Jose Joaquin Rodriguez Zeledon
José Joaquín Rodríguez Zeledón (January 6, 1838 - November 30, 1917, San José) was a Costa Rican lawyer, judge, and politician who served as the 15th president of the Republic of Costa Rica in the period between 1890 and 1894.
Personal data
He was the son of Sebastián Rodríguez Castro and Francisca Zeledón Mora. Although his baptismal name was Joaquín José, he usually signed himself as José J. Rodríguez , he was usually known as Don José Rodríguez .
He married Luisa Alvarado Carrillo. From this marriage was born, among other children, Manuela Rodríguez Alvarado, wife of Rafael Yglesias Castro, President of Costa Rica from 1894 to 1902.
Studies
He began studying Law at the University of San Carlos in Guatemala, but due to family and economic circumstances he had to interrupt them and return to Costa Rica. He subsequently graduated with a law degree from the University of Santo Tomás in San José. He was received as a lawyer before the Supreme Court of Justice on June 8, 1868.
He was senior notary of the Ecclesiastical Curia of San José from 1877 to 1877 and President of the Costa Rican Bar Association in 1882, 1888 and 1905.
In addition to his work as a lawyer and public official, he dedicated many efforts to agriculture, livestock and other companies. He was a member of the San Jose Board of Charity.
First public offices
In 1863 he was elected Substitute Representative for San José, a position he resigned in 1864. However, his main vocation was the judiciary and not politics. He was General Registrar of Mortgages and on October 18, 1870 President Tomás Guardia Gutiérrez appointed him Magistrate of the First Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of Costa Rica, a position for which he was elected in 1872 by Congress for a period that it was to conclude in 1876; but in 1874 he was removed from office by decision of the President Guardia. He represented San José in the Constituent Assembly of 1880, which was dissolved by President Guardia.
He was part of the commission that drafted the Civil Code and the Code of Civil Procedures of 1888 and other laws.
In November 1886, he was appointed as Secretary of Foreign Affairs and related departments, but the following month he resigned due to discrepancies with the actions of the first appointed Apolinar Soto Quesada, father of President Bernardo Soto Alfaro.
In 1887 he was elected president of the Chamber of Cassation, which began its functions in 1888. The position also entailed that of president of the Supreme Court of Justice of Costa Rica.
The Democratic Constitutional Party, with a conservative orientation, postulated its candidacy for the 1889 elections. In August of that year, José resigned as president of the Supreme Court, and in the first degree elections, held in November 1889, won a resounding victory over the liberal candidate Ascensión Esquivel Ibarra. His triumph was confirmed in the second grade elections, which were held on December 1, 1890.
Presidency (1890-1894)
On May 8, 1890, José Rodríguez Zeledón assumed the Presidency of the Republic, a position he held until May 8, 1894. During his tenure (1892), he dissolved Congress and suspended civil and political rights. He ruled as a dictator until the end of his term and imposed Rafael Yglesias Castro as his successor.
Foreign Relations
During the Rodríguez administration, an unsuccessful attempt was made to carry out the material delimitation of the border with Nicaragua, and even on December 23, 1890, the Castro-Guerra treaty was signed with that country, to try to settle the differences over the location of the extreme points of the limit, but it was not ratified. Other efforts on the same subject did not give results, nor did the Castro-Rizo treaty of November 16, 1891, which aspired to create an arbitration Diet to resolve issues that arose between the two countries. Other important milestones in the foreign policy of the government of José Rodríguez were the signing of the Gutiérrez-Morales friendship treaty with El Salvador (1890), the Pérez-Zelaya peace and friendship treaty with Honduras (1891), the León- Páez-Villavicencio on the exchange of publications with Venezuela (1892), the Jiménez-Gámez extradition treaty with Nicaragua (1893) and the Jiménez Arellano treaty on intellectual property with Spain (1893), but only the last two were ratified.
Justice
Laws were issued in July 1891 and May 1892 to improve the functioning of the appeal, and in September 1892 a new law to regulate the jury.
Social and health issues
The most important measure issued during the Rodríguez administration in social matters was a decree-law to regulate the granting of retirement and pensions. A building was donated to establish a hospital in Alajuela and monthly grants were given to the hospitals in Heredia and Cartago. Various measures were also taken to improve public hygiene and to combat an influenza epidemic that occurred in October 1893. It was also up to the government of Don José to deal with the emergency caused in October 1891 by a catastrophic flood of the Reventado River, that flooded a sector of the city of Cartago and its neighborhoods and caused several deaths and serious material damage.
