Pedro Aguirre Cerda
Pedro Abelino Aguirre Cerda (Pocuro, Calle Larga, February 6, 1879-Santiago, November 25, 1941) was a Chilean politician, educator, and lawyer.
Member of the Radical Party (PR) —which he presided over between 1919 and 1921—, after two consecutive periods as deputy representing the departments of San Felipe, Putaendo and Los Andes (1915-1918) and the province of Santiago (1918-1921), was appointed as Minister of Justice and Public Instruction, between January and September 1918, during the presidency of the liberal Juan Luis Sanfuentes, and then as Minister of the Interior during the first government of Arturo Alessandri Palma, also a liberal. briefly in 1920 and 1924. Under the motto "To govern is to educate", he was elected as President of the Republic of Chile for the period between 1938 and 1944, in one of the closest elections in history republican.
Before completing a year in government, he had to face the Chillán earthquake and the so-called «Ariostazo». During his tenure, he promoted a strong industrialization process, for which he founded the Production Development Corporation (Corfo) as part of an ambitious economic development plan that included the construction of electrical and steel plants, oil exploitation, the support for the manufacturing industry and the mechanization of agriculture. Regarding this last issue, despite having proposed in his book The agrarian problem (1929) that the State should redistribute unproductive land and that its The government's own program contemplated agrarian reform, which was never carried out in these years.
In accordance with his campaign slogan, another fundamental axis of his administration was the expansion of primary education and the creation of the "General Secretariat for the Defense of Race and Use of Free Hours". His government he would be the first of three successive administrations known as "radical governments" that would exist in the country until 1952. Of these, his was the only one to remain in the popular memory of the century XX, by leading the Popular Front and carrying out a government that promoted industrialization and education at the service of popular interests.
His government also stood out for developing an active cultural policy. In 1939, he promoted the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Gabriela Mistral, with whom he was a close friend, although she only obtained it in 1945. He also ordered the preparation of a bill to create the National Prize for Literature that was finally promulgated in 1942.
Popularly known as Don Tinto, due to his links to the wine industry, and as The President of the poor.
Tuberculosis prevented him from completing his term, and he died in the middle of it. After his death, the figure of the president was consolidated in the popular imagination through his widow Juana Aguirre Luco, who continued to display an active social function that helped enhance her own figure and that of her husband, as exponents of popular politics. put at the service of the most dispossessed.
In his honor, an Antarctic base was founded and the old sector of Ochagavía (south of Santiago) gave rise to a Department with his name that included the current municipality of Pedro Aguirre Cerda and other municipalities in the southern sector of Santiago. Likewise, a railway station was named after him.
Biography
Early years and family
He was born in Pocuro, a small town belonging to the current Calle Larga commune, near Los Andes, on February 6, 1879, being the seventh child in a family of eleven brothers, one of them, Luis, he would marry Flora Doolan McGregor, being the father of Humberto; who would serve as a parliamentarian and then Minister of State during the government of President Gabriel González Videla, his parents were the farmer Juan Bautista Aguirre Campos and Clarisa Cerda Escudero; His family had Basque ancestry. He was baptized in the parish of Santa Rosa de Los Andes on February 10 of the same year. His mother became a widow when Aguirre Cerda was eight years old, having to take care of his children alone. she.
On October 1, 1916, he married his first cousin Juana Rosa Aguirre Luco, daughter of Dr. José Joaquín Aguirre Campos and Mercedes Luco Gutiérrez. With Misiá Juanita , as she was also called, he had no children. As the nation's first lady, she was especially concerned with Christmas celebrations for poor children. She also promoted the "social work" of the government of her husband.
