Manuel Estrada Cabrera


Manuel José Estrada Cabrera was the President of Guatemala from 1898 to 1920. A lawyer with no military background, he modernised the country's industry and transportation infrastructure, via granting concessions to the American-owned United Fruit Company, whose influence on the government was deeply unpopular among the population. Estrada Cabrera ruled as a dictator who used increasingly brutal methods to assert his authority, including armed strike-breaking, and he effectively controlled general elections. He retained power for 22 years through controlled elections in 1904, 1910, and 1916, and was eventually removed from office when the national assembly declared him mentally incompetent, and he was jailed for corruption. As such, he was the longest-serving leader of Guatemala.

Background

Estrada Cabrera was a lawyer. He studied at the Universidad Nacional and thanks to his work he reached the position of "First Designated for the Presidency" when José María Reina Barrios was elected to his second term as president. He was also the Secretary of Interior for most of Reina Barrios regime.

Interim President (1898)

After the assassination of Reina Barrios on 8 February 1898, the Guatemalan cabinet called an emergency meeting to appoint a new successor, but declined to invite Estrada Cabrera to the meeting, even though he was the First Designated to the Presidency. There are two versions on how he was able to get the Presidency: Estrada Cabrera entered "with pistol drawn" to assert his entitlement to the presidency and Estrada Cabrera showed up to the meeting and demanded to be given the presidency as he was the First Designated".
The first Guatemalan head of state from civilian life in over 50 years, Estrada Cabrera overcame resistance to his regime by August 1898 and called for September elections, which he won handily. At that time, Estrada Cabrera was 44 years old; he was stocky, of medium height, and broad-shouldered. The mustache gave him a plebeian appearance. Black and dark eyes, metallic sounding voice and was rather sullen and brooding. At the same time, he already showed his courage and character. This was demonstrated on the night of the death of Reina Barrios when he stood in front of the ministers meeting in the government palace to choose a successor, and said: "Gentlemen, let me please sign this decree. As First Designated, you must hand me the Presidency". His first decree was a general amnesty and the second was to reopen all the elementary schools closed by Reyna Barrios, both administrative and political measures aimed at winning over public opinion. Estrada Cabrera was almost unknown in the political circles of the capital and one could not foresee the features of his government or his intentions.

Cabinet

  • Interior and Justice: Francisco Anguiano
  • Promotion: Antonio Barrios
  • Finance: Rafael Salazar
  • Public Instruction: Domingo Morales
  • War: Salvador Toledo
  • Head of the Judiciary: José Pinto
  • First appointed to the chair: Feliciano Aguilar
  • Second appointed to the chair: Felipe Cruz

    Call for Elections

  • " is a sincere man. He is also a committed man of good will and full of faith. Has strong ideas to fight for and for the sake of which would be sacrificed if necessary. He is a man."
  • "His lips form a contrast with his eyes. The eyes always bright, always calm, reveal the inner strength and mastery of his own soul. The lips are kind and sentimental. The forehead is broad and without crease, a studious man forehead which reflects intellectual robustness"
And when the election was getting close:
  • "Two months ago, our candidate was a hope; today he is a reality. Two months ago we encouraged confidence in his principles, in his heart and in his talent. Today is his behavior that enhances and strengthens our confidence. So, after having a candidate for the Liberal Party, today we have a candidate for the Homeland. It was what we needed. Tomorrow, finally, every patriot will see to the best liberal patriotism and every nuance is that his liberalism."
In 1898 the legislature convened for the election of President Estrada Cabrera, who triumphed thanks to the large number of soldiers and policemen who went to vote in civilian clothes and to the large number of illiterate family members that they brought with them to the polls. Also, the effective propaganda that was written in the official newspaper "the Liberal Idea", run by the poet Joaquin Mendez. Among the writers were Enrique Gómez Carrillo, Rafael Spinola, Máximo Soto Hall and Juan Manuel Mendoza, and others.
Gómez Carrillo received as a reward for his work as political propagandist an appointment as general consul in Paris, with 250 gold pesos monthly salary, and immediately went back to Europe
The other candidates were:
  • José Luis Castillo de Leon, who had 5 castillistas clubs in the capital and in 70 municipalities, and who was the strongest candidate.
  • Francisco Fuentes, who had most of his supporters in Quetzaltenango.
  • Feliz Morales, former Minister of Reyna Barrios.

