Background
Arturo Alessandri Palma was born on 20 December, 1869 in Longaví, Chile.
Arturo Alessandri Palma was born on 20 December, 1869 in Longaví, Chile.
He received his law degree in 1893.
Alessandri was first elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1897 and continued to serve there until 1915. He also practiced law and dabbled in speculation in the nitrate industry, making and losing several small fortunes. As a deputy, he was particularly adept at manipulating the parliamentary system in an attempt to bring about the overthrow of the incumbent cabinet. He himself served short periods as a minister and in 1918 headed a short-lived cabinet as minister of the interior.
Alessandri first gained national popularity in 1915, when elected senator from the nitrate Province of Tarapaca, defeating the entrenched boss of the province, Arturo del Rio. That victory marked him as a potential presidential candidate.
In 1920 Alessandri was the nominee of the Liberal Alliance, which included the Radical Party, a major faction of Liberals, and most of the Democratic Party. The contest was so close that it was submitted to a "Tribunal of Honor” of Congress, which finally conceded victory to Alessandri.
Although elected senator from Tarapaca again in 1926, Alessandri soon resigned and went into exile in Europe, where he remained until the overthrow of Ibanez in 1931. Soon after his return, Alessandri was nominated for president by the Democratic Party but was defeated in the 1931 election by Juan Esteban Montero. After the short-lived Montero regime and the 100-day Socialist Republic, new elections were called at the end of 1932. Arturo Alessandri was victorious.
For a few years after leaving the presidency, Alessandri was the butt of violent antipathy from the left. However, even in the 1942 elections made necessary by the death of President Pedro Aguirre Cerda, Alessandri’s role was decisive. He led a group of Liberals who repudiated their party’s support of ex-dictator Ibáñez and backed Juan Antonio Rios Morales, which gave Rios the margin of victory.
In 1944 Alessandri was again elected to the Senate and a year later became its president. In 1946, following the death of President Rios, Alessandri was named Liberal Party candidate for president but ceded this place to his son, Fernando Alessandri Rodriguez. When no candidate won a majority, Arturo Alessandri negotiated for the Liberals to throw Liberal support in Congress behind Radical nominee Gabriel González Videla, in return for three places in his cabinet.
Arturo Alessandri’s last exercise of political influence came in April 1947 when, after a disastrous showing of the Liberals in municipal elections, he successfully urged withdrawal of the Liberals from the cabinet. This facilitated President González Videla’s reorganization of his cabinet, dropping three Communist ministers who had until then shared posts with the Liberals and Radicals.
Taking office in December 1920, President Arturo Alessandri soon presented a series of projects to Congress: a labor code, an income tax, separation of church and state, establishment of a central bank, and regular salaries for members of Congress to permit poorer people to aspire to membership in that body. However, most of his proposals were blocked because the Senate was controlled by his opponents until early 1924, , Congress continued to frequently upset cabinets. Even after March 1924, when the Liberal Alliance won control of the Senate, Congress only moved to consider the parliamentary salary proposal. In the face of a fiscal crisis that had caused frequent nonpayment of both military and civil servants salaries, the proposal aroused young officers to make a public protest in the Senate chamber on September 3, 1924.
When army chiefs were unwilling to discipline those officers, President Alessandri met with a delegation of them. Agreement was reached on rapid passage by Congress of a series of laws, including much of the president’s program, as well as more rapid promotion for officers, and salary increases for the military. However, when the young military then refused to dissolve their military junta, as they had promised they would, Alessandri resigned and went into exile in Europe.
Another military coup in January 1925 resulted in recall of President Alessandri. From his return in March until his second resignation on October 1, Alessandri brought about a long series of reforms. A new constitution (which he largely authored) substituted the presidential for the parliamentary system and separated church and state; social legislation passed in September 1924 was made effective; and a central bank was established. However, when Carlos Ibanez del Campo, minister of war and one of the chiefs of the January 1925 coup insisted on running for president, Alessandri resigned once more.
Alessandri’s second administration (1932-1938) reestablished supremacy of the civilian government over the military after eight years of domination by the armed forces. This supremacy was to survive until 1973. The Alessandri regime stimulated rapid recovery from the Great Depression and began the deliberate government policy of stimulating industrialization. Finally, it added a significant piece of social legislation, a preventative medicine law.
While at the university, he was active in the Liberal Party, and was aligned with the faction opposed to President José Manuel Balmaceda, and edited an anti-Balmaceda periodical. La Justicia. In later years Alessandri was to regret his support of Balmaceda’s opponents in the 1891 civil war.
