During the half century that had elapsed since 1826, the nations of
Hispanic America had passed through dark ages. Their evolution had
always been accompanied by growing pains and had at times been arrested
altogether or unduly hastened by harsh injections of radicalism. It was
not an orderly development through gradual modifications in the social
and economic structure, but rather a fitful progress now assisted and
now retarded by the arbitrary deeds of men of action, good and bad, who
had seized power. Dictators, however, steadily decreased in number and
gave place often to presidential autocrats who were continued in office
by constant reelection and who were imbued with modern ideas. In 1876
these Hispanic nations stood on the threshold of a new era. Some were
destined to advance rapidly beyond it; others, to move slowly onward;
and a few to make little or no progress.
The most remarkable feature in the new era was the rise of four
states--Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile--to a position of eminence
among their fellows. Extent of territory, development of natural
resources, the character of the inhabitants and the increase of their
numbers, and the amount of popular intelligence and prosperity, all
contributed to this end. Each of the four nations belonged to a fairly
well-defined historical and geographical group in southern North
America, and in eastern and western South America, respectively. In
the first group were Mexico, the republics of Central America, and the
island countries of the Caribbean; in the second, Brazil, Argentina,
Uruguay, and Paraguay; and in the third, Chile, Peru, and Bolivia. In a
fourth group were Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela.
When the President of Mexico proceeded, in 1876, to violate the
constitution by securing his reelection, the people were prepared by
their earlier experiences and by the rule of Juarez to defend their
constitutional rights. A widespread rebellion headed by Diaz broke
out. In the so-called "Plan of Tuxtepec" the revolutionists declared
themselves in favor of the principle of absolutely no reelection.
Meantime the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court handed down a decision
that the action of the Congress in sustaining the President was illegal,
since in reality no elections had been held because of the abstention
of voters and the seizure of the polls by revolutionists or government
forces. "Above the constitution, nothing; above the constitution, no
one," he declared. But as this assumption of a power of judgment on
matters of purely political concern was equally a violation of the
constitution and concealed, besides, an attempt to make the Chief
Justice President, Diaz and his followers drove both of the pretenders
out. Then in 1876 he managed to bring about his own election instead.
Porfirio Diaz was a soldier who had seen active service in nearly every
important campaign since the war with the United States. Often himself
in revolt against presidents, legal and illegal, Diaz was vastly more
than an ordinary partisan chieftain. Schooled by a long experience,
he had come to appreciate the fact that what Mexico required for its
national development was freedom from internal disorders and a fair
chance for recuperation. Justice, order, and prosperity, he felt, could
be assured only by imposing upon the country the heavy weight of an iron
hand. Foreign capital must be invested in Mexico and then protected;
immigration must be encouraged, and other material, moral, and
intellectual aid of all sorts must be drawn from abroad for the
upbuilding of the nation.
To effect such a transformation in a land so tormented and impoverished
as Mexico--a country which, within the span of fifty-five years had
lived under two "emperors," and some thirty-six presidents, nine
"provisional presidents," ten dictators, twelve "regents," and five
"supreme councilors"--required indeed a masterful intelligence and a
masterful authority. Porfirio Diaz possessed and exercised both. He was,
in fact, just the man for the times. An able administrator, stern and
severe but just, rather reserved in manner and guarded in utterance,
shrewd in the selection of associates, and singularly successful in
his dealings with foreigners, he entered upon a "presidential reign" of
thirty-five years broken by but one intermission of four--which brought
Mexico out upon the highway to new national life.
