Pedro Montt
Pedro Montt Montt (Santiago de Chile, June 29, 1849 - Bremen, August 16, 1910) was a Chilean lawyer and politician, President of the Republic between 1906 and 1910 and minister of State in the presidencies of Domingo Santa María, Jorge Montt and José Manuel Balmaceda.
He was the undisputed leader of the National Party, which went from supporting presidential authoritarianism to being a defender of the parliamentary system, Montt participating on the revolutionary side against Balmaceda in the Chilean civil war of 1891.
He unsuccessfully presented his presidential candidacy in 1901. In 1906 he was elected president, leading a movement known as “regenerationism”, presenting himself to the public as the only man capable of ending the excesses of the parliamentary regime and the moral crisis that ensued. denounced at the time.
As president, Montt unsuccessfully sought a return to the gold standard system and an end to monetary issues. The lack of political support, the effects of the 1906 earthquake, an international economic crisis and his progressive physical deterioration meant the failure of his regenerative effort, whose greatest symptom was the massacre of the Santa María de Iquique School in 1907.
His greatest material legacy was the longitudinal railway, which linked the north of Chile with the southern provinces as far as Puerto Montt. The president did not manage to see it finished, since he died before concluding his presidential term.
Early years of life
Son of President and Senator Manuel Montt Torres and Rosario Montt Goyenechea, brother of parliamentarians Luis and Enrique Julio Montt Montt.
He studied at the National Institute and the University of Chile, graduating as a lawyer in 1870.
He joined the Sixth Company of the Santiago Fire Department in 1868, serving as secretary, captain and general secretary of the Institution. He served in the Sixth Company, from August 29, 1868, until the day of his death.
He married Sara del Campo Yávar on January 3, 1881, they had no children.
Deputy, senator and minister
He was elected in 1876, as alternate deputy for Petorca, for the period 1876-1879. During that period he actively participated in the Finance Commission, writing a report listing all the country's contributions, in order to put them in order.
Being an opponent of the government, he ran for two councils in 1879, Petorca and Castro, to ensure his election. He would occupy the seat for Petorca, which he would hold until 1900. In this period he presented a reform to the prison system, seeking to include within the House budget funds to improve the House Library, which in 1883 was renamed the Library of Congress National.
In those years he made a trip to Europe, touring England, France, Scotland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Austria, Portugal, Spain and Turkey. During his journey he collected studies on education, parliamentary regime, statistics, penal reform and agricultural schools. In 1885 he had a prominent role in the reform of the law of the interior regime.
Elected as president of the Chamber of Deputies between November 24, 1885 and November 23, 1886, he had to face the minority of the Chamber that obstructed the approval of the tax collection law. He tried to make conciliatory efforts, but these failed, for which he declared the debate closed, in the face of the thunderous protests of the minority. In 1886 he joined the first cabinet of President José Manuel Balmaceda as Minister of Justice and Public Instruction. He proposed a reform to the teaching plan, seeking the implementation of the concentric system, and founded schools for teacher training.
In June 1887, he became the first Minister of Industries and Public Works, beginning work on the Mapocho canalization and dispatching a project to build 400 km of railways, defending the idea of the longitudinal line against the construction of cross roads. He left office on May 1, 1889.
On October 23, 1889, he was appointed by President José Manuel Balmaceda as Minister of Finance, proposing the abolition of the inheritance tax and a reduction in customs duties.
Despite having participated in his government, he was an opponent of Balmaceda and supported the rebel side in the civil war of 1891. He was appointed by the revolutionary side as its diplomatic agent in Washington, being elevated to office after Balmaceda's defeat as a plenipotentiary minister, having to face the first problems derived from the Baltimore case.
He held the position of Minister of the Interior during the government of the incoming president, Jorge Montt, carrying out an important reform of the Charity.
Undisputed leader of the National Party, he returned to preside over the Chamber of Deputies on October 14, 1899. In 1900 he was elected senator for the province of Cautín, for the period 1900-1906.
