Bernardo Soto Alfaro

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Bernardo Soto Alfaro

Ramón Bernardo Soto Alfaro (born February 12, 1854 in Alajuela , † January 28, 1931 in San José ) was President of Costa Rica from March 12, 1885 to November 7, 1889 .

Life

Bernardo Soto Alfaro's parents were Joaquina Alfaro Muñoz and General Apolinar de Jesús Soto Quesada. He came from a wealthy family who had many influential relatives in Central American governments. For example, Marco Aurelio Soto was a cousin of Ramón Bernardo Soto Alfaro. He attended elementary school in Alajuela and a high school in San José, where he graduated from high school in 1871 as a Bachelor of Science and Art. In 1877 he became a Licenciado of law at the Universidad de Santo Tomás . During his studies in 1875 he refused to take off his hat to the dictator Tomás Guardia Gutiérrez and was imprisoned in San Carlos.

Soto Alfaros became a member of the Partido Liberal and was from 1874 as Cincinato in a Masonic lodge . He was a member of the Generación del Olimpo cohort , which also includes Presidents Carlos Durán, Asención Esquivel, Ricardo Jiménez and Cleto González Víquez.

Bernardo Soto Alfaro married Pacífica Fernández Guardia, the daughter of Juan Primitivo Próspero Fernández Oreamuno , on April 19, 1885 . Their son was Maximiliano Soto Fernández, born in 1886, who married Vera Field Hine.

Governor of Alajuela

In 1881 Soto was appointed governor of Alajuela , a few months later he resigned from this office in order to travel to Europe. After his return in 1882, Saturnino Lizado Gutiérrez also appointed him governor of Alajuela on May 9, 1882. Political interest was concentrated on Alajuela, as the dictator Tomás Guardia Gutiérrez ruled his house here due to illness. Guardia died on July 6, 1882, and Bernardo Soto played an important role in the dictator's funeral ceremonies.

The president from August 10, 1882 Juan Primitivo Próspero Fernández Oreamuno was the father-in-law of Bernardo Soto. Fernández appointed his son-in-law Bernardo Soto as government and education minister when he took office

In October 1882 the government cabinet was reshuffled and Bernardo Soto became Minister of Finance, Trade and Education and Deputy President, replacing the resigned Luis Diego Sáenz Carazo.

In January 1884, the government cabinet was restructured again, so that Bernardo Soto added the ministries for war, navy, government and politics to his previous ministries. With this accumulation of offices he was promoted to brigadier general. The Ministries for Foreign Affairs, Public Education, Justice, Culture, and Welfare were headed by José María Castro Madriz .

Bernardo Soto is credited with an important role in electrifying the street lighting of San José in 1884.

Contrato Soto-Keith

In 1884, Bernardo Soto signed the Contrato Soto-Keith , a settlement agreement in which Minor Keith's railway construction company transferred 800,000 hectares of land in the Zona Atlántico developed by the railway tax-free, a concession to operate the railway for 99 years for the Assurance of the completion of the railway line San José - Puerto Limón and a renegotiation of the resulting government debts to British banks was agreed.

Contrato Soto-Ortuño

The Contrato Soto-Ortuño was signed on October 21, 1884 by Finance Minister Soto and Gaspar Ortuño, the head of the Banco de la Unión . The Banco de la Unión was allowed to create money up to twice the value of its deposits . The Banco de la Unión gave the government a permanent loan of a quarter of a million USD for this purpose , in addition to which it had to pay bills issued by the government . On November 17, 1890, the bank changed its name to Banco de Costa Rica and retained the exclusive right to create money until 1900.

Leyes Liberales

Soto was also involved in the editing of private law and the liberal laws of 1884, in which the properties of the cemeteries of the Catholic Church were expropriated without compensation and religious communities were banned. In the course of these measures, the Bishop of Costa Rica, Bernardo Augusto Thiel, was expelled and the Concordato Lorenzana- Antonelli , which was concluded in 1852 by the Ambassador of the Government of Costa Rica to the Holy See , Fernando de Lorenzana y Sánchez, and the Marqués de Belmonte, canceled.

Presidency 1885–1886

On March 12, 1885, Juan Primitivo Próspero Fernández Oreamuno died and Soto became executive president. The Costa Rican government had allied itself with the governments of Adán Cárdenas and Francisco Menéndez Valdivieso against the governments of Justo Rufino Barrios Auyón and Luis Bográn Barahona . Because Barrios wanted to enforce a Central American economic integration militarily. Soto prepared a mobilization. Barrios was killed in a battle on April 2, 1885, before troops sent to Costa Rica became involved in combat. In view of the danger of war, the Cruz Roja Costarricense was founded on April 5, 1885 . On April 29, 1885, the ministers Carlos Durán Cartín and Mauro Fernández Acuña founded the Hospicio Nacional de Locos . To finance the construction and maintenance, the Junta de Caridad del Hospital San Juan de Dios was given a concession for a Lotería Nacional on May 10, 1885 .

In May 1885, Soto was promoted to division general. In 1886 the statutes of the Hospicio de Huérfanos , which had been established in 1869 with a donation from Gerónima Fernández Chacón de Montealegre, the wife of Mariano Montealegre Bustamante, were ratified.