Under the stable and efficient rulership of Diaz, "plans,"
"pronunciamentos," "revolutions," and similar devices of professional
trouble makers, had short shrift. Whenever an uprising started, it was
promptly quelled, either by a well-disciplined army or by the rurales,
a mounted police made up to some extent of former bandits to whom the
President gave the choice of police service or of sharp punishment for
their crimes. Order, in fact, was not always maintained, nor was justice
always meted out, by recourse to judges and courts. Instead, a novel
kind of lynch law was invoked. The name it bore was the ley fuga, or
"flight law," in accordance with which malefactors or political suspects
taken by government agents from one locality to another, on the excuse
of securing readier justice, were given by their captors a pretended
chance to escape and were then shot while they ran! The only difference
between this method and others of the sort employed by Spanish American
autocrats to enforce obedience lay in its purpose. Of Diaz one might say
what Bacon said of King Henry VII: "He drew blood as physicians do, to
save life rather than to spill it." If need be, here and there, disorder
and revolt were stamped out by terrorism; but the Mexican people did not
yield to authority from terror but rather from a thorough loyalty to the
new regime.
Among the numerous measures of material improvement which Diaz undertook
during his first term, the construction of railways was the most
important. The size of the country, its want of navigable rivers, and
its relatively small and widely scattered population, made imperative
the establishment of these means of communication. Despite the
misgivings of many intelligent Mexicans that the presence of foreign
capital would impair local independence in some way, Diaz laid the
foundations of future national prosperity by granting concessions to
the Mexican Central and National Mexican companies, which soon began
construction. Under his successor a national bank was created; and
when Diaz was again elected he readjusted the existing foreign debt and
boldly contracted new debts abroad.
At the close of his first term, in 1880, a surplus in the treasury was
not so great a novelty as the circumstance altogether unique in the
political annals of Mexico-that Diaz turned over the presidency
in peaceful fashion to his properly elected successor! He did so
reluctantly, to be sure, but he could not afford just yet to ignore his
own avowed principle, which had been made a part of the constitution
shortly after his accession. Although the confidence he reposed in that
successor was not entirely justified, the immense personal popularity
of Diaz saved the prestige of the new chief magistrate. Under his
administration the constitution was amended in such a way as to deprive
the Chief Justice of the privilege of replacing the President in case
of a vacancy, thus eliminating that official from politics. After his
resumption of office, Diaz had the fundamental law modified anew, so
as to permit the reelection of a President for one term only! For this
change, inconsistent though it may seem, Diaz was not alone responsible.
Circumstances had changed, and the constitution had to change with them.
Had the "United Provinces of Central America," as they came forth from
under the rule of Spain, seen fit to abstain from following in the
unsteady footsteps of Mexico up to the time of the accession of Diaz to
power, had they done nothing more than develop their natural wealth and
utilize their admirable geographical situation, they might have become
prosperous and kept their corporate name. As it was, their history
for upwards of forty years had little to record other than a
momentary cohesion and a subsequent lapse into five quarrelsome little
republics--the "Balkan States" of America. Among them Costa Rica had
suffered least from arbitrary management or internal commotion and
showed the greatest signs of advancement.
In Guatemala, however, there had arisen another Diaz, though a man quite
inferior in many respects to his northern counterpart. When Justo Rufino
Barrios became President of that republic in 1873 he was believed
to have conservative leanings. Ere long, however, he astounded his
compatriots by showing them that he was a thoroughgoing radical with
methods of action to correspond to his convictions. Not only did he
keep the Jesuits out of the country but he abolished monastic orders
altogether and converted their buildings to public use. He made marriage
a civil contract and he secularized the burying grounds. Education
he encouraged by engaging the services of foreign instructors, and he
brought about a better observance of the law by the promulgation of
new codes. He also introduced railways and telegraph lines. Since
the manufacture of aniline dyes abroad had diminished the demand for
cochineal, Barrios decided to replace this export by cultivating coffee.
To this end, he distributed seeds among the planters and furnished
financial aid besides, with a promise to inspect the fields in due
season and see what had been accomplished. Finding that in many cases
the seeds had been thrown away and the money wasted in drink and
gambling, he ordered the guilty planters to be given fifty lashes, with
the assurance that on a second offense he would shoot them on sight.
Coffee planting in Guatemala was pursued thereafter with much alacrity!
