Gabriel Terra
José Luis Gabriel Terra Leivas was a Uruguayan lawyer and statesman who served as the 26th constitutional president of Uruguay from 1931 to 1933 and as dictator until 1938. He led a traditionalist and corporatist regime known as the March dictatorship, because the self-coup that he led took place on 31 March 1933.
While in power, Terra promoted the 1934 Constitution, which after being approved by the citizens through a nationwide referendum, officially abolished the collegiate executive established in 1917 and guaranteed rights such as gender equality and women's suffrage, as well as the legalization of homosexuality.
In 1938, he became president of the state-owned Banco de la República Oriental del Uruguay. That same year, he left the position due to a stroke, remaining paralyzed for four years until his death in near-extreme poverty on 15 September 1942.
Life
Born in Montevideo, Gabriel Terra spent part of his childhood and adolescence on his father's farm and studied Law at the Universidad de la República while also specializing in economic and financial science, graduating in 1895. He practiced as a lawyer and Justice of the Peace at the end of the 1890s and he was a professor at the Higher School of Commerce beginning in 1901. He was a national deputy from 1903 to 1907, minister of Industry, Labor and Public Instruction from 1907 to 1911. He founded the industrial oxygen production company CINOCA in 1908 and was a member of the National Constituent Assembly of 1917, Minister of the Interior from 1919 to 1921, and member of the National Council of Administration from 1926 to 1929. He was Constitutional President between 1931 and 1933, but became a de facto president from March 1933 to May 1934 after launching a self-coup. However, he once again became a de jure Constitutional President until June 1938. Terra was president of the Banco de la República Oriental del Uruguay in 1938. However, he suffered a stroke that same year, causing him to remain paralytic for four years until his death in 1942. Terra died in poverty, dying in an armchair on the early morning of 15 September 1942. At his funeral he received the corresponding state honors, and the country entered a mourning period. His remains were accompanied by hundreds of thousands of people along the procession. However, due to his presidency beng very controversial, his coffin was spat on by editors of the newspaper El Día, causing a fight to break out. The location of his grave is unknown.Terra graduated as a lawyer in 1895 from UdelaR and had a lengthy political career, being a national deputy, he was deputy, minister of Industry, Work, and Public Instruction, a member of the 1917 Uruguayan Constituent Assembly, and member of the National Board of Directors. He was affiliated to the Colorado Party, although he was often independent of the dominant positions of its leader, José Batlle y Ordóñez. Terra advised all Uruguayan governments between 1904 and 1938.
Political career
Graduated as a lawyer in 1895, he was deputy minister to the President Claudio Williman, member of the Constituent Assembly in 1917, Minister to the President Baltasar Brum and member of the National Board of Directors. He was an expert in economic and diplomatic issues, areas in which he advised all the Uruguayan governments between 1900 and 1938, he was a member of the Colorado Party, although many times independent of the dominant positions of its leader, José Batlle y Ordóñez.In 1920, Terra presented a bill providing for the creation of a National Cooperative Institute. This formed, according to one study, "a type of consumer cooperative under public law, limited to State officials and supported by the Bank of the Republic." The scope of the initiative was expanded by the National Council of Administration to cover all the inhabitants of the Republic, and although it was sanctioned with modifications by the House of Representatives the initiative was detained in the Senate without ever obtaining approval.
His candidacy for the presidency in 1930 was opposed to the Luis Alberto de Herrera, leader of the National Party who obtained 47.26% of the votes cast, compared to 52.02% in favor of Terra.
On 13 February 1938, during a spontaneous congregation of workers to honor him in front of his house, in his last public speech to a popular crowd, he said:
He had the longest uninterrupted tenure in office of any Uruguayan president, the only one to have three terms and the first to be re-elected. He presided over a constitutional government between 1931 and 1933, a dictatorial government from 1933 to 1934 and was re-elected by more than 60% of the electorate in 1934 for the period of 1934-1938. On 19 June 1938, his government ended, and he was appointed President of the Bank of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay. However, in the last months of 1938, his physical condition deteriorated when he suffered a cerebrovascular accident and was left paralytic until his death on 15 September 1942.
He died in poverty, left no economic inheritance, nor political-partisan inheritance, and his name is synonymous with repudiation in Uruguay.