Studies and teaching career
He began his primary studies at the age of seven in a small rural school in the town of Pocuro, which is currently the Pedro Aguirre Cerda Cultural Center (CCPAC). Later, she attended the Calle Larga School. He continued his humanities (secondary studies) at the San Felipe Men's High School. In that establishment he met Maximiliano Salas Marchán, a Spanish teacher who inspired his interest in teaching. Later he completed his higher studies at the Pedagogical Institute from the University of Chile in Santiago, where he graduated as a professor of Spanish and philosophy in 1900. During his time at the Pedagogical Institute, he studied foreign intellectuals such as Rodolfo Lenz, Friedrich Hanssen and Jorge Schneider, and national authors such as Valentín Letelier, Diego Barros Arana, Claudio Matte and Miguel Luis Amunátegui. He also studied law at the Faculty of that branch at the University of Chile, graduating as a lawyer in 1904 with his memoir "Secondary instruction in Chile"., Aguirre Cerda worked in various high schools in the evening. In 1910 he traveled to France to specialize in administrative and financial law at the Sorbonne University, and political economy and social legislation at the College of France. While in that country, he taught him corresponded to act as delegate of Chile in International Congresses, such as Agriculture in Spain and Education in Belgium. Also, he visited Italy and England.
Upon his return in 1914, he began his teaching duties as a professor at the Infantry Application School (current Army NCO School), later working at the Manuel Barros Borgoño High School and the National Institute, teaching Spanish subjects, civic education and philosophy. At the National Institute he met Domingo Amunátegui Solar, who years later got him a position as minister of President Juan Luis Sanfuentes. Later he obtained the position of president of the National Society of Teachers (SNP). On that same date, he was called by the Ministry of Finance to join the "Consejo de Enseñanza Comercial".
Among other activities, he entered Freemasonry at the age of twenty-seven, which was fundamental in his entry into the Radical Party (PR). In Freemasonry, he became a great orator of the lodge La República, in 1924. At the same time, he was a member of the Sociedad de Fomento Fabril (Sofofa), the Club de La Unión, and the Club de Septiembre.
In approximately 1916 he met the poet and teacher Lucila Godoy Alcayaga (Gabriela Mistral), with whom he became a long-term friend. Mistral dedicated the book Desolation to him and his wife, while Aguirre Cerda dedicated his book El problema agrario to the poetess. He expressed his gratitude to her in the dedication to: "Lucila Godoy... our Gabriela".
Political career
Beginnings; deputation and Minister of Justice and Public Instruction of Juan Luis Sanfuentes
He began his career early in the political world. As an anecdote that reflects his civic fervor, we remember the fact that in his first political performance he ended up in the San Felipe Criminal Court, accused of violating the Electoral Law, for having registered in the registries without having reached the age required by law.
He ran as a candidate in the parliamentary elections of 1915, being elected deputy for the departments of San Felipe, Putaendo and Los Andes, legislative period 1915-1918. During his tenure, he was a member of the Permanent Finance Commission. Once in Congress, he was especially concerned with the founding of schools in urban and rural areas.
Later he would be re-elected in the parliamentary elections of 1918, this time representing the province of Santiago, for the period 1918-1921. On that occasion he was a replacement on the Permanent Finance Commission.
On January 18, 1918, during the administration of President Juan Luis Sanfuentes, he was appointed Minister of Justice and Public Instruction, serving until September 6 of that year. There he was especially concerned with promoting the Law on Compulsory Primary Instruction and to improve the economic level of the teaching profession.
Arturo Alessandri's Minister of the Interior and Senate
After his term ended in 1918, he moved to the United States to study industrial education, assuming in parallel as financial adviser to the Chilean embassy in Washington D.C.
He was called, within the framework of the first government of President Arturo Alessandri to organize his first cabinet. He assumed the Interior portfolio on December 23, 1920. During his administration, he faced the massacre of the San Gregorio nitrate office that occurred in February 1921, which resulted in 40 deaths and 80 injuries. he resigned his position on August 16, 1921. He resumed his portfolio between January 3 and February 1, 1924, and between July 20 and September 5 of that last year.
In the parliamentary elections of 1921, he was elected as a senator representing the province of Concepción, period 1921-1927. He was a member of the Permanent Commission of Public Instruction, and that of Legislation and Justice, of which he was president. He was a substitute senator on the Permanent War and Navy Commission.
Social and political crisis; exile to Europe
On September 11, 1924, there was a so-called "saber rattling" and subsequent military coup that forced Aguirre Cerda to resign from his parliamentary position, after the dissolution of the National Congress. He went into exile in Europe for a year, returning in 1925, but left again in 1927. During his stay in Europe he wrote his books The agrarian problem (1929) and The industrial problem (1933). The first text arose from the conversations he had on the subject with the poet Gabriela Mistral, to whom he dedicated the book.