Posts in the government service Barrios distributed quite impartially
among Conservatives and Democrats, deserving or otherwise, for he had
them both well under control. At his behest a permanent constitution was
promulgated in 1880. While he affected to dislike continual reelection,
he saw to it nevertheless that he himself should be the sole candidate
who was likely to win.
Barrios doubtless could have remained President of Guatemala for
the term of his natural life if he had not raised up the ghost of
federation. All the republics of Central America accepted his invitation
in 1876 to send delegates to his capital to discuss the project. But
nothing was accomplished because Barrios and the President of Salvador
were soon at loggerheads. Nine years later, feeling himself stronger,
Barrios again proposed federation. But the other republics had by this
time learned too much of the methods of the autocrat of Guatemala, even
while they admired his progressive policy, to relish the thought of a
federation dominated by Guatemala and its masterful President. Though
he "persuaded" Honduras to accept the plan, the three other republics
preferred to unite in self-defense, and in the ensuing struggle the
quixotic Barrios was killed. A few years later the project was revived
and the constitution of a "Republic of Central America" was agreed upon,
when war between Guatemala and Salvador again frustrated its execution.
In Brazil two great movements were by this time under way: the total
abolition of slavery and the establishment of a republic. Despite the
tenacious opposition of many of the planters, from about the year 1883
the movement for emancipation made great headway. There was a growing
determination on the part of the majority of the inhabitants to remove
the blot that made the country an object of reproach among the civilized
states of the world. Provinces and towns, one after another, freed
the slaves within their borders. The imperial Government, on its part,
hastened the process by liberating its own slaves and by imposing upon
those still in bondage taxes higher than their market value; it fixed a
price for other slaves; it decreed that the older slaves should be set
free; and it increased the funds already appropriated to compensate
owners of slaves who should be emancipated. In 1887 the number of slaves
had fallen to about 720,000, worth legally about $650 each. A year later
came the final blow, when the Princess Regent assented to a measure
which abolished slavery outright and repealed all former acts relating
to slavery. So radical a proceeding wrought havoc in the coffee-growing
southern provinces in particular, from which the negroes now freed
migrated by tens of thousands to the northern provinces. Their places,
however, were taken by Italians and other Europeans who came to work the
plantations on a cooperative basis. All through the eighties, in fact,
immigrants from Italy poured into the temperate regions of southern
Brazil, to the number of nearly two hundred thousand, supplementing the
many thousands of Germans who had settled, chiefly in the province of
Rio Grande do Sul, thirty years before.
Apart from the industrial problem thus created by the abolition of
slavery, there seemed to be no serious political or economic questions
before the country. Ever since 1881, when a law providing for direct
elections was passed, the Liberals had been in full control. The old
Dom Pedro, who had endeared himself to his people, was as much liked
and respected as ever. But as he had grown feeble and almost blind,
the heiress to the throne, who had marked absolutist and clerical
tendencies, was disposed to take advantage of his infirmities.
For many years, on the other hand, doctrines opposed to the principle of
monarchy had been spread in zealous fashion by members of the military
class, notable among whom was Deodoro da Fonseca. And now some of the
planters longed to wreak vengeance on a ruler who had dared to
thwart their will by emancipating the slaves. Besides this persistent
discontent, radical republican newspapers continually stirred up fresh
agitation. Whatever the personal service rendered by the Emperor to the
welfare of the country, to them he represented a political system which
deprived the provinces of much of their local autonomy and the Brazilian
people at large of self-government.
But the chief reason for the momentous change which was about to take
place was the fact that the constitutional monarchy had really completed
its work as a transitional government. Under that regime Brazil had
reached a condition of stability and had attained a level of progress
which might well enable it to govern itself. During all this time the
influence of the Spanish American nations had been growing apace.
