Background
José Batlle Ordóñez was born om 21 May 1856 in Montevideo. . He was the son of President Lorenzo Batlie.
politician president Public figure
José Batlle Ordóñez was born om 21 May 1856 in Montevideo. . He was the son of President Lorenzo Batlie.
Left the University of Montevideo before receiving a degree, but pursued further studies in France.
In 1886 he founded the daily newspaper El Día in Montevideo, as the principal organ of the Colorado Party, and thereafter rose in the party’s ranks, being elected senator in 1898. In that period, Uruguay continued to be dominated by the pattern of military/party dictatorships which had been characteristic of most of the nineteenth century.
José Batlie was first elected president of Uruguay in 1903 and almost immediately had to face an insurrection of the opposition Blanco Party, led by Aparicio Saravia, which he succeeded in suppressing. He sent to Congress bills for labor legislation which were not passed until his second term. However, his proposals for legalizing divorce and for establishing secondary schools in every provincial city were passed.
After leaving the presidency the first time, José Batlie spent considerable time in Europe, studying economic, social, and political reforms in those countries. He was particularly impressed with the plural presidency in Switzerland.
Elected again as president in 1911.
Few Latin American leaders have had as large an impact on their own countries as did Batlle. However, for a generation after his death, his heirs largely rode on the reforms that had characterized his period, without introducing significant modifications to deal with new problems. For a short while in the 1930s, and then between 1973 and 1985, the result was a subversion of the political democracy that Batlle had established.