Return, teaching work and new political alliances
He returned to Chile permanently in 1930 and devoted himself to the creation of workshops for technical and manual education. He admired the "new German empire", led by Adolf Hitler for its economic and industrial transformation, which led him to be a world power. He also took ideas from the United States and England.In 1934, he completed one of his most ambitious projects with the creation of the Faculty of Industry and Commerce of the University of Chile. The initiative had the support of the then rector Juvenal Hernández. He was dean of said Faculty, which was established as the nucleus of the future commercial engineering career. One of his objectives was to prepare students to face the country's economic problems from a strictly scientific point of view.
During the second presidency of Arturo Alessandri, between 1932 and 1938, the president took a turn to the right that led to the distancing of the Radical Party.
This led to the formation of the Popular Front (FP) in 1937, an opposition group to the government of Arturo Alessandri, made up of socialists, communists, democrats and the Confederation of Workers of Chile, which was later joined by the Radical Party. Aguirre Cerda, within the Radical Party, was part of the sector opposed to joining the Popular Front. The sector favorable to integrating that coalition was made up of Juan Antonio Ríos, who would later be his successor in the presidency. In the internal struggle, the current favorable to the Popular Front won.
1938 Election
In November 1937, through an internal election of his party, he was designated as a pre-candidate for the presidency of the Republic. He was ratified and official candidate in April 1938 of the Popular Front for the presidential elections of that year, during a broad convention of the opposition parties to Alessandri in which he competed with Gustavo Ross, dolphin of the President Alessandri, and Carlos Ibáñez del Campo.
The failed National Socialist coup d'état in September 1938 forced Ibáñez to drop his candidacy shortly before the elections and publicly support that of Aguirre Cerda; he later he went into exile again. The discredit of the government of Arturo Alessandri Palma for the massacre, as well as the support that the ibañistas and nazistas gave to the Popular Front, were determining factors in the victory of his candidacy.
When former President Ibáñez withdrew from the race, Aguirre Cerda obtained 50.26% of the votes in the election of October 25, 1938, compared to 49.33% for Ross, his main contender.
Presidency
Inauguration of command and first steps
The fundamentals of his government program consisted of the fight for individual freedoms, freedom of the press, association, grouping, and assembly. He also pushed for measures to lower the profile of the Catholic Church in politics, in order to establish a more secular society.
Upon assuming the presidency, one of his first actions was on December 24, 1938, when already as president, he pardoned Jorge González von Marées, Oscar Jiménez Pinochet and others convicted of the failed coup of 1938. On 10 On July 1940, he decreed a pardon for the National Socialists convicted by the Military Justice for their participation in the Workers' Insurance Massacre.
During his government, he had to face the earthquake that struck Chillán on January 24, 1939, causing serious material damage in the provinces between Talca and Biobío. The importance of this fact lies in the fact that it was an impulse to rebuild, improve and create the infrastructure of the center-south of the country. He commissioned local filmmaker Emilio Taulis to film the documentary titled ¿Qué es la Chilenidad? (1939). In this it was exposed that any action oriented to the industrial development of the country that achieves social progress for it is Chilean. In this way, the government showed the policies oriented towards industrialization and modernization. For said earthquake that left a result of 30 thousand deaths, the president created the "Corporation for Reconstruction and Relief", promulgated by Law No. 6,334 of the April 29, 1939. The function of the organization was to help the victims.
On August 25, 1939, the "Ariostazo" took place, an attempted coup led by Ariosto Herrera together with Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, who went into exile after the failure thanks to the asylum that the Paraguayan embassy gave him. It failed because they failed to revolt the Tacna regiment (same regiment in which the Tacnazo would occur on October 21, 1969, another failed coup).
During his government, he received refugees from the Spanish Civil War, who came on the ship Winnipeg that arrived in Valparaíso on September 3, 1939 at the initiative of Pablo Neruda and helped them settle in the country. The Winnipeg arrived in Valparaíso two days after the start of World War II in Europe (September 1, 1939). It determined the sovereignty of Chile in Antarctica, establishing as the Chilean Antarctic Territory the area between the Drake Sea and the South Pole, between 53º and 90º West of Greenwich. Given this position, Pedro Aguirre Cerda had openly declared the neutrality of Chile in the World War, however after the entry of the United States into the conflict in 1941, things became tense in the country, which was economically dependent on that power.
