José Canalejas y Méndez was a Spanish politician, born in Ferrol.
Education
Canalejas graduated in 1871 from the University of Madrid, took his Galicia doctor"s degree in 1872 and became a lecturer on literature in 1873. He later studied railway problems, but continued his literary work, publishing a history of Latin literature in two volumes.
Career
In 1881 Canalejas was elected deputy for Soria. Two years later, he was appointed under-secretary for the Prime Minister"s department under Posada Herrera. He became minister of justice in 1888 and finance from 1894 to 1895.
He served as President of the Congress of Deputies (the equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon office of parliamentary Speaker) from 1906 to 1907, and became Prime Minister and chief of the Liberal party in 1910.
Canalejas Ministry
These policies successfully faced the social turmoil that radicals had been creating within Spain (and which had led, in 1909, to a brief but bloody civil war in Barcelona). Canalejas"s end was tragic.
On 12 November 1912, while he was window-shopping the literary novelties of the day from a bookstore in central Madrid, he was fatally shot by anarchist Manuel Pardiñas. Canalejas believed in the possibility of a monarchy open to a thoroughgoing democratic policy both in economic and in civil and political matters.
Salvador de Madariaga, the liberal historian, argued that the disasters Spain experienced during the 1930s could be traced to Canalejas" murder, given that this murder deprived King Alfonso of one of his few genuine statesmen.
Politics
A brief spell as Minister of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce from March to May 1902 ended after only two months, when he resigned as he regarded the Sagasta Ministry weak and "incapable of safeguarding the Sovereignty of the State in view of the encroachments of the Vatican".
Membership
Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation. Real Academia Española.