Carlos Davila

Carlos Gregorio Dávila Espinoza (Los Angeles, September 15, 1887-Washington D.C., October 19, 1955) was a Chilean lawyer and politician.

Biography

He entered to study at the Faculty of Law of the University of Chile in 1911, not concluding his law studies. In his youth, he joined the Radical Party, working as a journalist for the Santiago newspapers El Mercurio and La Nación , serving as editorial secretary in the latter.

Possibly unrelated to radicalism, he was one of the greatest exponents of ibañismo, since in 1927, when Carlos Ibáñez del Campo rose to power, he was appointed ambassador to the United States, beginning a brilliant diplomatic career. In this condition he married the sculptress Herminia Arrate in 1929.

On July 26, 1931, with the Ibáñez government in a critical state, Dávila was fired from his position. Subsequently, he was one of the staunchest opponents of the successor government, that of Juan Esteban Montero, and founded Hoy in 1932, from where he opposed the government of Alessandri.

Government

On June 4, 1932, together with Marmaduke Grove, Arturo Puga and Eugenio Matte overthrew the government of Juan Esteban Montero through a coup, forming a government junta and declaring themselves a "socialist republic& #34;.

After the coup and while Dávila was a member of the junta, serious incidents occurred in Santiago de Chile. In the provinces there was no full knowledge of the fall of the president until days after the fact. The junta, which began with populist measures, began to rapidly lose popularity and after serious disagreements, Dávila resigned from it.

On June 16, 1932, Dávila returned to the Palacio de la Moneda, seized Matte and Grove and sent them into exile on Easter Island, seizing power completely.

Dávila's government was very short and unpopular; The government measures were extremely dictatorial: Congress was closed, martial law was declared, and several ministries were dismembered, such as the newly created Chilean Ministry of Defense and Social Welfare, creating the Ministry of Labor.

This ministry did not work with the government since the communists reorganized their unions and Dávila, urged by a possible revolt, tried to censor and annul them, but due to the unpopularity of the government and despite the fact that there was no congress or judiciary, it could not be outlawed communism that turned iron.

Davila on the cover of the magazine Time (1932).

The media, the majority in the hands of rightists, therefore followers of former President Montero, began an acid criticism of the government, which only had the newspapers La Nación and the magazine Today. The extreme authoritarianism made the already serious situation more complex and forced Dávila to change his cabinet several times in just one hundred days. His greatest weapon in the government, the authoritarian Minister of the Interior, Juan Antonio Ríos, left office and a serious decline stage.

Under the Dávila government, the economic situation worsened even more, people began to organize more and more common pots and around those days Arturo Merino Benítez organized an uprising in the city of Ovalle that led to the departure of the military from the government, the only supporting force he had.

Dávila tried to return Ibáñez but the population highly disapproved of the measure and began to fabricate any attempt by Dávila to increase his power, the ministers began to resign and the government was left without a Ministry of Justice, in addition there was a crisis in the cabinet due to the creation of the General Commission of Prices, accumulating Dávila the power of almost all national matters.

In addition, serious situations began to occur such as the disappearance of homosexuals and the subsequent sinking of a ship, the government began to falter and Dávila became totally inoperative. For this reason there was an uprising of regiments with vast popular support and a counter-coup led by Bartolomé Blanche, who assumed the Ministry of the Interior leaving Dávila to go into exile in the United States on September 13, 1932.

After the failure of the socialist economic program, Blanche also became inoperative and the regiments began to govern in each zone, provoking an uprising in Antofagasta and Concepción demanding the constitutional return, thus ending the period of anarchy on October 2, 1932.

New diplomatic career

In exile he was decorated several times and was a counselor of UNRRA, in addition to participating in the formation of various international entities, in 1940 he began working at the Inter-American Advisory Committee on Finance and Economy, predecessor of the Inter-American Development Commission. When Ibáñez assumed his second presidency, he was appointed director of the newspaper La Nación, a position he held until his election in 1954 as Secretary General of the Organization of American States. His brief secretariat stands out for mediating in the conflict between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Rich in January 1955.

He died on October 19, 1955 in Washington D.C., United States, while in office, being succeeded by José Antonio Mora.