Carlos Eugenio Restrepo

Carlos Eugenio Restrepo Restrepo (Medellín, September 12, 1867- Ibidem, July 6, 1937), was a Colombian politician, lawyer, journalist, writer, businessman and soldier, member of the Colombian conservative and militant of the influential Unión Republicana coalition.

Restrepo was a staunch opponent of the government of Rafael Reyes, and stood out as a journalist and political analyst. He was also a successful businessman, being a member and president of the first Board of Directors of the Medellín Chamber of Commerce for Antioquia, and founder and manager of the Compañía Antioqueña de Tejidos.

As a lawyer, he was Inspector of Public Instruction, Secretary of the Superior Court, Superior Circuit Judge of Antioquia, Councilor of Medellín, Secretary of Government. And as a politician, he held the positions of Minister of Government and Ambassador to the Holy See during the presidency of Enrique Olaya Herrera. He was president of his country between 1910 and 1914 for the movement of the Republican Union. He earned the nickname Monsieur Veto for his censorship policies.

During his government, the construction rights of the Panama Canal were transferred from Colombia to the United States, in exchange for large compensation. He also managed to maintain Colombia's neutrality during the first days of World War I and promoted freedom of the press, freedom of thought, and religious tolerance.

Biography

Carlos was born in Medellín, capital of the Sovereign State of Antioquia, on September 12, 1867, in a home of the Antioquian elite of the time.

He studied at the Higher Education Institute and later entered the Medellín Council Seminary, where he met Clodomiro Ramírez. He suspended his law studies due to the civil war of 1885, when he was 18 years old, during the presidency of Rafael Núñez. However, he was able to continue his studies in a self-taught way and alternated his education with a job in the law office that his father had with the lawyer Alejandro Botero Uribe, who was Minister of Government in 1909.

Additionally, he began his work as a lawyer as a secretary in a superior court in Medellín, and later as a superior judge of the city. As a businessman, he was the creator of the Antioquia Departmental Printing Office in 1882, founder of the Medellín Lottery, and on February 9, 1899, he co-founded the Society for Public Improvements with his partner Gonzalo Escobar.

The company was very important because it restored "order and beauty" to his city, after the damage caused during the civil war of 1889. Many of the works of that company continue to exist today. One of the great works of the company was cable telephony for the city.

Brief military lifeː The War of a Thousand Days

Restrepo voluntarily joined the conservative side at the beginning of the Thousand Days War, fighting for the troops under the command of the conservative president Manuel Antonio Sanclemente, eventually being appointed Chief of Staff of General Pedro Nel Ospina.

One of his older brothers, Eliseo Restrepo, also joined the hostilities, but ended up dying unmarried and childless during a fight in Turbaco on July 18, 1900. This fact deeply marked Carlos, who from then on He advocated for pacification and concertation in a country divided between conservatives and liberals.

Civil lifeː journalism, business and politics

After the war, Restrepo worked as a journalist. Among his activities, it is worth mentioning that he directed El Correo de Antioquía, founded La República in 1891 (which should not be confused with the newspaper of the same name founded in 1954 by former president Mariano Ospina Pérez nor with the namesake of 1924 founded by Alfonso Villegas Restrepo).

He also collaborated in other Antioquia magazines from the beginning of the century XX such as El Montañés (1899), La Miscelánea (1888, 1905), Reading and Art (1903) and Alpha (1906, 1907, 1908, 1910), with political, literary, religious articles and translations, since he was fluent in French.

In 1900 he was appointed director of the Casino Literario academic circle, and later rector of the University of Antioquia between April 1901 and April 1902, carrying out an important reform of the university's study program, and there he served as professor of Roman law, political economy and constitutional law.

In 1909 he began his political career as a member of the House of Representatives for the Conservative Party, where he co-founded the Unión Republicana coalition, with which he brought together liberal politicians and his own party around political unity in the country.

Opposition to Kings

During the first years of the XX century, Restrepo founded the magazine Vida Nueva, from where he opposed the conservative president Rafael Reyes, despite the fact that scholars of the time described his government as one of the best in history.

He also conspired with colleagues to overthrow Reyes, and as a lawyer he collaborated with his partner Clodomiro in the defense of politician Enrique Olaya Herrera, who was imprisoned by the government in Cartagena, achieving his acquittal. In fact, Restrepo defended Olaya's freedom through a letter that he signed along with other scholars from his region, and that he addressed to the president on May 17, 1909.

