Batlle y Ordóñez, José

Batlle y Ordóñez, José (hōsā` bät`yā` ē ôrdō`nyās), 1856–1929, president of Uruguay (1903–07, 1911–15). A journalist and the head of the Colorado party, Batlle was a campaigner for political reform. In his second term he initiated radical legislation to increase public welfare and substitute government for the anarchism that had plagued Uruguay since the winning of independence. Among his most significant proposals were universal adult suffrage, labor reforms, and the decentralization of the executive into a junta modeled after the Swiss federal council. The constitution of 1917, framed under his influence, curbed the power of the executive and provided for socialist government, a trend not interrupted until Terra became president in 1931.

Bibliography

See study by M. I. Vanger (1963).

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Batlle y Ordóñez, José

(born May 21, 1856, Montevideo, Uru.—died Oct. 20, 1929, Montevideo) President of Uruguay (1903–07, 1911–15). The son of a former president of Uruguay, he was involved in politics from the 1880s. His narrow victory in the 1903 presidential election led to a brief civil war, but when he held new elections in 1905 he won again. He stepped down at the end of his term and was reelected in 1911. He inaugurated labour reforms, limited the profits of foreign-owned businesses, encouraged migration, nationalized and developed public works, ended the death penalty, and protected children born out of wedlock. He is credited with transforming Uruguay into a stable, democratic welfare state.

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Batlle y Ordóñez, José 

Born May 21, 1856, in Montevideo; died there Oct. 20, 1929. State and political figure of Uruguay.

In 1886, Batlle founded the newspaper El Dia, which came out for bourgeois democratic reforms. In the 1880’s he became a leader of the Colorado Party. (In the beginning of the 20th century it was called the Batllist Party.) In the years 1903–07 and 1911–15 he was the president of Uruguay. In this post he promoted the development of state capitalism in the country, carried on policies of protectionism, improved the system of public education, introduced laws on pensions and an eight-hour work day, and prepared reforms of the 1830 constitution. Bailie’s reforms hastened the economic development of Uruguay but did not affect its latifundia system. Trying to limit the influence of Great Britain, Batlle encouraged the penetration of US capital into the country. Batlle’s bourgeois reformism (batllism, according to the term taken into the literature) was the reaction of the ruling classes to the rise of the workers’ movement. The ideological essence of batllism is to create the illusion of a “social peace” and interfere with the class struggle.

REFERENCE

Pintos, F. Batl’e i protsess istoricheskogo razvitiia Urugvaia. Moscow, 1962. (Translated from Spanish.)