Batlle y Ordonez, Jose

Great-grandson of Catalan immigrants from Sitges . He studied at the law department of the University of Montevideo and at the Paris Sorbonne .

He belonged to the minority sector of the Colorado party, and was proposed as an intermediary in the presidency, which he took in 1903.

In 1871, he began his journalistic career, was in opposition to the ruling regimes of the elites and the military, in particular the dictatorship of Maximo Santos . Since 1879, as a journalist and editor of the newspaper "New Spirit" hard criticized the military administration of Lorenzo Latorre . The newspaper El Día (The Day), created by him in 1886, was the mouthpiece of the Liberal Party of Colorado . This political position led him several times to detention and imprisonment. Participated in the Cebracho Revolution (1886). After the fall of the regime, Santos led the department of mining.

Belonged to the minority group of the Colorado party. In 1893 he was elected a deputy, and in 1896 - a senator; relied on the " middle class ". He was elected president of the Senate, from February to March 1899, he served as head of state to legitimize the continued tenure of President Juan Cuestas .

In 1903, he was elected President of Uruguay, in connection with which the leader of the opposition National Conservative Party , Aparicio Saravia, unleashed a civil war. Only after the death of Sarabia in the battle of Mosolier on September 1, 1904, Batlier established control over all of Uruguay.

His political course went down in the history of the country under the name "battle", and his own party began to be called "Battle". The President carried out a series of reforms aimed at supporting export-oriented agriculture, expanded the public sector in the banking sector, modernized the education system, which became free, and launched the construction of secondary and higher educational institutions. The death penalty was abolished and secularization began: the church and the state were separated, divorces were allowed. He pursued a policy of protectionism , exercised control over the activities of private enterprises and nationalized several monopolies. The economic and social reforms that have taken place have made Uruguay one of the most politically and economically stable countries in Latin America.

Despite being the president for 8 years, he is considered the most influential and influential figure in the politics of his country from the time of his first presidency until his death, a period spanning more than 25 years. Uruguayan historians often call this era the era of the Batlists. Even today, you can find sectors of the Colorado party and even in the Amplio Front that define themselves as followers of Jose Batlier and Ordonez.

After completing his first presidential term in 1907, he traveled to Western Europe , studied local experience in the field of social programs and democratic governance (including in Switzerland). He returned to Uruguay in February 1911 and won the next presidential election. During his second term, he continued to pursue progressive social reforms: he introduced an eight-hour working day , created pension programs in the public and private sectors, granted full civil rights to illegitimate children, and also prohibited animal cruelty . He provided women with the opportunity to file for divorce and vote in elections ( universal suffrage was enshrined in the 1918 constitution).

Already after the defeat in the elections in 1915, he drafted a new constitution of 1918, limiting presidential powers in favor of the collegial body - the National Administrative Council of 9 people elected by Congress.

After his resignation, in 1920, he killed in a duel, Congressman Washington Veltran Barbat. The reason for the duel was an article accusing the former president of fraud, published in a newspaper whose editor was Barbat ^[1] .

The economic initiatives laid down by Batlier continued to be implemented until 1929 (when Uruguayan exports fell sharply due to the crisis ), becoming the basis of a strip of long-term stable development of Uruguay, previously torn by continuous civil wars, and in the 20th century it gained a reputation as “Latin American Switzerland”. It is believed that the reforms carried out by Batlier-y-Ordonez and his successors outstripped bourgeois reformism in other countries and surpassed it in degree of radicalism ^[2] .

The town of Jose Batlier y Ordonez in the southeast of central Uruguay is named after him.

• Batlle y Ordóñez, José // Encyclopedia of Latin America / Thomas M. Leonard. - New York: Facts On File, Inc. - T. 4. - ISBN 978-0-8160-7359-7 .
• Stroganov A.I. Recent History of Latin America. (M .: Higher school, 1995.- p. 35)