Even if they had fallen into many a political calamity, they were
nevertheless "republics," and to the South American this word had a
magic sound. Above all, there was the potent suggestion of the success
of the United States of North America, whose extension of its federal
system over a vast territory suggested what Brazil with its provinces
might accomplish in the southern continent. Hence the vast majority of
intelligent Brazilians felt that they had become self-reliant enough
to establish a republic without fear of lapsing into the unfortunate
experiences of the other Hispanic countries.
In 1889, when provision was made for a speedy abdication of the Emperor
in favor of his daughter, the republican newspapers declared that a
scheme was being concocted to exile the chief military agitators and
to interfere with any effort on the part of the army to prevent the
accession of the new ruler. Thereupon, on the 15th of November, the
radicals at Rio de Janeiro, aided by the garrison, broke out in open
revolt. Proclaiming the establishment of a federal republic under
the name of the "United States of Brazil," they deposed the imperial
ministry, set up a provisional government with Deodoro da Fonseca at its
head, arranged for the election of a constitutional convention, and bade
Dom Pedro and his family leave the country within twenty-four hours.
On the 17th of November, before daybreak, the summons was obeyed. Not
a soul appeared to bid the old Emperor farewell as he and his family
boarded the steamer that was to bear them to exile in Europe. Though
seemingly an act of heartlessness and ingratitude, the precaution was
a wise one in that it averted, possible conflict and bloodshed. For the
second time in its history, a fundamental change had been wrought in
the political system of the nation without a resort to war! The United
States of Brazil accordingly took its place peacefully among its fellow
republics of the New World.
Meanwhile Argentina, the great neighbor of Brazil to the southwest, had
been gaining territory and new resources. Since the definite adoption
of a federal constitution in 1853, this state had attained to a
considerable degree of national consciousness under the leadership of
able presidents such as Bartolome Mitre, the soldier and historian,
and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, the publicist and promoter of popular
education. One evidence of this new nationalism was a widespread
belief in the necessity of territorial expansion. Knowing that Chile
entertained designs upon Patagonia, the Argentine Government forestalled
any action by conducting a war of practical extermination against the
Indian tribes of that region and by adding it to the national domain.
The so-called "conquest of the desert" in the far south of the continent
opened to civilization a vast habitable area of untold economic
possibilities.
In the electoral campaign of 1880 the presidential candidates were Julio
Argentino Roca and the Governor of the province of Buenos Aires. The
former, an able officer skilled in both arms and politics, had on
his side the advantage of a reputation won in the struggle with the
Patagonian Indians, the approval of the national Government, and the
support of most of the provinces. Feeling certain of defeat at the
polls, the partisans of the latter candidate resorted to the timeworn
expedient of a revolt. Though the uprising lasted but twenty days, the
diplomatic corps at the capital proffered its mediation between the
contestants, in order to avoid any further bloodshed. The result was
that the fractious Governor withdrew his candidacy and a radical change
was effected in the relations of Buenos Aires, city and province, to the
country at large. The city, together with its environs, was converted
into a federal district and became solely and distinctively the national
capital. Its public buildings, railways, and telegraph service, as well
as the provincial debt, were taken over by the general Government. The
seat of provincial authority was transferred to the village of Ensenada,
which thereupon was rechristened La Plata.
A veritable tide of wealth and general prosperity was now rolling over
Argentina. By 1885 its population had risen to upwards of 3,000,000.
Immigration increased to a point far beyond the wildest expectations.
In 1889 alone about 300,000 newcomers arrived and lent their aid in
the promotion of industry and commerce. Fields hitherto uncultivated or
given over to grazing now bore vast crops of wheat, maize, linseed, and
sugar. Large quantities of capital, chiefly from Great Britain, also
poured into the country. As a result, the price of land rose high,
and feverish speculation became the order of the day. Banks and other
institutions of credit were set up, colonizing schemes were devised, and
railways were laid out. To meet the demands of all these enterprises,
the Government borrowed immense sums from foreign capitalists and issued
vast quantities of paper money, with little regard for its ultimate
redemption. Argentina spent huge sums in prodigal fashion on all sorts
of public improvements in an effort to attract still more capital and
immigration, and thus entered upon a dangerous era of inflation.
