José Canalejas y Méndez
{{Short description|Former Spanish Prime Minister (1854 – 1912)}}
{{for|other people with similar names|José Canalejas (disambiguation)}}
{{family name hatnote|Canalejas|Méndez|lang=Spanish}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific-prefix=The Most Excellent
| name=José Canalejas
| nationality=Spanish
| image=José Canalejas Méndez.png
| birth_date={{Birth date|1854|7|31|df=y}}
| death_date={{death date and age|1912|11|12|1854|7|31|df=y}}
| death_cause= Assassination by gunshot
| resting_place=Pantheon of Illustrious Men
| party=Liberal Party
| deputy=Manuel García Prieto
| office=Prime Minister of Spain
| term_start=9 February 1910
| term_end=12 November 1912
| monarch=Alfonso XIII
| predecessor=Segismundo Moret y Prendergast
| successor=Álvaro Figueroa, Count Romanones
|signature=Firma de José Canalejas.svg}}
File:CanalejasPanteon.jpg, Madrid]]
José Canalejas y Méndez (31 July 1854 – 12 November 1912) was a Spanish politician, born in Ferrol, who served as Prime Minister of Spain from 1910 until his assassination in 1912.
Early life
Son of a railway engineer, politician and editor of the newspaper El Eco Ferrolano José Canalejas y Casas and of María del Amparo Méndez Romero. He moved with his family to Madrid, and in October 1867 he enrolled in the Instituto San Isidro, "because at that time the incorporated schools could not teach the last two years of the six which made up the baccalaureate ».{{cite book | last = Francos Rodríguez | first = José | author-link = José Francos Rodríguez | title = The life of Canalejas | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=RrpDAAAAYAAJ | access-date = 25 January 2019 | language = ES | year = 1918 | publisher = Tip. of the "Rev. de arch., bibl. and museums" | place = Madrid| chapter = In the Institute of San Isidro | pages = 6}} Already at the Central University of Madrid, he obtained the degrees of Law in 1871 and Philosophy in 1872, and the degree of doctor in both faculties. In 1873 he was assistant professor, but failed in two chair examinations, so he left teaching.{{citation needed|date=January 2019}} He joined the company of the Railways of Madrid to Ciudad Real and Badajoz, where he became secretary general and He defended the company as a lawyer in lawsuits with other Spanish railway companies.
Political career
In 1881, Canalejas was elected deputy for Soria. Two years later, he was appointed under-secretary for the Prime Minister's department under Posada Herrera; he became minister of justice in 1888 and finance from 1894 to 1895. A brief spell as Minister of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce from March to May 1902 ended after only two months, when he resigned as he regarded the Sagasta Ministry weak and "incapable of safeguarding the Sovereignty of the State in view of the encroachments of the Vatican".[cited in The Times 30 May 1902 {{Cite newspaper The Times |title=Latest intelligence - Spain |date=30 May 1902 |page=5 |issue=36781}}]
He served as President of the Congress of Deputies (the equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon office of parliamentary Speaker) from 1906 to 1907.
=Canalejas Ministry =
In 1909, after the bloody confrontations of the "Tragic Week" in Barcelona, Antonio Maura resigned and Segismundo Moret was again appointed prime minister. Moret was forced to resign in February 1910 when he was replaced by Canalejas who became Prime Minister and chief of the Liberal party. Moret denounced the Canalejas Ministry as "a democratic flag being used to cover reactionary merchandise".Professor J. C J. Metford: The Spanish Anarchist Movement, 1908-75, Mastermind Quiz Book, 1984
While in office, Canalejas (with the support of his sovereign, Alfonso XIII) introduced several electoral reforms that aimed to win working-class support for moderately conservative policies; to curb the power of independent political bosses, quite common at the time, especially in rural areas; to weaken excesses of Catholic educational clericalism without threatening the Catholic Church as such; and to turn Spain into a true democracy. These policies successfully faced the social turmoil that radicals had been creating within Spain (and which had led, in 1909, to a brief but bloody unrest in Barcelona).
Death
On 12 November 1912, while Canalejas was window-shopping the literary novelties of the day from a bookstore in central Madrid, he was fatally shot by anarchist Manuel Pardiñas.
Legacy
Canalejas believed in the possibility of a monarchy open to a thoroughgoing democratic policy both in economic and in civil and political matters. Salvador de Madariaga, the liberal historian, argued that the disasters Spain experienced during the 1930s could be traced to Canalejas' murder, given that this murder deprived King Alfonso of one of his few genuine statesmen.
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{Commons-inline}}
- [http://www.filosofia.org/ave/001/a287.htm José Canalejas Méndez] Proyecto Filosofía en español
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20170922085502/http://canalejas.org/ José Canalejas Méndez] Archivo Canalejas (In Spanish)
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20041217044407/http://www.uc3m.es/uc3m/inst/MU/publicaciones/Madrid/bio_jose_canalejas.html José Canalejas Méndez] Universidad Carlos III de Madrid - Biographical page in Spanish about "José Canalejas"
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Canalejas, Jose}}
Category:People murdered in 1912
Category:People from Ferrol, Spain
Category:Liberal Party (Spain, 1880) politicians
Category:19th-century Spanish lawyers
Category:Prime ministers of Spain
Category:Economy and finance ministers of Spain
Category:Presidents of the Congress of Deputies (Spain)
Category:Assassinated Spanish politicians
Category:Deaths by firearm in Spain
Category:Members of the Royal Spanish Academy
Category:People murdered in Spain
Category:Assassinated prime ministers
Category:Justice ministers of Spain
Category:Leaders of political parties in Spain