On May 7 and 8, 1941, there was a massive strike by tramway workers in Santiago, which caused great chaos in the city. The government of Aguirre Cerda decided to intervene in the company for 120 days through Law 6,932 of May 19, naming a provisional administration, which would be the basis for the creation of the National Collective Transport Company in the following government in order to reorganize the public transport system of the Chilean capital.
Promotion of education
He placed special emphasis on combating poverty, but his main goal was to promote education, creating schools and opening jobs for teachers. He considered three key pillars for the formation of civilized society: health, education and democracy.
"In order for teaching to fulfill its social mission with full scope, it is necessary to be: free, unique, compulsory and secular. Free, in order for all children to benefit from culture, without other restrictions than those derived from their own nature; unique, in the sense that all Chilean classes unify their thinking and their action within the same school classrooms; obligatory, because it is the duty of the State to give all members of society the minimum of preparation required by the community for civic and social life; lattice, with the aim of guaranteeing the freedom of conscience,Pedro Aguirre Cerda, presidential speech on 21 May 1939
During the government of Aguirre Cerda, no profound changes were made to the education system, giving preference to the expansion of primary education and the creation of technical-professional schools. The number of students in primary schools (including fiscal and private enrollment) grew from 629,082 in 1938 to 683,608 in 1941. The number of secondary students did not have the same growth, going from 25,362 students in 1938 to 25,625 in 1941.
In addition, and in response to the task of increasing the country's production capacity, technical, industrial and mining education was promoted, founding numerous specialized schools. In 1940 there were around 4,200 public schools with 13,800 teachers, 87 high schools with 31,000 students, 16 commercial institutions with 7,000 students and 180 private schools.
Another of his initiatives was the creation of the «General Secretariat for the Defense of the Race and the Use of Free Hours», aimed at promoting good customs and the instruction of the working masses, through the construction along throughout the country of various leisure homes where workers could access acculturation and encounter programs. This institution was under the wing of the Ministry of the Interior, and the Secretariat of the Republic was the main organizer of its operation.
Promotion of production
Among his works are the founding of the Corporation for the Promotion of Production (Corfo) through Law No. 6,334, of April 29, 1939, in order to promote the industrialization of the country, being its main mission the creation of an economic reconstruction plan with a view to the development and nationalization of the main wealth of the country. To these actions must be added the efforts of training and education in industrial and agrarian issues. During the discussion in the Senate of this project there was strong opposition from the right. It was approved by a vote thanks to conservative senator José Francisco Urrejola.
Among the many companies that Corfo helped establish are:
- Sociedad Abastecedora Minera.
- Electromat S.A.
- Laboratorio Chile S.A.
- National Tires Industry (Insa).
- Copper Manufactures (Madeco).
Support of Chilean Nazism and ambiguity with German Nazism
In addition to the fact that Aguirre Cerda came to power thanks to the votes of the National Socialist Movement of Chile, the philosopher Víctor Farías has noted that his relationship with the German führer Adolf Hitler &# 34;it completely alters the political figure of Pedro Aguirre Cerda as it is offered by the traditional historiographical versions". In a letter written on April 22, 1940 (when the creation of concentration and extermination camps was already known, of the mass murder of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and dissidents), the Chilean president refers to Hitler as his "great and good friend" and asks him to credit the "votes I formulate for the greatness and prosperity of the German Reich and your personal good fortune"; he says goodbye to Adolf Hitler, considering himself his "loyal and good friend". For Farias, this letter "in fact exceeds all limits of usual diplomatic courtesy".
In 1939, he created the "General Secretariat for the Defense of Race and Use of Free Hours", inspired by its analogues in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and whose Technical Council included General (r) Francisco Javier Díaz Valderrama, one of the founders of the Chilean National Socialist Party.