Education
One of the areas in which the government of José Rodríguez Zeledón developed most activity was in the field of education, and in this regard, the most important provision was a law of Congress that in July 1890 reestablished the University of Santo Tomás, closed in 1888. However, the Executive Branch objected to the statutes issued by Congress, and this effectively and indefinitely postponed the reopening of the institution. However, they wanted to keep the Law career running, and on March 2, 1891, the creation of a provisional School of Law was ordered under the direction and inspection of the Bar Association. This situation would be maintained until the creation of the University of Costa Rica, half a century later.
Another of the purposes that the administration of José Joaquín Rodríguez expressed since its inception was to solve the problem related to religious education, suppressed in 1886. By means of a decree of August 4, 1892, the Executive Power ordered the establishment of religious education in primary education, whose provisions were specified and expanded in an agreement dated the 18th of the same month. On September 2, another agreement was issued aimed at establishing Catholic religious education in the Normal Section of the Liceo de Costa Rica and in the Colegio de Señoritas.
A very important achievement of this government in educational matters was the creation of night schools for adults in the province and canton capitals. Secondary education was reorganized, libraries were created in public schools, the work Elementos de Historia de Costa Rica by Francisco Montero Barrantes was ordered to be printed and adopted as a text for schools and colleges; New primary schools were opened in various places, the manufacture of a metallic building for the graduate schools of San José was contracted in Belgium, and the creation of public libraries in Cartago and Heredia was arranged.
During the Rodríguez government, Congress created the cantons of Goicoechea and Limón; The police were reorganized and, on the occasion of the celebration of the fourth centenary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in America, October 12 was declared a national holiday.
Public works, development and colonization
The activity of the Rodríguez government in terms of public works, development and colonization was copious and had important projections for the future of the country.
The most relevant event of the four-year period 1890-1894 was the completion of the works on the Atlantic railway, a task begun since the time of President Guardia and completed on December 7, 1890 by the American businessman Minor Cooper Keith. With this, several important contracts in the field of public works were signed, among them the Lizano-Keith of July 28, 1891 for the establishment of electric lighting service in public buildings and the León-Páez-Keith of March 28, 1892. for the sanitation works of the port of Limón, which included construction of a cutwater, fills, drainage, pipes and paving of the streets. Another outstanding fact of his government was the beginning of the construction of the National Theater, which was inaugurated in 1897, and the conclusion of the headquarters of the Superior College for Young Ladies.
It also corresponded to him to inaugurate on September 15, 1891 the monument dedicated in Alajuela to Juan Santamaría, and to arrange that the National Monument of Costa Rica be located in the Plaza de la Estación (now a National Park). Contracts were signed to provide new facilities for the Alajuela Market and to establish electric lighting in Cartago, a steamship service between Puntarenas and Golfo Dulce, telephone service in San José and other towns, and a tram service in the city of San José. Colonization efforts were supported in the present-day canton of San Carlos, and land was assigned to the village of that name –present-day Ciudad Quesada- for distribution among the inhabitants. The Lizano-Maceo contract was signed on May 13, 1891 to bring Cuban families to develop an agricultural colony in Nicoya.
Finance
With regard to finance, during the Rodríguez administration, measures were enacted to liberalize the cultivation of tobacco, the privilege of quadruple issuance granted in 1888 to the Banco de Costa Rica (then Banco de la Unión) was terminated, and the for six months the export of silver, to try to remedy the shortage of minted coins of that metal.
Subsequent Charges
From 1894 to 1898, during the first administration of his son-in-law Don Rafael Yglesias Castro, he was First Appointed to the Presidency and from 1898 to 1902 he was once again President of the Chamber of Appeals and of the Supreme Court of Justice of Costa Rica.
Death
He died in San José on November 30, 1917 at the age of 79.
The writer Jorge Sáenz Carbonell published a biography of him in 2011 with the title El Canciller Rodríguez.
| Predecessor: Vicente Sáenz Llorente 1887-1888 | .svg) President of the Supreme Court of Justice of Costa Rica 1888-1889 | Successor: Vicente Sáenz Llorente 1889-1890 |
Predecessor: Carlos Duran Cartín 1889-1890 (Provisional) | 15th President of Costa Rica 1890-1894 | Successor: Rafael Yglesias Castro 1894-1902 |
| Predecessor: Manuel Jiménez Oreamuno 1894-1898 | President of the Supreme Court of Justice of Costa Rica 1898-1902 | Successor: Manuel Jiménez Oreamuno 1902-1904 |