Rivera dictatorship in 1923 spelled replacement of elected bodies with the appointees;[40] Joventut could have only lambasted the new regime for its corrupted political machinery.

[43] Also during the years to come Joventut refused to endorse attempts to institutionalize the regime[44] and rebuked its inefficiency and disregard for genuine representation, in result suffering 5 fines, 2 suspensions and 2 detentions.

Demonstrating some accidentalism and what was already becoming his typical conciliatory and non-belligerent tone, he rather advocated common work for Spain, be it a kingdom or a republic, far more important having been a new constitution, centered on traditional values.

[58] In 1932 he unsuccessfully ran for the Catalan parliament[59] from the Unio Ciutadana list;[60] following triumphant Esquerra victory he was forced to walk out of l’Ajuntamient[61] and later kept denouncing decomposition of local authorities[62] and growing chaos in Valls.

[89] Supporting various cultural initiatives[90] he also acknowledged Catalan political ambitions, best embodied in the autonomous project; for Caylà, separate regional establishments were rooted in the Carlist vision.

The regional diet was supposed to have decisive say on administrative, fiscal and economic issues, with diputación forming the Catalan executive and municipalities allowed large degree of their own autonomy.

[97] Also in present-day Catalanist publications his articles from that period are quoted when referring to unity of Spain as “a parody”,[98] however this particular phrase was intended not to question the Spanish integrity as such but rather to mock the inefficient and propaganda-embroidered late primoderiverista version.

[99] It is not clear to what extent Caylà contributed to the official Carlist autonomy project revealed in 1930;[100] it was founded on similar highly federative concept, elaborated in more detail and embracing organic elections to the local diet.

Enthusiastically supportive about the ongoing talks on autonomous statute, he refused to join the militant anti-Spanish Catalanization wave[102] and opposed separatism,[103] at best lukewarm about the ultimately prevailing, allegedly integral vision of the Republic.

Always sympathetic to the conservative Lliga, he was alarmed by militancy of Companys and the Catalan Left, denouncing “el feixisme esquerrá”[107] and what he considered potentially barbarian course of October 1934, though he opposed suspension of the autonomy.

[112] To Caylà the popular movements of the Left, undistinguished into Anarchism, Socialism or Communism and approached jointly as “red syndicalism”, were deceiving the masses by utopian visions of fictitious liberty[113] and turning the Catalan idea into “branch of the Russian ideology”.

[116] His criticism of laissez-faire has also never amounted to general onslaught on capitalism; considering private property and individual self foundations of civilized society[117] he followed Vatican in its harsh judgment of “capitalisme liberal” and unlimited accumulation of wealth.

[134] Finally, the most detailed biographical work claims that in the early summer of 1936 Caylà made a tragic figure, horrified by protorevolutionary turn of the Republic[135] but unwilling to join a conservative rebellion against it.

[136] During the July 1936 coup the Catalan Requeté organization led by was allegedly prepared to field 3,100 volunteers in the first line and further 15,000 as auxiliaries;[137] mobilisation of Carlist paramilitary was directed by its regional leader José Cunill, yet regardless of his pacifist outlook Caylà must have approved of the process.

[138] During the outbreak of hostilities he was running his daily party business in Barcelona; though he was leading Carlism in its third most important region[139] some authors claim that he learnt of the insurgency from the radio broadcast.

[140] He left leadership of the Requeté to Cunill and witnessed failure of the coup in the Catalan capital, in 2 days the Carlist volunteers reduced to total disarray, some killed, some captured, some fleeing and some going into hiding.

Caylà himself initially stayed in his usual hotel residence, but following the news of Cunill and other Requeté leaders having been captured[141] he realized the danger and after few days went into hiding by his relatives in Barcelona.

In the 1940s Caylà remained a hero of the Tarragona Carlists, serving as a role model for the branch opposing Francoism[151] and for those who chose to side with the regime, supporting the claim of self-styled claimant Carlos VIII.

[152] Juventud, the Falangist weekly launched in Tarragona in 1943 was styled as continuation of Joventut; issued in Spanish and subtitled Semanario nacional sindicalista it had little in common with the original Caylà's periodical.

[153] Except singular cases of homage on part of intransigent anti-Francoist Sivattistas[154] the memory of Caylà went into oblivion; he started to figure prominently in the Carlist political discourse some time in the late 1960s.

[156] His second biography - also highly hagiographical, though pursuing the opposite vision than the earlier one - was published in 1997 and it fits into this progressist outlook well;[157] also some fiercely anti-capitalist, anti-globalist groupings of Spanish or Catalan extreme Left keep presenting Caylà as their predecessor.

[158] Other militantly Left-wing groups keep considering Cayla an enemy; carrer Tomàs Caylà is covered by a present-day initiative to purge Catalan public space of fascist heritage.