He was a member of the Permanent Commission on Foreign Relations; that of Public Instruction; that of Constitution, Legislation and Justice; and that of Budgets. He was a substitute senator in the Permanent Government Commission; in Finance and in Industry and Public Works. He was a member of the Conservative Commission for the recess 1903-1904; 1904-1905 and 1905-1906, being reelected in 1906 by Santiago, integrating the Permanent Government Commission. After being elected President of the Republic, on July 25, 1906, he did not conclude his term and was replaced by Joaquín Walker Martínez, whose powers were approved on January 12, 1907.
He exercised his profession as a lawyer representing foreign firms, being chief lawyer of Casa Grace y Co. He was a member of the Health Committee (1887), the Public Instruction Council (1896-1902) and the Caja de Ahorros de James (1902).
At the same time, between 1895 and 1906 he was administrator of the Casa de Orates, a period during which he modernized and expanded the institution.
Presidential candidate of the Coalition (nationals and conservatives) in the 1901 election, he was defeated by Germán Riesco Errázuriz, standard-bearer of the Liberal Alliance. The discredit into which the Riesco government fell increased the hopes placed in Montt, who re-presented himself in the 1906 elections, although now as a standard-bearer for the Liberal Union. He was elected with 164 voters against 97 for his rival, Fernando Lazcano Echaurren.
Thought
Despite being a staunch defender of the parliamentary system, he was severely critical of the regime. In this regard, he warned: “Every government system has drawbacks that must be corrected while preserving its advantages. The parliamentary system is not exempt from this general law, and it is our duty to correct its defects while keeping its benefits. The government's action has been weakened and it must be strengthened". exercise less, but also administrative and judicial functions".
He argued that without strong and organized parties there could be no stable politics, expressing his wish that in Chile there would only be two large parties, in contrast to the lack of homogeneity that caused continuous ministerial rotations. He considered the capacity to be negative. of minorities to carry out parliamentary obstruction. He criticized the attitude of Parliament in the approval of the budget laws, in which he argued that the general interest was sacrificed in the discussion to satisfy particular interests, and he came to support, before being president, a parliamentary initiative that limited the initiative of Congress in matters of public spending.
During his 1906 candidacy, he stated that the presidential institution had been suffering from a successive stripping of its powers since 1892:
"A profoundly adulterated and erroneous application of the tendencies of the great constitutional movement of 1891 has come to establish in practice instead of the healthy and high legitimate influence of the Parliament in the direction and trend of the Government, the enormous absurd that the Government itself, that is, the effective administration of the country, will thus be done exclusively by the parliamentary groups, which have become thus contested in a truly scandalous ministerial rotation the daily usufruct of the administration. »
For this reason, he proposed in the manifesto of the Liberal Union: authorize the president, with the agreement of the Senate, to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies; reform the Senate election system and remove it from being a political chamber and turning it into a reviewer; increase the presidential and parliamentary terms; restrict parliamentary compatibilities; reform the presidential election system, and prohibit Congress from voting on spending increases in budgets.
Already in the presidency, his private letters reflect a deep disappointment at the vices of the parliamentary system and his disappointment at not measuring the true possibilities that the position gave him.
Presidency
Internal Policy
Montt wanted to start his government with the parties that elevated him to the presidency, doctrinaire liberals, nationals, montanas and radicals, entrusting the organization of his first ministry to Ismael Valdés Vergara. However, a conflict arose between radicals and conservatives over the election of Valentín Letelier as rector of the University of Chile. Montt gave a coup of authority and, along with ratifying Letelier's appointment, organized his first cabinet without conservatives, with four liberals and two nationals, headed by Javier Ángel Figueroa. The election of the conservative Raimundo Larraín Covarrubias as State Councilor caused the first ministerial crisis.
He longed for ministerial stability and knew that it was impossible to achieve it by relying on the Liberal Democratic Party. This group, seeing the President's attempt to isolate them, sought to separate the “montana” conservatives from the government by agitating doctrinal issues. Thus they would force the president to govern with his political rivals, which in the jargon of the time was called "bottling up."
