Panama to Patagonia

by Charles M. Pepper

It is only with the internal political history that I propose to deal. A Chilean historian naively remarks that it had been the practice for the outgoing president to intervene in the elections in order to insure the election of a candidate of his own choosing. President Pinto announced his purpose of repudiating this practice, yet he was succeeded by Domingo Santa Maria, who had held the portfolio of Foreign Relations in his cabinet. President Santa Maria found himself antagonized by the Conservatives and one wing of the Liberals. He tried to organize an administration party and to control the election of senators and deputies in the Congress, but failed. This was a clear manifestation of the inability of the Executive to rule without the consent of the families who composed the various political groups. But the issue between the Executive and the families was to be forced by a more resolute hand. Its outcome was dramatic, a tragedy for the nation and a tragedy for one of the country’s greatest men.

José Manuel Balmaceda was chosen president in 1886, after a sharp electoral struggle in which the Conservatives and the reactionary faction of the Liberals opposed him. He sought to conciliate the latter by calling some of them to his cabinet. He had grand plans for the development of the nation, and he wanted a united support.

President Balmaceda strengthened the naval and military establishment out of the nitrate proceeds; but his guiding ambition was to apply them to public improvements, railways, roads, harbors, and schools. The Conservative-Liberal fusion thwarted him. It prevailed in the Congress, and demanded that he name ministers satisfactory to the majority. This he claimed was in violation of his constitutional prerogatives. The Congress refused to authorize the taxes and appropriations necessary for carrying on the government. When for any reason this was not done at the regular session, the practice had been to convoke the Congress in extra sessions. President Balmaceda, wearied with the controversy, abstained from taking this action. On January 1, 1891, he announced that the appropriations for the current year would be the same as during the previous year.

Bloody, merciless civil war followed. The Congressionalists proclaimed that their contest was against Executive usurpation. They removed to Valparaiso, and took refuge on the warships which had been prepared for them. They named Captain Jorge Montt as Commander of the National Squadron. President Balmaceda declared Montt and the naval commanders who obeyed his orders traitors. The President organized an army, while the navy sailed for Iquique and seized the nitrate provinces.

The Congressionalists instituted their provisional government there to carry on the war against President Balmaceda. They organized troops which were transported to Valparaiso and defeated the garrison. A second victory at Placilla and they were in control of the capital, welcomed by the populace as liberators.

Balmaceda took refuge in the Argentine Legation. Flight across the Andes was open to him, but he disdained it. He waited calmly till September 19, the day on which his constitutional term as president ended, wrote farewell letters to his family and friends, arrayed himself in black, pointed a revolver at his right temple, discharged it, and died instantly. His policies live.

I have recalled these swiftly tragic events without any intention of opening up controverted subjects. My purpose has been to sketch them only in their relations to the political system of Chile as it exists to-day, for they influenced it and caused modifications of the Constitution restrictive of the Executive power.

By the books the form of Chilean government is popular representative. To the foreign observer the wonder grows that a system which gives such inordinate power to small groups of families, who call themselves political parties, and which binds the Executive hand and foot, can prove satisfactory. But it suits Chile, or has suited her, and the country progresses. That is the conclusive answer. If Chile chooses to make a strait-jacket for herself, that is her own concern, and if in that strait-jacket she expands and develops a progressive national life she may be permitted to take her own way and her own time for freeing herself.

But what of the governing classes? Who compose them? The Chilean professional man or merchant or government official will tell you, as he told me, that there are no class distinctions, and at the same time will take pride in drawing himself and his fellows far apart from the masses. It has been said that a hundred families have ruled Chile for seventy-five years. The numeral might be doubled or trebled, but the truth would not be changed. The landed interests, the commercial community, and the Church have ruled the country, and it must be said that they have ruled well. They may accuse one another of being false to their trusteeship, but the foreign observer is not impressed with this charge. All of them have worked together to make Chile the powerful and aggressive little nation that she is, and have secured her the respect that the rest of South America has given her. But they have taken all the benefits for themselves,—the honors and emoluments of public office, the opportunities for wealth that came from the nitrate fields, the chances for careers that have been afforded by the army and the navy. It may almost be said that the army and navy exist for the employment of the one hundred families.

Chile herself is not a country of great private fortunes. One or two families have been enriched by mines, a half-dozen by banking and commercial development, a larger number by the nitrates. But when it is all said, the Chilean hundred families are kin of moderate means. Their main sources of income are from their landed estates. These land-owners do not tax themselves heavily. As in the majority of countries of Spanish America, the government imposts are laid on the revenue from the land and not on the land itself. The landed proprietors contrive that these imposts shall be light.