Of the near neighbors of Argentina, Uruguay continued along the
tortuous path of alternate disturbance and progress, losing many of its
inhabitants to the greater states beyond, where they sought relative
peace and security; while Paraguay, on the other hand, enjoyed freedom
from civil strife, though weighed down with a war debt and untold
millions in indemnities exacted by Argentina and Brazil, which it could
never hope to pay. In consequence, this indebtedness was a useful club
to brandish over powerless Paraguay whenever that little country might
venture to question the right of either of its big neighbors to break
the promise they had made of keeping its territory intact. Argentina,
however, consented in 1878 to refer certain claims to the decision of
the President of the United States. When Paraguay won the arbitration,
it showed its gratitude by naming one of its localities Villa Hayes.
As time went on, however, its population increased and hid many of the
scars of war.
On the western side of South America there broke out the struggle known
as the "War of the Pacific" between Chile, on the one side, and Peru and
Bolivia as allies on the other. In Peru unstable and corrupt governments
had contracted foreign loans under conditions that made their repayment
almost impossible and had spent the proceeds in so reckless and
extravagant a fashion as to bring the country to the verge of
bankruptcy. Bolivia, similarly governed, was still the scene of
the orgies and carnivals which had for some time characterized its
unfortunate history. One of its buffoon "presidents," moreover, had
entered into boundary agreements with both Chile and Brazil, under which
the nation lost several important areas and some of its territory on the
Pacific. The boundaries of Bolivia, indeed, were run almost everywhere
on purely arbitrary lines drawn with scant regard for the physical
features of the country and with many a frontier question left wholly
unsettled. For some years Chilean companies and speculators, aided by
foreign capital mainly British in origin, had been working deposits
of nitrate of soda in the province of Antofagasta, or "the desert
of Atacama," a region along the coast to the northward belonging to
Bolivia, and also in the provinces of Tacna, Arica, and Tarapaca, still
farther to the northward, belonging to Peru. Because boundary lines were
not altogether clear and because the three countries were all eager to
exploit these deposits, controversies over this debatable ground were
sure to rise. For the privilege of developing portions of this region,
individuals and companies had obtained concessions from the various
governments concerned; elsewhere, industrial free lances dug away
without reference to such formalities.
It is quite likely that Chile, whose motto was "By Right or by
Might," was prepared to sustain the claims of its citizens by either
alternative. At all events, scenting a prospective conflict, Chile had
devoted much attention to the development of its naval and military
establishment--a state of affairs which did not escape the observation
of its suspicious neighbors.
The policy of Peru was determined partly by personal motives and partly
by reasons of state. In 1873 the President, lacking sufficient financial
and political support to keep himself in office, resolved upon the risky
expedient of arousing popular passion against Chile, in the hope that he
might thereby replenish the national treasury. Accordingly he
proceeded to pick a quarrel by ordering the deposits in Tarapaca to be
expropriated with scant respect for the concessions made to the Chilean
miners. Realizing, however, the possible consequences of such an
action, he entered into an alliance with Bolivia. This country thereupon
proceeded to levy an increased duty on the exportation of nitrates from
the Atacama region. Chile, already aware of the hostile combination
which had been formed, protested so vigorously that a year later Bolivia
agreed to withdraw the new regulations and to submit the dispute to
arbitration.
Such were the relations of these three states in 1878, when Bolivia,
taking advantage of differences of opinion between Chile and Argentina
regarding the Patagonian region, reimposed its export duty, canceled the
Chilean concessions, and confiscated the nitrate deposits. Chile then
declared war in February, 1879, and within two months occupied the
entire coast of Bolivia up to the frontiers of Peru. On his part the
President of Bolivia was too much engrossed in the festivities connected
with a masquerade to bother about notifying the people that their land
had been invaded until several days after the event had occurred!