The institutional crisis derived from the forced resignation of President Reyes and the inauguration of his former Vice President Ramón González as his replacement (despite the fact that Reyes left Jorge Holguín in office) led to the formation of a National Assembly that would reform the Constitution of 1886. Among the changes made, it was provided that the Assembly would elect González's successor by indirect vote. Restrepo himself was responsible for González assuming power, given that he had been at odds with Reyes since 1905.

Presidential candidacy

After a brilliant year in congress, on July 15, 1910, the National Assembly elected Restrepo as president of the nation by 23 votes in his favor against 18 for the conservative José Vicente Concha, becoming the first Antioquian to win the presidency. Despite his immense support, Restrepo was not the favored candidate, being seen as "a provincial journalist" supporter of republicanism. Despite this vision, Restrepo received the support of an important sector of the assembly members due to their fear of returning to a civil war, and due to his vast preparation in the legal field.

It seems that Restrepo himself did not expect to win the race, since his party planned to nominate Nicolás Esguerra, another founder of the coalition. According to Credential History, the conservatives forced the Republicans to nominate Restrepo, on pain of withdrawing from the coalition. Olaya himself was the architect of the pact, and thanks to him Esguerra declined to run.

Presidency (1910-1914)

Carlos Eugenio Restrepo1910, for Ricardo Acevedo Bernal. National Museum of Colombia, Bogotá.

Restrepo assumed the presidency on August 7, 1910, when he was 42 years old. As an anecdote, it is known that on the day of his inauguration, former President González threatened him with a coup if he did not grant him participation in the cabinet, to which Restrepo opposed, since being a conservative he sought national unity.

Restrepo was the first president to govern for 4 years without interruption until 1921, when the conservative Marco Fidel Suárez resigned a year before the end of his term. He was also the first to govern for 4 years after the 1910 reform, a period that is currently in force in the country.

During his government Restrepo created several important institutions such as the Colombian Red Cross, he faced the political crisis that began with the First World War, keeping the country neutral; he supported the export of coffee and fought against tropical diseases. The Urrutia-Thompson treaty was also signed during his rule.

Cabinet

Economy

When he assumed the presidency, he found his finances in a very bad situation because there was a fiscal deficit of approximately four million pesos. To counter this, he increased tax collections and dramatically cut spending, running a surplus within a year. As part of his economic growth program, he also promoted the manufacturing and hydrocarbon extraction industries...

Other economic achievements include having paid off a significant part of the foreign debt (paying the existing interest in full), having doubled exports, including coffee -which became the country's flagship product and main source of currency for the nation -, prohibit new issues of paper money and the return to the system of gold and silver. His government also launched a fierce crusade against smuggling, a problem that affected the internal economy.

Society

Restrepo in September 1910, one month after his presidential election.

A few days after taking office as president, Restrepo verified the issuance of postcards commemorating the centennial of the Cry for Independence on July 20, 1810. The stamps were issued by the company American Note Bank Co. of New York. Almost 3 million stamps were issued with figures of Simón Bolívar, Antonio Nariño, Camilo Torres, Policarpa Salavarrieta, and other illustrious characters of the time or later related to independence.

He built several railways, among which the Nariño and Medellín railways stand out, and he also rebuilt the Pacífico and Girardot railways. Through a decree of 1914, he awarded the Ministry of Public Works the surveillance and exploitation of the Ferrocarril de la Sabana. He also initiated the construction of roads that would allow access to the Amazon jungle region.

He encouraged various reforms on a variety of issues. He promoted a reform to the Council of State that was created by Simón Bolívar in 1819, created the bipartisan foreign relations advisory commission, ordered the compilation of all laws since 1821 and the remodeling of the National Capitol, the seat of the Colombian Congress today., which was completed in 1926. A lifetime retirement pension for school teachers was also instituted for the first time.

During his tenure, the death penalty was abolished, the military and police were prohibited from voting, and the annual meeting of Congress was established. However, disenfranchising members of the armed forces was only a "lukewarm washcloth" that Congress gave Restrepo, since he was actually looking for a reform to the electoral system that would "purify the suffrage", prevent fraud and proportionality between the parties. He also replaced forced recruitment with the service compulsory military. He modernized the national army to the standards of the time, despite the fact that he did not involve the country in any military conflict, except for the border problem with Peru.