In April of that year, the transfer to the country of numerous Spanish refugees on the cargo ship Winnipeg and later it received Jewish refugees fleeing the territories occupied by Germany, however, it would later be known that this opening of borders was associated with the illegal collection of money in exchange for expediting admission procedures, a scandal that led to the resignation of Foreign Minister Abraham Ortega Aguayo (main promoter of the new open door policy) and the ban on the entry of Jews into the country.
In addition, relations between the governments of Aguirre Cerda and Hitler continued to be very good until the end of the government of the former (1941). Thus, the then Chilean Minister of the Interior, Arturo Olavarría, confirmed in 1941 the censorship of an anti-Nazi film (El mártir) that had been carried out by the mayor of Santiago, Ramón Vergara Montero (former commander-in-chief of the Aviation who directed the bombardment of the rebellious sailors in Coquimbo in September 1931, and brother of the German minister Carlos Vergara Montero) product of the sympathy that the government of Aguirre Cerda had with the Third Reich.
The poet Gabriela Mistral wrote to him expressing her concern about the infiltration of Nazi ideas into her government:
Chile does not look neutral as we wish to present it. The Nazi currents that exist there in all the parties, here thick, there subtle, plus the Soviet currents that govern two of them, cannot create our country a real physiognomy of neutral country. Far from that, Yankee people, Argentinian, Uruguayan and Mexican, speak to me in their letters from our country as one of the three that are ripe for a Nazi action in the Americas. I answer by denying them the fact, although I am of it roundly convinced.Gabriela Mistral, 1940
Ministers of State
 of the Government of Pedro Aguirre Cerda | ||
|---|---|---|
| Ministry | Owner | Period |
| Ministry of the Interior | Pedro Enrique Alfonso Guillermo Labarca Hubertson Humberto Alvarez Suarez Guillermo Labarca Hubertson Arturo Olavarría Bravo Carlos Valdovinos Valdovinos Leonardo Guzmán Cortés Jerónimo Méndez Arancibia | 24 December 1938 - 26 December 1939 26 December 1939 - 8 February 1940 8 February 1940 - 30 July 1940 30 July 1940 - 23 December 1940 23 December 1940 - 16 September 1941 16 September 1941 - 6 October 1941 6 October 1941 - 10 October 1941 10 October 1941 - 25 November 1941 |
| Ministry of Foreign Affairs | Abraham Ortega Aguayo Cristóbal Sáenz Cerda Marcial Mora Miranda Manuel Bianchi Gundián Luis Álamos Barros Juan Bautista Rossetti Colombino | 24 December 1938 - 8 February 1940 8 February 1940 - 30 July 1940 30 July 1940 - 7 November 1940 7 November 1940 - 26 March 1941 26 March 1941 - 10 October 1941 10 October 1941 - 25 November 1941 |
| Ministry of National Defence | Alberto Cabero Díaz Guillermo Labarca Hubertson Alfredo Duhalde Vásquez Juvenal Hernández Jaque Carlos Valdovinos Valdovinos | 24 December 1938 - 13 April 1939 13 April 1939 - 26 December 1939 26 December 1939 - 24 October 1940 24 October 1940 - 10 June 1941 10 June 1941 - 25 November 1941 |
| Ministry of Finance | Roberto Wachholtz Araya Pedro Enrique Alfonso Marcial Mora Miranda Guillermo del Pedregal Herrera | 24 December 1938 - 26 December 1939 26 December 1939 - 7 November 1940 7 November 1940 - 10 June 1941 10 June 1941 - 25 November 1941 |
| Ministry of Trade and Supply | Arturo Riveros Alcaide | 6 October 1941 - 25 November 1941 |
| Ministry of Public Education | Rudecindo Ortega Mason Juan Antonio Iribarren Cabezas Raimundo del Río Castillo Ulysses Vergara Osses | 24 December 1938 - 8 February 1940 8 February 1940 - 10 June 1941 10 June 1941 - 6 October 1941 6 October 1941 - 25 November 1941 |
| Ministry of Justice | Raúl Puga Monsalve Domingo Godoy Pérez Tomás Mora Pineda | 24 December 1938 - 10 June 1941 10 June 1941 - 6 October 1941 6 October 1941 - 25 November 1941 |
| Ministry of Labour | Antonio Poupin Gray Juan Pradenas Muñoz | 24 December 1938 - 12 March 1940 12 March 1940 - 25 November 1941 |
| Ministry of Development | Arturo Bianchi Gundian Oscar Schnake Vergara | 24 December 1938 - 28 September 1939 28 September 1939 - 25 November 1941 |
| Ministry of Health, Welfare and Social Welfare | Miguel Etchebarne Riol Salvador Allende Gossens | 24 December 1938 - 28 September 1939 28 September 1939 - 25 November 1941 |
| Ministry of Lands and Colonization | Carlos Alberto Martínez Martínez Rolando Merino Reyes | 24 December 1938 - 28 September 1939 28 September 1939 - 25 November 1941 |
| Ministry of Agriculture | Arturo Olavarria Bravo Víctor Moller Bordeu Alfonso Quintana Burgos Raúl Puga Monsalve | 24 December 1938 - 8 February 1940 8 February 1940 - 24 October 1940 24 October 1940 - 10 June 1941 10 June 1941 - 25 November 1941 |
Illness and death
In 1940 he began to show symptoms of illness, which would become severe tuberculosis, a fatal disease for the time. as Minister of the Interior.