Throughout his tenure, the president suffered fierce opposition from parliament. In particular, a group of deputies known as the "three musketeers", Arturo Alessandri Palma, Alfredo Irarrázaval Zañartu and Ramón Rivas, were in charge of questioning, censoring and delaying laws, with no other objective than to remind the president that he was only a man and that he was subject to the will of the fickle parliamentary majorities.
The government entrusted Vicente Santa Cruz Vargas with the formation of a universal cabinet of all parties, who was sworn in on October 29, 1906. The ministry defended the longitudinal railway project, in order to connect the northern provinces with the transverse valleys. The project was entrusted to foreign firms, in order to avoid the corrupting influence of national companies, which led to continuous attacks by the parliamentary opposition, which defended the formation of a national merchant fleet to connect the country.
Saltpeter working class demonstrations
The cabinet fell as a result of the restructuring of the Coalition around the reunited conservatives, lazcanista liberals and democratic liberals, with a majority in both chambers. He had to form a new cabinet with the elements of the Coalition, which was sworn in on June 12, 1907, with Luis Antonio Vergara as Minister of the Interior. Vergara was the rival of Juan Luis Sanfuentes for leadership within Balmacedismo, so the The new Coalition disintegrated due to internal conflicts in the Liberal Democratic Party, and Montt had to form a new administration cabinet under his friend Rafael Sotomayor. The ministry was sworn in on October 25, 1907, which had to face various problems, the economic crisis, the collapse of the Banco Mobiliario, the case of the Casa Granja and above all the social effervescence in Iquique.
Santa Maria School Massacre
Like most governments during parliamentarism, this one avoided meddling in wage negotiations between employers and workers. However, any public demonstration that was accompanied by protests was harshly repressed. In this sense, the government ordered General Roberto Silva Renard to harshly repress the general strike of saltpeter workers in the city of Iquique.
The episode, which would come to be known as the Santa María School Massacre, caused a very high number of victims, in addition to repressing any possibility of development of the labor movement in Chile for more than ten years.
Political instability
Despite the opposition's criticism of the government for the Iquique massacre, the cabinet fell as a result of the scandal of the Granja Salitrera Campaign, which had obtained a loan of six hundred thousand pounds sterling from tax funds, alleging that the layoff would increase if their demand was not met. Before resigning the cabinet, Casa Granja returned the money.
On August 29, 1908, a new cabinet was sworn in, headed by Javier Ángel Figueroa and made up of liberals, balmacedistas, nationalists, and radicals. The political debate centered on the parliament's attempt to pass a law that postponed metal conversion, to which the president declared his closed opposition. For this reason, the ministry found a cold reaction in the cameras and had a sterile performance, not being able to approve the budget law.
On January 22, 1909, he assumed a new ministry with Eduardo Charme as Minister of the Interior, who promised the most absolute dispensation in the parliamentary elections of that year. After the elections were held and in the midst of the debate over the postponement of the conversion, the Balmacedista party declared that it was recovering its freedom of action. After that, the president organized, without consulting the heads of the parties, a presidential ministry of nationals and liberals, headed by Enrique Alberto Rodríguez, who took office on June 15.
Montt hoped that with a ductile cabinet of personal friends he would achieve the metal conversion, but his hopes were not fulfilled, since the postponement project was approved by an absolute majority in both chambers. Pedro Montt presented a veto, knowing that it would be rejected, but the Minister of Finance did not sign it and caused the crisis of the ministry. As a solution, Agustín Edwards Mac-Clure was appointed to the Treasury.
On September 15, he assumed a new ministry with Ismael Tocornal in the Interior, continuing Edwards in the Treasury. During this period the illness of the President worsened, which the continuous political setbacks accelerated. He suffered a detached retina in one eye, forcing a special law to be passed to save him from signing minor decrees.
In May 1910, the president traveled to Argentina for the celebrations of its independence, leaving Tocornal in the vice presidency.
Edwards' political rise alarmed several liberal politicians. These convinced the liberal leadership to demand the reorganization of the cabinet, on the basis of having two portfolios. Montt accepted, as this allowed him to install a national inside. The anti-Edwards sector was not bothered by Montt presenting Edwards as Minister of the Interior, since they counted on Sanfuentes denying him votes in the Balmacedista board, an example that the Liberal Party would follow. Furthermore, Sanfuentes did not keep his word and on June 20 Agustín Edwards organized a new cabinet.