National Government (1931-1938)
On 1 M. 1931, he assumed the Presidency of the Republic for the period 1931-1935. He opposed the Constitution of 1918 from the beginning, claiming that it was an unviable system that generated ungovernability. In 1932 the economic and political crisis worsened, so in November of that year he finally separated from the leading figures of and began a tour of the interior of the country in favor of constitutional reform, instigating the mobilization of thousands of farmers through the center of Montevideo. On 1 April a "March on Montevideo" was organized, inspired by the March on Rome of Benito Mussolini, and the farmers paraded on Larrañaga Avenue to the "Centro Eúskaro" along with thousands of people, managing to unite the support of the rural sectors and independent revolutionaries.On the night of 31 March 1933, with the support of the National Police, led by Baldomir Ferrari, the Armed Forces, more than 70% of the Batllismo with the former presidents Claudio Williman, José Serrato, Juan Campisteguy, the, the Riverismo and the majority sector of the National Party, led by Luis Alberto de Herrera, carried out a coup d'état by which the National Council of Administration, the Parliament and the Chamber of Senators. The period inaugurated by said coup is known as "Terra's dictatorship", named by the putschists as "Third Republic" or "March Government", who give the Coup d'etat the name of "March Revolution".
He established a progressive and anti-liberal government that was opposed by Batllismo, the Independent Whites, the Socialist Party of Uruguay and the Communist Party of Uruguay. In 1934 he promulgated a new constitution, which was in full force until 1942. It restricted the immigration of "alcoholics, mentally ill and disabled", decriminalized homosexuality, recognized new rights that the State should guarantee, such as the right to strike, right to housing, right to work, right to health, right to food, protection of children and the family, equality between both sexes, Women's suffrage, an increased state control in the economy, with new sections and articles for the Autonomous Entities and Decentralized Services, the State control on trusted capitals and oligopolies and the prohibition of usury. He was elected Constitutional President again for the period 1934-1938, and held office until 19 June 1938.
National policies and international relations
Industry, infrastructure and energy policies
During his mandate, an aggressive import substitution industrialization policy was developed: between 1933 and 1938 the industry grew by 160%, more than 14,500 new factories were founded, and important public works were carried out, such as a massive program of road construction and workers' housing through the Ministry of Public Works. In addition, the "National Institute of Affordable Housing" was created.In 1937, works began for the Rincón del Bonete hydroelectric dam, a feat lauded by the IEEE. In 1938 a technical commission was established to plan the construction of the even bigger Salto Grande dam, and laid the groundwork for the construction of other hydroelectric projects, such as the Baygorria dam and the Palmar dam. These projects turned the country into the first modern nation to achieve total energetic self-sufficiency. In 1937 the government inaugurated the De La Teja refinery, in collaboration with the workers of the working class neighborhood of La Teja and state-owned energy company, ANCAP. On 31 March 1938, the National Laboratory of Electrical Magnitudes of State-Owned Telephones and Power Stations was opened.
Agricultural policies
Following up on the ideas he conceived throughout his political career, his government carried out programs for the modernization of agricultural production, the elimination of hunger, the subdivision of rural land, created the Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries, the "National Institute for the Scientific Feeding of the People", instituted the "Compulsory Cultivation Law", and the "Land Distribution Law", which granted to more than 2,000 poor families land and elements for agricultural production, among which more than 2,300 nationally manufactured tractors and plows. The law also granted these families tax and credit benefits. By 1937, agricultural production increased the cultivated area by 351,000 hectares and gave work to 31,000 more people than at the beginning of the dictatorship.The institution of the family homestead was also introduced by an Act of May 1938.
Business, financial and fiscal policies
He made statements about Jews and international finance, in one of his long radio-conferences.The financial system was reformed through the approval of the "Revaluation Law", where the issuance of credit and the commercial activity of the banking was monopolized by the "Issuance Department" created in 1935, based on article 51 of the 1934 Constitution. On 14 April 1933, debt collection was eliminated, benefiting especially small and medium-sized rural producers. The government also amortized debts, canceled the payment of 55,000,000 pesos of external credits and fixed all interest at 4% per year with Law 9,071. The government did not take on external credits, and in 1935 paid the debt with the United Kingdom, in 1936 with the United States and by 1938 it paid off all the external debt of Uruguay, which was in excess of 61,000,000 pesos incurred since the Great War in the 19th century, until 1933. Taxes were reduced, and all taxes on those who earned less than 100 pesos per month were abolished. Between 1934 and 1938 the administration saw significant surpluses, such as 9.65% in 1935. The value of the national currency was set by law. By 1937, the "Foreign Currency Fund" accrued over 30,000,000 pesos in foreign currencies, which were used to pay off the totality of the country's sovereign debt by 1938.
Between 1933 and 1937 there was a vast surge in markets of upwards of 80% due to commercial deals with countries such as Germany, Brasil, the Netherlands, Japan, Spain and Italy. However, the circulation of foreign currencies and merchandises within the country without official authorization was prohibited.
On 9 November 1934, by means of the decree of the 1st of August of the same year, was created the "Honorary Commission of Imports and Exchanges". The legislation also reformed, enlarged and solidified the delegated powers of the Bank of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay with regards to regulating commerce, the foreign currency exchange market, and the importation of foreign products.