Background
Hipólito Yrigoyen was born on July 12, 1852, in Buenos Aires.
farmer lawyer police commissioner teacher
Hipólito Yrigoyen was born on July 12, 1852, in Buenos Aires.
In 1861, at the age of nine, he entered San Jose school in Buenos Aires, later continued to study at the College of South America, where his uncle Leandro N. Alem was professor of philosophy. At the age of fifteen, Irigoyen interrupted his studies to help his father, who bought a fleet of chariots to work in the port.
In 1867, Hipólito Yrigoyen began work in a law firm which was divided between Leandro Alem and Aristobulo del Valle.
In 1882 he became a Freemason. In 1891 he co-founded the Radical Civic Union (Unión Cívica Radical), together with his uncle, Leandro Alem. Following Alem's suicide in 1896, Hipólito Yrigoyen assumed sole leadership of the Radical Civic Union. It adopted a policy of intransigence, a position of total opposition to the regime known as "The Agreement". Established by electoral fraud, this was an agreed formula among the political parties of that time for alternating in power.
The Radical Civic Union took up arms in 1893 and again in 1905. Later, however, Yrigoyen adopted a policy of nonviolence, pursuing instead the strategy of "revolutionary abstention", a total boycott of all polls until 1912, when President Roque Sáenz Peña was forced to agree to the passage of the Sáenz Peña Law, which established secret, universal, and compulsory male suffrage.
In 1916 Yrigoyen was elected President of Argentina. He frequently found himself hemmed in, however, as the Senate was appointed by the legislatures of the provinces, most of which were controlled by the opposition. Several times, Yrigoyen resorted to federal intervention in numerous provinces by declaring a state of emergency, removing willful governors, and deepening the confrontation with the landed establishment.
Yrigoyen was popular, however, among middle and working class voters, who felt integrated for the first time in political process, and the Argentinian economy prospered under his leadership. Yrigoyen preserved Argentine neutrality during World War I, which turned out to be a boon, owing to higher beef prices and the opening up of many new markets to Argentina's primary exports (meat and cereals). Yrigoyen also promoted energy independence for the rapidly growing country. Generous credit and subsidies were also extended to small farmers, while Yrigoyen settled wage disputes in favour of the unions.
Following four years of recession caused by war-related shortages of credit and supplies, the Argentine economy experienced significant economic growth, expanding by over 40% from 1917 to 1922.
In 1922, Irigoyen, who did not have the right to run for a second term, was replaced by his fellow party member Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear, who represented, however, another, right-wing party fraction.
On the expiration of Alvear's term in 1928, Yrigoyen was overwhelmingly elected President for the second time. In December of that year, U. S. President-elect Herbert Hoover visited Argentina on a goodwill tour, meeting with President Yrigoyen on policies regarding trade and tariffs. Radical anarchist elements attempted to assassinate Hoover by attempting to place a bomb near his rail car, but the bomber was arrested before he could complete his work. President Yrigoyen accompanied Hoover thereafter as a personal guarantee of safety until he left the country.
In his late seventies, he found himself surrounded by aides who censored his access to news reports, hiding from him the reality of the effects of the Great Depression, which hit towards the end of 1929. On December 24 of this year he survived an assassination attempt.
Fascist and conservative sectors of the army plotted openly for a regime change, as did Standard Oil of New Jersey, who opposed both the president's efforts to curb oil smuggling from Salta Province to Bolivia. On September 6, 1930, Yrigoyen was deposed in a military coup led by General José Félix Uriburu. This was the first military coup since the adoption of the Argentine constitution.
After the coup, Irigoyen was sent into exile to Martín García Island. After his release in February, 1932, Irigoyen spent the remainder of his days under home arrest in Buenos Aires. He died on July 3, 1933.
Hipólito Yrigoyen never married. Also he never recognized his children, although it is known that he had many children, at least six.
Martín Yrigoyen Dolhagaray was a Basque-French immigrant. In 1847 he married Marceline Allen Ponce.
Leandro Nicéforo Alem was an Argentine politician, born in Buenos Aires, a founder and leader of the Radical Civic Union.