He died on November 25, 1941 at 1:07 p.m., unable to finish his presidential term; A few hours before his death, he received extreme rites from Cardinal José María Caro. A burning chapel was installed in the Palacio de La Moneda to watch over the remains of the president from 6:00 p.m. on the same day, and his body was guarded by cadets from the Military School and the Naval School.
On November 27, the body of Aguirre Cerda was taken on a gun carriage from the Tacna Regiment to the National Congress building, where it was held in a vigil until the following day, when an act was held with the presence of Vice President Jerónimo Méndez. At 9:35 a.m. on November 28, the coffin was transferred to the Metropolitan Cathedral of Santiago; A mass was held in said temple and at 11:30 a.m. the transfer of the remains to the General Cemetery for burial began, arriving at the cemetery at 12:14 p.m. Part of the president's funerals were recorded on a 10-inch tape. minutes by Jorge Reyes de St. Anne and José Valladares Prieto, and estimates of the time calculate that more than 500,000 attended the funeral of Aguirre Cerda.
Vice President Méndez called presidential elections for February 1942, in which Juan Antonio Ríos was elected with the support of the Radical, Socialist, Democratic, Agrarian, Communist, Socialist Workers, Falangist parties and a sector of the liberalism, thus defeating the candidate of the right and therefore of the Alianza Popular Libertadora; Carlos Ibáñez del Campo.
Tributes and recognitions
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Received the Grand Cross of the Aztec Eagle from Mexico.
After his death, he has been honored in various ways; one of them has been through statues and busts, such as those located in Santiago, Los Andes, Quillota, San Felipe, Rancagua and Porvenir. There are also other tributes, such as the President Pedro Aguirre Cerda Base, inaugurated in 1955 and that it was destroyed in 1967.
In August 1963, the Presidente Aguirre Cerda Department was created, which bore the name of the former president and which emerged as a division of the former province of Santiago. Subsequently, on March 17, 1981, the Pedro Aguirre commune was created Cerda, which began operations in 1991. In June 2015, the "Club Hípico" station on Line 6 of the Santiago Metro, which was under construction at that time, was renamed "Presidente Pedro Aguirre Cerda".
The monument to Pedro Aguirre Cerda located at the end of Paseo Bulnes, inside Parque Almagro, corresponds to an unfinished work by Lorenzo Berg consisting of 7 large blocks of rock located inside a mirror of water that would contain in its center a copper figure corresponding to a flame of fire (the latter was never installed). In 1953 Berg won the international competition to build this monument to the former president and between 1960 and 1964 the work to build it was carried out, however in the middle of that year the commission in charge of the building ordered the suspension of the works due to disagreements about the final design of the building. the work. The monument, still unfinished, was inaugurated on September 17, 1965 and on its front (facing the Bulnes promenade and the La Moneda Palace) a statue of Aguirre Cerda was installed with two children, made by Galvarino Ponce.
On July 3, 2018, another statue of him was inaugurated in downtown Santiago, this time in the Plaza de la Constitución, on the corner of Moneda and Teatinos streets.