    First term: United Fruit Company

One of Estrada Cabrera's most famous and most bitter legacies was the entry of the United Fruit Company into the Guatemalan economical and political arena. As a member of the Liberal Party, he sought to encourage development of the nation's infrastructure of highways, railroads, and sea ports for the sake of expanding the export economy. When Estrada Cabrera assumed the presidency, there had been repeated efforts to construct a railroad from the major port of Puerto Barrios to the capital, Guatemala City. Yet, due to lack of funding exacerbated by the collapse of the internal coffee industry, the railway fell sixty miles short of its goal. Estrada Cabrera decided, without consulting the legislature or judiciary, that striking a deal with the United Fruit Company was the only way to finish the railway. Cabrera signed a contract with UFC's Minor Cooper Keith in 1904 that gave the company tax-exemptions, land grants, and control of all railroads on the Atlantic side.
Estrada Cabrera often employed brutal methods to assert his authority, as was the fashion in Guatemala at the time. Like him, presidents Rafael Carrera y Turcios and Justo Rufino Barrios had led tyrannical governments in the country. Right at the beginning of his first presidential period, he started prosecuting his political rivals and soon established a well-organized web of spies.
One American Minister returned to the United States after he learned the dictator had given orders to poison him. Former President Manuel Barillas was stabbed to death in Mexico City, on a street outside of the Mexican presidential residence on Cabrera's orders; the street now bears the name of Calle Guatemala. Also, Estrada Cabrera responded violently to workers' strikes against UFC. In one incident, when UFC went directly to Estrada Cabrera to resolve a strike, the president ordered an armed unit to enter the workers' compound. The forces "arrived in the night, firing indiscriminately into the workers' sleeping quarters, wounding and killing an unspecified number."
In 1906 Estrada faced serious revolts against his rule; the rebels were supported by the governments of some of the other Central American nations, but Estrada succeeded in putting them down. Elections were held by the people against the will of Estrada Cabrera and thus he had the president-elect murdered in retaliation.

Second term (1905–1911)

Presidential elections were held on 7 August 1904, and Estrada Cabrera was again the winner. In December 1908 there was a measles epidemic all over the country, but it was efficiently controlled by the doctors of his regime.
Cabinet members:
  • Infrastructure Secretary: Joaquín Méndez
  • War Secretary: Luis Molina
  • Secretary of Foreign Relations: Juan Barrios M.
  • Secretary of the Interior: José María Reina Andrade
  • Secretary of Education: Angel M. Bocanegra
  • National Assembly:
  • * President: Arturo Ubico Urruela
  • * Secretary: José A. Beteta
  • * Secretary: Francisco C. Castañeda
  • * Cotzumalguapa representative: Carlos Herrera
  • * Flores, Petén representative: Adrián Vidaurre, who would also serve as War Auditor.
  • United States Ambassadors:
  • * Joseph W. J. Lee
  • * General George W. Davis
  • * Willam F. Sands
  • * Robert Stockton Renolds Hitt

    "The Bomb" assassination attempt

In early 1907, lawyer Enrique Ávila Echeverría and his brother, physician Jorge Ávila Echeverría, along with Dr. Julio Valdés Blanco and electrical engineer Baltasar Rodil, planned a bombing attack on the president of Guatemala, Estrada Cabrera, which took place on 29 April 1907, and is generally known in Guatemala as "The Bomb". The Echeverría brothers and their confederates were members of the elite class and had studied abroad, but when they returned to Guatemala, they objected to the government's extreme abuse of power and determined on assassinating the president. They decided on explosives. They prepared everything meticulously: the explosives, the detonators, the day and the exact time; even the president's driver—Patrocinio Monterroso—was part of the conspiracy.
On the day planned for the attack, 29 April, the president was traveling in the capital in his chariot along with his 13-year-old son, Joaquin, and his chief of staff, general José María Orellana. Around 10 a.m., the president and his retinue were traveling on 7th S. Avenue, between the 16th and 17th W streets when the bomb detonated. The explosion failed to injure Estrada Cabrera or those that were with him. Only the driver and one of the horses died.
On 2 May 1907, Emilio Ubico, brother of Arturo Ubico Urruela—president of Congress—and uncle of Jorge Ubico Castañeda—political chief of Verapaz, was appointed Chief of Police, in charge of the investigations, along the Secretary of the Interior, Reina Andrade. A few days later, Congress issued Decree 737, by which any explosive-related import was prohibited, unless previously authorized by the Secretary of War.
Over the next twenty-two days, the four conspirators fled through the small streets and little holes that they could find, trying to escape from Guatemala City, but the government surrounded the city and slowly tightened the perimeter while combing every inch of terrain. The conspirators' families were incarcerated and prosecuted. Others conspirators, brothers Juan and Adolfo Viteri and Francisco Valladares, were arrested when they attempted to flee disguised as women in Guastatoya. Others, like Felipe and Rafael Prado Romaña, tried to flee to El Salvador, but were captured when someone informed on them. The Romaña brothers remained imprisoned until their death. Only the Colombian Rafael Madriñán escaped the country on a bicycle. The mother of the Romaña brothers took the Mexican Ambassador, Federico Camboa, to the house where the Avila Echeverría brothers and his friends were hiding, who, knowing that they had only days to live, gave him all their valuables and begged him to pass them on to their relatives.
At last, after several days of uncertainty, Rufina Roca de Monzón gave them shelter in the second floor of her home, # 29 Judío Place in Guatemala City, but a spy learned about it. On 20 May 1907, at 3 a.m. the house was surrounded by a platoon of soldiers. The troop broke down the door and tried to reach the second floor, but at that moment gunfight began. By 6 a.m. the conspirators were out of ammo and exhausted and decided to kill themselves before becoming prisoners of the regime. The Diario de Centro América, then a semi-official newspaper owned by Estrada Cabrera, went as far as to publish the conspirators autopsy details.