Montt's intent was to leave Edwards as vice president when he made his scheduled trip to Europe. In Parliament, Edwards was attacked, accusing him of being a representative of the banking oligarchy. On July 29, the president suffered a stroke that kept him unconscious for an hour. Upon recovery, he ordered a decree to be issued delegating command to the Minister of the Interior, which was opposed by his inner circle. Finally Montt relented, Edwards resigning from Interior, being replaced by Elías Fernández Albano, a man of a conciliatory character, who was sworn in on July 8.
Foreign Relations
During his political career he had been a permanent pacifist, unequivocally supporting the Pacts of May signed by President Riesco. This made him one of the most appreciated Chilean statesmen in Argentina, so during his tenure the relationship between the two countries remained cordial and although the naval disarmament was not renewed, the respective maritime purchases were notified in advance.
The culminating moments of the relationship include the inauguration, on April 5, 1910, of the trans-Andean railway, and the trip made by the president in May of the same year to Argentina on the occasion of the centennial celebrations of the neighboring country.
There were no conflicts with Bolivia either, given that the Arica-La Paz railway was still being built. The pacification of these two conflict fronts allowed the government to reduce spending on the Armed Forces, which led to a future stagnation of the institutions and a resentment towards the political class that manifested itself in the military coups of 1924 and 1925.
The dispute with Peru over Tacna and Arica became more acute during the period, as a result of discrepancies over the manner and date of the plebiscite that would decide the fate of these provinces. In 1908 the Chilean minister in Lima, José Miguel Echeñique, the product of a slight, returned to Chile angrily. Shortly after, the Chilean consul in El Callao was declared persona non grata. Added to this was a curious incident that involved the theft of some documents from the headquarters of the Foreign Ministry in Santiago, which led to the arrest of those involved, one of the which was a Peruvian woman captured in the restaurant "Eleuterio Ramírez" From the capital.
The relationship was further clouded by the conflict over the Peruvian priests of Tacna and Arica, who resisted Chileanization, which annoyed the Chilean parishioners. The failure of the efforts to allow Chilean priests to act in the region motivated his government to expel the Peruvian priests from the territory in 1909. In response, Peru suspended its diplomatic relations with Chile.
Relations with the United States had improved until this country supported the claim of Alsop y Cia in 1909, for a debt originated in the War of the Pacific. The conflict was resolved through arbitration by the British crown, which ruled in 1911 against Chile, setting the payment at 191,000 pounds. The impasse cooled relations between the two nations, so when the United States sought a kind of formalization for the Monroe Doctrine at the fourth Inter-American Conference, Chile opposed it, alleging the need for further studies.
Relations with England were cordial, they only had moments of tension when the nitrate mines struck, which were operated by British companies. King Edward VII sends a warship to Iquique with orders to intervene if the Chilean authorities are unable to protect the lives and property of the subjects of the British Empire.
Foreign Relations Minister Agustín Edwards Mac-Clure tried to modernize the Foreign Ministry, which had suffered the leak of confidential documents, being published in the Peruvian press. He sought to structure the ministry in a modern way, granting it a political directorate, an undersecretary, and an archive and library section. He sought to create an effective diplomatic career by regulating promotions and the number and headquarters of the legations. His legal initiatives were not approved in Parliament and only partially materialized.
Economy
In 1904, a law was enacted that postponed currency conversion and authorized an issue of 30 million pesos in paper money. This issuance caused a serious speculative crisis, as a result of the increase in currency and the expansion of credit. The crisis broke out in January 1906, with the bankruptcy of several companies, for which a monetary issue was used again as a solution. Although Montt reduced the number of issues, in any case Parliament approved another issue of banknotes in 1907.
Montt set out to veto the law, but his ministers told him they would follow him and submitted their resignations. Montt asked them to keep his resignation a secret until he found a new cabinet to support him, but he did not find one, so he had to resign, and the ministerial crisis was aborted.