Misfortunes far worse than anything which had fallen to the lot of its
ally now awaited Peru, which first attempted an officious mediation and
then declared war on the 4th of April. Since Peru and Bolivia together
had a population double that of Chile, and since Peru possessed a much
larger army and navy than Chile, the allies counted confidently on
victory. But Peru's army of eight thousand--having within four hundred
as many officers as men, directed by no fewer than twenty-six generals,
and presided over by a civil government altogether inept--was no match
for an army less than a third of its size to be sure, but well drilled
and commanded, and with a stable, progressive, and efficient government
at its back. The Peruvian forces, lacking any substantial support from
Bolivia, crumpled under the terrific attacks of their adversaries.
Efforts on the part of the United States to mediate in the struggle
were blocked by the dogged refusal of Chile to abate its demands for
annexation. Early in 1881 its army entered Lima in triumph, and the war
was over.
For a while the victors treated the Peruvians and their capital city
shamefully. The Chilean soldiers stripped the national library of
its contents, tore up the lamp-posts in the streets, carried away
the benches in the parks, and even shipped off the local menagerie to
Santiago! What they did not remove or destroy was disposed of by the
rabble of Lima itself. But in two years so utterly chaotic did the
conditions in the hapless country become that Chile at length had to set
up a government in order to conclude a peace. It was not until October
20, 1883, that the treaty was signed at Lima and ratified later at
Ancon. Peru was forced to cede Tarapaca outright and to agree that Tacna
and Arica should be held by Chile for ten years. At the expiration of
this period the inhabitants of the two provinces were to be allowed to
choose by vote the country to which they would prefer to belong, and the
nation that won the election was to pay the loser 10,000,000 pesos.
In April, 1884, Bolivia, also, entered into an arrangement with Chile,
according to which a portion of its seacoast should be ceded absolutely
and the remainder should be occupied by Chile until a more definite
understanding on the matter could be reached.
Chile emerged from the war not only triumphant over its northern rivals
but dominant on the west coast of South America. Important developments
in Chilean national policy followed. To maintain its vantage and to
guard against reprisals, the victorious state had to keep in military
readiness on land and sea. It therefore looked to Prussia for a pattern
for its army and to Great Britain for a model for its navy.
Peru had suffered cruelly from the war. Its territorial losses deprived
it of an opportunity to satisfy its foreign creditors through a grant
of concessions. The public treasury, too, was empty, and many a private
fortune had melted away. Not until a military hand stronger than its
competitors managed to secure a firm grip on affairs did Peru begin once
more its toilsome journey toward material betterment.
Bolivia, on its part, had emerged from the struggle practically a
landlocked country. Though bereft of access to the sea except by
permission of its neighbors, it had, however, not endured anything
like the calamities of its ally. In 1880 it had adopted a permanent
constitution and it now entered upon a course of slow and relatively
peaceful progress.
In the republics to the northward struggles between clericals and
radicals caused sharp, abrupt alternations in government. In Ecuador the
hostility between clericals and radicals was all the more bitter because
of the rivalry of the two chief towns, Guayaquil the seaport and Quito
the capital, each of which sheltered a faction. No sooner therefore had
Garcia Moreno fallen than the radicals of Guayaquil rose up against the
clericals at Quito. Once in power, they hunted their enemies down until
order under a dictator could be restored. The military President who
assumed power in 1876 was too radical to suit the clericals and too
clerical to suit the radicals. Accordingly his opponents decided to make
the contest three-cornered by fighting the dictator and one another.
When the President had been forced out, a conservative took charge until
parties of bushwhackers and mutinous soldiers were able to install a
military leader, whose retention of power was brief. In 1888 another
conservative, who had been absent from the country when elected and who
was an adept in law and diplomacy, managed to win sufficient support
from all three factions to retain office for the constitutional period.