At the territorial level, several Municipalities and Police Stations were created (San Andrés and Providencia among them), and consequently hospitals were built on the coasts to combat tropical diseases, especially against leprosy and tropical anemia or Ankylostomiasis. To him He is also awarded the creation of the San Vicente de Paul Foundation, created in 1913 and which provides health services and the Colombian Red Cross in Medellín.

Foreign Policy

On April 6, 1914, a few months before handing over the post, the Thomson-Urrutia Treaty was signed with the United States, which compensated Colombia for the loss of Panama with twenty-five million dollars and free passage through the Canal for Colombian ships. Money began to be deposited in Colombian accounts in the early 1920s. Also, with that treaty, Colombia reestablished its diplomatic relations with that country.

Controversies

Restrepo was criticized for an expansionist skirmish from Caquetá to Peru known as the La Pedrera Conflict between June 10 and 11, 1911, with high costs in human lives and no benefits for the country, since there were an excessive expenditure of resources and their troops were decimated by tropical diseases such as malaria and paludism. Historians in both countries have tried to hide the conflict but now records are resurfacing, confirming the existence of the conflict. One consequence of the event was the Colombian-Peruvian war of 1933.

Politically, he maintained a permanent struggle with the clergy to keep interference from the church at bay, which practically co-ruled the country during the long years of Conservative Hegemony. The president strongly defended freedom of religion, freedom of the press and of expression. These positions led him to be the target of attacks from the traditional parties, which had been conspiring since the beginning of his government to force him to resign. He earned the nickname Monsieur Veto because he repeatedly vetoed laws that he did not consider beneficial for the country. Carlos E.'s political party (La Unión Republicana) was so weakened at the end of his term that it was nicknamed the Republican Canapé, since all its members could fit on one sofa.

Post presidency

Restrepo handed over the position on August 7, 1914 to a colleague from the conservatism José Vicente Concha, who defeated the military man Rafael Uribe Uribe in the 1914 election (who would be assassinated months later on the steps of the National Capitol). He left office amid applause and thanks for his management from both citizens and other politicians and even his rivals.

After finishing his term, Restrepo stayed out of politics, returning to Medellín, where he was linked to private industry. He created the magazine Colombia in 1916 where he had a column, until the closure of the publication in 1922. He was also manager of the Colombian Tobacco Company in 1919 and of the Naviera Fluvial Colombiana, a member of the main board of directors of Bancoquia between 1920 and 1923.

He supported the creation of the Empresas Públicas Municipales (today EPM) in 1920, he was one of the founders and first honorary president of the Rotary Club of Medellín in 1927 and he also helped with the Constitutive Charter of the Club on behalf of Rotary International in 1928.

Return to government

At the beginning of January 1930, Restrepo joined the campaign of Enrique Olaya Herrera -who had been Restrepo's chancellor until 1911-, despite the fact that he was a Liberal; Supporting Olaya, Restrepo sought to combat the Conservative hegemony and create a coalition government, like the one that brought him to power in 1910. Olaya's victory in February 1930 sealed the defeat of the Conservatives after almost 50 years in power, thus beginning the Liberal Republic.

In compensation for Restrepo's support, Olaya named him minister of government (the second most important post after the presidency), serving from August 7, 1930 to July 28, 1931. characterized by putting the interests of the country before those of the parties, under the slogan "Concertación Nacional".

Restrepo left the ministry to be appointed as Colombian ambassador to the Holy See, where his brother Juan María had already been working for several years, and the sanction of excommunication was lifted so that he could accept the position. There he was in charge of ensuring the health of Olaya's diplomatic relations with Pope Pius XI. Restrepo lived in Rome until the end of the Olaya government in 1934.

Restrepo in his old age, portrayed by Benjamin de la Calle.

He definitely withdrew from politics to dedicate himself to his business, but according to his friend Clodomiro, Restrepo reached his last days in misery, since due to the economic crisis he had to sell his house and the family farm.

Death

Carlos Eugenio Restrepo died at his home in his native Medellín, during the early hours of Tuesday, July 6, 1937 at the age of 69, due to pneumonia. It is known that on the night of his death President Alfonso López Pumarejo had scheduled a visit to Huila, but decided to cancel it to dedicate the following day to presiding over Restrepo's honours.

His remains were exposed in a burning chamber at the headquarters of the Antioquia Departmental Assembly and then a funeral procession took his mortal remains to the Rafael Uribe Uribe Palace of Culture, seat of the departmental government, for their respective posthumous honors, which were widely attended by intellectuals, politicians, friends, colleagues and ordinary people. Additionally, a cessation of activities was decreed in the department and national mourning for President López. He was buried in the San Pedro Cemetery Museum in the same city, where His remains rest today.