During this reign, the metric system was introduced into law. In 1885 the Dirección General de Telégrafos was founded. The Escuela Normal for the training of teachers was founded. In 1886, a Ley general de Educación Común , a curriculum by the Secretario de Instrucción Pública , Minister of Public Education, Mauro Fernández Acuña, was decreed.

Bernardo Soto ran for the term of office from 1886 to 1890. He used the power given to him as head of the executive to prevent the candidacy of one of his wife's political uncle, General Víctor Guardia Gutiérrez, brother of Tomás Guardia Gutiérrez , so remained the only candidate and was elected in early April 1886.

Presidency 1886–1890

In 1888 a civil law with civil marriage and a code of civil procedure became legally effective.

Minister of Finance was Manuel Aragón Quesada (1844–1921).

His minister for public education was again Mauro Fernández Acuña, who closed the Catholic Universidad de Santo Tomás in 1888 so that Costa Rica no longer had a university.

In 1887 Fernández opened the Instituto de Alajuela the Liceo de Costa Rica and in 1888 the Colegio Superior de Señoritas .

During his tenure, the Museo Nacional in 1887 , the Biblioteca Nacional in 1888 , the Instituto Metereológico Nacional , in 1889 the Instituto Físico-Geográfico and the Dirección General de Aduanas were founded.

In 1887 the Parque Morazán was created.

In terms of foreign policy, the Convención Esquivel-Román was concluded with the Evaristo Carazo Aranda government , in which an arbitration award was agreed on a controversy over the validity of the Tratado Cañas-Jerez on the border with Nicaragua. Grover Cleveland pronounced an arbitration award on March 21, 1887, the Laudo Cleveland .

Bernardo Soto's deputy was his father Apolinar de Jesús Soto Quesada, who also acted repeatedly as Minister for War and the Navy.

In the presidential election for the term of office from 1890-1894, Ascensión Esquivel Ibarra, the second deputy of Soto and José Rodríguez Zeledón, ran.

Bernardo Soto transferred the official duties to Ascensión Esquivel Ibarra from May 1 to August 10, 1889.

In the elections in November 1889, José Rodríguez Zeledón received an undisputed majority.

Before the prospect of civil war, Soto gave up the presidency on November 7, 1889 to his third deputy, Carlos Durán Cartín , in the usual manner .

In 1905 Bernardo Soto ran for the presidency, resigned after the first round of the candidacy and gave another candidate Máximo Fernández Alvarado an election recommendation for Tobías Zúñiga Castro, a minister in his government cabinet.

In 1905, Ascensión Esquivel Ibarra was president. He supported the candidacy of Cleto González Víquez the member of the state party, also a minister in the government cabinet of Soto. Ascensión Esquivel Ibarra had Zúñiga, Fernández and Soto from Costa Rica expelled before the second ballot. They were allowed to re-enter after Cleto González Víquez was elected president.

In 1917 a constitution was drawn up by a commission made up of former presidents, including Soto. This constitution was in effect during the second term of Federico Tinoco Granados (1917-1919), but was ineffective.

Individual evidence

1. ^ The New York Times , February 25, 1887, MARCO A. SOTO WANTS A SYNDICATE cousin, Bernardo Soto, President of that republic
2. ↑ Jorge Francisco Sáenz Carbonell, Los meses de don Aniceto: ascenso y caída de don Aniceto Esquivel Sáenz , EUNED, 2002, 232 p., P. 15.
3. ↑ Jorge Rovira Mas, Estado y política económica en Costa Rica, 1948–1970 , Editorial Universidad de Costa Rica, 1982, 224 p., P. 25.
4. ↑ UNIVERSIDAD ESTATAL A DISTANCIA cr Historia de la banca comercial en Costa Rica ( Memento of the original dated March 31, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. pdf 
5. ↑ Armando Vargas Araya, La Huella Imborrable, Las dos visitas de José Martí a Costa Rica 1893 y 1894 , EUNED, p. 13.
6. ^ The New York Times , October 6, 1889, [1] the decision of President Cleveland was given, which was on March 21, 1887
7. ↑ The New York Times , March 29, 1906, Four Costa Rican politicians, all of them officially exiled from their country arrived in this city on the Atlas liner Sibiria from Port Limon The exiles are Bernardo Soto, an ex-President of Costa Rica; Octavia Garcia, editor of the San José Republica; But Pacheco, a lawer and Maximo Fernandez. The Costa Ricans were not inclined to say much. It was explained that ex-President Soto had forbidden them to talk for publication.
8. ↑ Clotilde María Obregón, Nuestros gobernantes: Verdades del pasado para comprender el futuro , Editorial Universidad de Costa Rica, 2002, 155 pp., 95.

References

1. ^ Es : Apolinar de Jesús Soto Quesada
2. ^ Es : San Carlos (cantón)
3. ↑ en: Vice Presidents of Costa Rica
4. ↑ es: Minor Keith
5. ^ Es : Bernardo Augusto Thiel
6. ^ Es : Mariano Montealegre Bustamante
7. ^ Es : Mauro Fernández Acuña
8. ^ Es : Universidad de Santo Tomás (Costa Rica)
9. ^ Es : Tratado Cañas-Jerez

predecessor	Office	successor
Juan Primitivo Próspero Fernández Oreamuno	Presidents of Costa Rica March 12, 1885 to November 7, 1889	Carlos Durán Cartín