In Colombia a financial crisis had been approaching ever since the
price of coffee, cocoa, and other Colombian products had fallen in the
European markets. This decrease had caused a serious diminution in
the export trade and had forced gold and silver practically out of
circulation. At the same time the various "states" were increasing their
powers at the expense of the federal Government, and the country was
rent by factions. In order to give the republic a thoroughly centralized
administration which would restore financial confidence and bring back
the influence of the Church as a social and political factor, a genuine
revolution, which was started in 1876, eventually put an end to both
radicalism and states' rights. At the outset Rafael Nunez, the unitary
and clerical candidate and a lawyer by profession, was beaten on the
field, but at a subsequent election he obtained the requisite number of
votes and, in 1880, assumed the presidency. That the loser in war should
become the victor in peace showed the futility of bloodshed in such
revolutions.
Not until Nunez came into office again did he feel himself strong enough
to uproot altogether the radicalism and disunion which had flourished
since 1860. Ignoring the national Legislature, he called a Congress
of his own, which in 1886 framed a constitution that converted the
"sovereign states" into "departments," or mere administrative
districts, to be ruled as the national Government saw fit. Further, the
presidential term was lengthened from two years to six, and the name of
the country was changed, finally, to "Republic of Colombia." Two years
later the power of the Church was strengthened by a concordat with the
Pope.
Venezuela on its part had undergone changes no less marked. A liberal
constitution promulgated in 1864 had provided for the reorganization
of the country on a federal basis. The name chosen for the republic was
"United States of Venezuela." More than that, it had anticipated Mexico
and Guatemala in being the first of the Hispanic nations to witness
the establishment of a presidential autocracy of the continuous and
enlightened type.
Antonio Guzman Blanco was the man who imposed upon Venezuela for about
nineteen years a regime of obedience to law, and, to some extent, of
modern ideas of administration such as the country had never known
before. A person of much versatility, he had studied medicine and law
before he became a soldier and a politician. Later he displayed another
kind of versatility by letting henchmen hold the presidential office
while he remained the power behind the throne. Endowed with a masterful
will and a pronounced taste for minute supervision, he had exactly the
ability necessary to rule Venezuela wisely and well.
Amid considerable opposition he began, in 1870, the first of his
three periods of administration--the Septennium, as it was termed. The
"sovereign" states he governed through "sovereign" officials of his
own selection. He stopped the plundering of farms and the dragging
of laborers off to military service. He established in Venezuela an
excellent monetary system. Great sums were expended in the erection
of public and private buildings and in the embellishment of Caracas.
European capital and immigration were encouraged to venture into a
country hitherto so torn by chronic disorder as to deprive both labor
and property of all guarantees. Roads, railways, and telegraph lines
were constructed. The ministers of the Church were rendered submissive
to the civil power. Primary education became alike free and compulsory.
As the phrase went, Guzman Blanco "taught Venezuela to read." At the end
of his term of office he went into voluntary retirement.
In 1879 Guzman Blanco put himself at the head of a movement which he
called a "revolution of replevin"--which meant, presumably, that he
was opposed to presidential "continuism," and in favor of republican
institutions! Although a constitution promulgated in 1881 fixed the
chief magistrate's term of office at two years, the success which Guzman
Blanco had attained enabled him to control affairs for five years--the
Quinquennium, as it was called. Thereupon he procured his appointment to
a diplomatic post in Europe; but the popular demand for his presence
was too strong for him to remain away. In 1886 he was elected by
acclamation. He held office two years more and then, finding that his
influence had waned, he left Venezuela for good. Whatever his faults
in other respects, Guzman Blanco--be it said to his credit--tried to
destroy the pest of periodical revolutions in his country. Thanks to
his vigorous suppression of these uprisings, some years of at least
comparative security were made possible. More than any other President
the nation had ever had, he was entitled to the distinction of having
been a benefactor, if not altogether a regenerator, of his native land.