José Domingues dos Santos

José Domingues dos Santos

José Domingues dos Santos (born August 5, 1885 in Lavra , † August 16, 1958 in Porto ) was a Portuguese politician and Prime Minister (Presidente do Conselho de Ministros) during the First Republic .

biography

Studies and professional career

Dos Santos, who came from a simple farming background, first graduated from the theological seminary in Porto after finishing school . He then began studying law at the University of Coimbra . After completing his studies, he settled as a lawyer in Porto in 1911 and at the same time worked for a time as a professor at the Porto Industrial and Commercial Institute. After its dissolution, he then took over a professorship at the Supreme Commercial Institute of Porto (Instituto Superior de Comércio do Porto) in 1918 . Since 1922 he was a supporter of Freemasonry .

First republic and time of the First World War

As a staunch Republican and Democrat with a predominantly liberal attitude to the essential political issues of his time, he joined the Partido Democrático .

In 1918 he was then for the first time a deputy of the parliament ( Assembleia da República ), in which he then represented the interests of the Democratic Party (PD) of the constituency of Porto for three electoral terms until 1926. At the same time, he increasingly assumed leading positions within the PD and was at the same time the founder of the journal A Tribuna , which appeared in Porto and which ran under the motto “Todas as ditaduras, tanto de esquerda como de direita, são odiosas” - “All dictators, whether left, whether right, people are to be hated ”was published.

After the proclamation of the Monarchy of the North (Monarquia do Norte) by Captain Paiva Couceiro on January 19, 1918 in Porto , a counter-coup soon followed under the command of Captain João Maria Sarmento Pimentel . After he had occupied the building of the civil government in Porto in February 1918, dos Santos was appointed civil governor of Porto shortly afterwards.

Ministerial offices

A few months later, Prime Minister Alfredo de Sá Cardoso appointed him Minister for Labor and Social Welfare in the government dominated by the Democratic Party on July 28, 1919. As a minister, he was exposed to a climate of labor disputes and anarcho-syndicalism . During his tenure, he was confronted in particular with the effects of the train drivers' strike (Caminhos-de-Ferro) that began on June 3, 1919 and culminated on August 15, 1919 in a bomb attack in Rossio station and an exchange of fire in the railway town of Entroncamento . The strike was ultimately only ended on September 1, 1919, thanks to massive intervention.

Due to the violence within the young republican society , however, no stable government was formed, so that the Sá Cardoso cabinet had to resign on January 15, 1920. Dos Santos himself remained, however, as Minister for Labor and Social Welfare in the so-called "Cabinet of the Five Minutes" of Francisco José Fernandes Costa and the four subsequent cabinets Sá Cardoso, Domingos Leite Pereira , António Maria Baptista and José Ramos Preto until 26. June 1920.

He was then appointed Minister of Commerce and Communication in António Maria da Silva's cabinet . However, when the latter had to resign after just under a month on July 19, 1920, he again took over his professorship at the Supreme Commercial Institute of Porto.

As early as November 30, 1920, he again took over a government office as Minister for Labor and Social Welfare in Liberato Ribeiro Pinto's cabinet. As such, he remained in the government of Bernardino Machado, which was then formed on March 2, 1921, until his resignation on May 23, 1921. Finally, he was appointed Minister of Justice to the government by Álvaro de Castro on December 18, 1923 and held this ministerial office until Alfredo Rodrigues Gaspar took over government on July 7, 1924.

Prime Minister 1924 to 1925 and final years of life

With the increase in social problems and the impossibility of social reformers due to the weak government majorities, the risk of uprisings increased in the months that followed. At that time the advisory committee and the board of the Partido Democrático asked the then President Manuel Teixeira Gomes to entrust the formation of the government. On November 22, 1924 he was then appointed Prime Minister (Presidente do Conselho de Ministros) . At the same time he took over the office of Minister of the Interior in his cabinet.

At this time there was already a strong bloc formation in the government camps, as a result of which the Union of Economic Interests (União dos Interesses Económicos) and the Association of Agriculture (Associação Central da Agricultura Portuguesa) were formed on the right. On the other hand, there was also radicalization in the left-wing party spectrum . This soon led to a crisis in the government that ultimately led to a vote of no confidence in parliament on February 11, 1925 , in which Dos Santos only got 45 of the 110 votes. Although his government only had to resign four days later on February 15, 1925, it was nevertheless extremely productive through ministerial decrees.

After his resignation, he tried to lead the left wing of the Partido Democrático, which led to a break with the moderate faction of the party around da Silva . For this reason, he then became chairman of the Republican Party of the Democratic Left (Partido Republicano da Esquerda Democrática) founded in 1920 , which in its party newspaper A Tribuna called for the dissolution of the monopolies and the division of land for the latifundia .

After the military coup of May 28, 1926 and the resulting termination of the First Republic and the beginning of the military dictatorship, democratic freedoms were eliminated and political parties were banned. On February 3, 1927, he took part in the riot in which the Republicans unsuccessfully tried to restore the previous situation. After the riot, which ended in bloodbath, Dos Santos was forced to go into exile in France .

In Paris he continued his fight against the dictatorship and became one of the co-founders of the League for the Defense of the Republic (Liga de Defesa da República) , the so-called League of Paris, which alongside him also the democratic politician Afonso Augusto da Costa , who emigrated to Paris , Machado , Jaime Cortesão , António Sérgio de Sousa and de Castro . Until the beginning of the 1950s, he remained as a commentary in French journals and on the radio an active opponent of the Estado Novo founded by António de Oliveira Salazar . He was also the author of articles in the Portuguese press under the pseudonym José d'Além.

He was only allowed to return to Portugal in 1954, where he died four years later in Porto.

Honors

A school was named after him in his hometown of Lavra.

In 1980 he was honored for his political work by issuing a special stamp from the Portuguese Post (Correios, Telégrafos e Telefones) in the series “Big Faces of the Republican Idea” (Grandes Vultos do Pensamento Republicano) .

publication

• Mensagem aos Democratas Portugueses . Paris 1946 (Embassies to the Democrats of Portugal)

Web links

• José Adelino Maltez: Políticos Portugueses da Ditadura Nacional e do Estado Novo (1926–1974) . December 20, 2003; accessed on July 11, 2015 (Portuguese)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ José Adelino Maltez: Governo de José Domingues dos Santos . 2004; accessed on July 11, 2015 (Portuguese)
2. ↑ Homepage of ESCOLA EB 2,3 Dr. José Domingues dos Santos, Lavra ( Memento of the original dated December 15, 2007 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.  

predecessor	Office	successor
Alfredo Rodrigues Gaspar	Prime Minister of Portugal November 22, 1924 - February 15, 1925	Vitorino de Carvalho Guimarães