The effects of the continuous issuances were reflected in a very high inflation. Between 1903 and 1907 beans had a 36% increase in price, wheat 110% and meat up to 125%.
To this situation was added an international economic crisis and the effects of the earthquake in Valparaíso, which had an unfavorable impact on the balance of payments and the drop in the exchange rate. The end of the crisis in 1908 allowed the last two years of Montt to have some slack in external prices, exported volumes, foreign exchange and in fiscal income from saltpeter and import taxes.
The nitrate industry took an upward curve, which also coincided with a greater presence of Chilean capital, which went from 14% to 37% between 1901 and 1912. The manufacturing industries also experienced a certain prosperity, the result of the promotion of works public.
Montt's four-year term was characterized by a constant budget deficit, the product of his ambitious public works plan. He was accused of spending money in the Chamber, which led him to tell a close friend: “What do you want me to do with the money? That I leave them, so that they steal it and distribute it to friends in the form of jobs and contracts?
During the Montt government, the external debt increased by 19%, reaching 25,000,000 pounds sterling. The internal debt for its part increased by 20%, reaching 179,000.00 pesos.
In the Montt government, the gold standard regime had to be restored, but the parliamentary majority wanted a new postponement until January 1915, which was opposed by the president, who unsuccessfully presented a veto to the new law.
Public works
During his administration, he put all his effort and energy into public works, rebuilt Valparaíso, its port and that of San Antonio, built schools for 100,000 primary school students, finished the School and Museum of Fine Arts, the School of Pharmacy, the Commercial Institute, the Institute of Physical and Technical Education, the Normal School of Preceptors of La Serena, etc.
One of the benefited areas was the railway, with the approval in 1908 of the project for the construction of the longitudinal railway, which would connect the territory from Tacna to Puerto Montt. Likewise, he arranged to build the railway line from Ancud to Castro, works that ended in 1913. Montt even inaugurated, in 1910, the Trans-Andean Railway, which linked Los Andes with Mendoza. Death took away the president's dream of seeing it concluded.
Legislation
Among the main laws of his government, the following stand out: Sunday Rest Law, No. 1990 promulgated on August 29, 1907, which established the mandatory Sunday rest for women and children under 16 years of age, although for the rest it was a waivable right.
The Public Sewerage Law, No. 2.106 of March 5, 1908, which authorized him to contract the construction of sewerage systems in cities with more than ten thousand inhabitants in public bidding. The City Transformation Law de Santiago, of September 16, 1909, which regulated the construction of buildings, opening, widening, union, prolongation or rectification of streets, avenues and squares, together with the creation of new parks and gardens in the city of Santiago.
The creation of the National Savings Bank by Law, 2,356, in which the various savings banks were merged and placed under the administration of the Mortgage Bank, being open to any individual or institution.
Death
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Montt was sick with arteriosclerosis and cardiac arrhythmia, diseases that were getting worse every day. In 1902, he went to Río Bueno to consult Father Tadeo de Wiesent for help, famous for his hydrotherapeutic healing system, but he was guided only by what his doctors told him, ignoring Tadeo's advice, and for this reason On July 16, 1910, he embarked for Germany, together with his wife and his doctor, hoping that the German doctors could give him an improvement. He left in charge, as Vice President of the Republic, Elías Fernández Albano. His ship arrived in Panama and from there they took a ship to New York, and from there they took another to Germany.The trip was very exhausting and weakened the last strength of the president.
Arrived in Bremen on August 16. He and his short entourage stayed in a hotel. Around midnight that day he got up to go to the bathroom. His private secretary, noticing that he had not returned after a long time, got up to look for him. Upon reaching the bathroom, he found him dead, the probable causes of his death being a heart attack or a stroke.On August 25, a funeral ceremony was held at the Metropolitan Cathedral, attended by Vice President Elías Fernández Albano. It was noted that Fernández Albano contracted a cold during said ceremony, which would be the cause of his death on September 6. [citation needed ]
His remains were taken to Chile, where his funeral was held in February 1911, where a crowd attended to say goodbye to him. Emiliano Figueroa, who was head of the Justice and Public Instruction portfolio, corresponding to he will preside over the centenary ceremonies.