Private life

Thought

Despite being a Catholic, Restrepo opposed even after his government the dangerous acquisition of political power by the Catholic Church and the fact that people were losing faith because the Church accepted the mistakes that politicians made for their sake. influence. These secular attitudes earned him excommunication by the ecclesiastical authorities. His tolerance was his banner throughout his life; he once said, after receiving criticism from other conservatives ː

"I am a Catholic, but as a civil head of the State - giving the Catholic religion the guarantees recognized by the National Constitution - I cannot stand in the pontiff of any creed and will only be the guardian of the freedom of belief, whatever, of all Colombians."

Restrepo was also a defender of women's rights and, in particular, of education for women. It is known that in 1905, at a cultural festival held at the Bolívar Theater in Medellín, he asked for an ovation for the teacher María Rojas Tejada, who was speaking about women's rights, and who is considered the first woman lecturer in history. from the country. In 1930 Restrepo once again made his support for women public when he promoted a project presented days before at the IV Women's Congress in 1930.

Family

Carlos was the son of Pedro Martín Antonio Restrepo and Cruzana Restrepo Jaramillo, all members of the prestigious Restrepo family from Antioquia. Carlos' brothers were the successful businessman from Antioquia, Nicanor Restrepo Restrepo, grandfather of fellow businessman Nicanor Restrepo Santamaría; and the theologian Juan María Restrepo, who was at the service of the Holy See, he was also the brother of Luis María, Concepción, Cruzana, Tulia, Inés, Eliseo and Abel Restrepo Restrepo.

Restrepo and two of his sons in Fusagasugá, 1910.

His father was the nephew of the legal consultant and Colombian independence hero José Félix de Restrepo, who was also educated by the Spanish priest and botanist José Celestino Mutis. Both de Restrepo and Mutis participated in the Botanical Expedition, which was decisive in the Creole Enlightenment.

José Félix, was married to the aristocrat Tomasa Sarasti, niece of the philanthropist and businessman from Cauca Pedro Agustín de Valencia, a distant relative of the Valencia family, to which belong the poet and politician Guillermo Valencia, his son former conservative president Guillermo León Valencia, and his great-granddaughter Senator Paloma Valencia, among many others. Likewise, the great-granddaughter of José Félix and Tomasa was Amalia Restrepo Briceño, who, married to the scientist Federico Lleras Acosta, was the mother of former president Carlos Lleras Restrepo.

Marriage and offspring

Carlos was married to Isabel Gaviria Duque, with whom he married on April 16, 1890, and with whom he had his 9 childrenː Tulia, Carlos Ignacio, Sofía, Margarita, José Mario, Ana, Adolfo, Vicente and Isabel Restrepo Gaviria. His daughter Margarita married the poet, writer and philosopher Fernando González, author of Viaje a Pie , a union from which the politician and writer Simón González Restrepo was born.

Legacy

Museo Cementerio San Pedro, with a plaque in honor of Restrepo

The cemetery where Restrepo's remains lie became a national monument due to the beauty of the tombs built there and the historical, architectural and cultural wealth that it houses inside (since several famous politicians and renowned people rest thereː the musician Elkin Ramírez, the journalist Fidel Cano, temporarily the Argentine singer Carlos Gardel, and the former presidents Mariano Ospina Rodríguez and Pedro Nel Ospina Vásquez). The declaration of the cemetery as a monument was given in 1999 under the government of the conservative Andrés Pastrana Arango.

His company, the Sociedad de mejores públicas de Medellín, continued with important works that still existː the Olaya Herrera Airport, the Nutibara Hotel and the Pilot Public Library.

In his honor, one of the traditional neighborhoods of Medellín bears his name, in which there are several cultural buildings, such as the Pilot Public Library and the Cultural Center Faculty of Arts University of Antioquia, being one of the most famous and e important of this city.

Despite the fact that Restrepo was anti-war and disenfranchised members of the Colombian armed forces, the government of conservative Belisario Betancur created the "Carlos Eugenio Restrepo" Police School in his honor. 3. 4; (ESCER), which was born by decree 936 of 1984. The school is located in the municipality of La Estrella and bears the name of Restrepo because he was the first president born in Antioquia, and because of the support that education enjoyed during his government.. The school stands out for the natural beauty present in its facilities, being evident a waterfall that crosses the school.