Ramon Barros Luco

Ramon Barros Luco

Ramón Barros Luco (born June 9, 1835 in Santiago de Chile , † September 20, 1919 ibid) was a Chilean politician. From 1910 to 1915 he was President of his country.

After school, Barros studied at the Universidad de Chile , where he graduated in law in 1858 . He married Mercedes Valdés Cuevas, the marriage remained childless.

He joined the Liberal Party and was elected to the House of Representatives in 1861. From 1872 to 1876 he was Minister of Finance under President Federico Errázuriz Zañartu , from 1884 to 1885 under President Domingo Santa María González , who also made him Minister of the Interior.

In 1889 the House of Representatives elected him President, in 1892 he was again Minister of the Interior - this time for President Jorge Montt Álvarez - and in 1896 the Región de Tarapacá elected him to the Senate, of which Barros immediately took over. In 1897 the government sent him to Paris as diplomatic representative . In 1898 he was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary of Chile ( Ministre plénipotentiaire ) to Switzerland by President Federico Errázuriz Echaurren . In 1901 he again managed the interior department and in the following year also took over the chairmanship of the Sociedad Nacional de Agricultura , which represents the interests of farmers.

When President Pedro Montt Montt died in 1910 , the parties were doggedly fighting for a successor. Ramón Barros Luco, who was 77 at the time, was seen as a compromise solution that all parties, including the conservatives, could accept.

He was proclaimed by Congress on September 14, 1910, and Barros was elected on September 23, amid the celebrations marking the centenary of Chile's declaration of independence.

Barros' government was characterized by consideration for parliament: He did not want to offer the congressional opposition an opportunity to raise their profile. For example, he did not accept the resignation of a minister until both chambers of Congress had given their approval. The parliamentary government alternated between the two major political camps of its time, the Alianza Liberal (made up of radicals, liberals and democrats) and the Coalición (made up of conservatives, liberal democrats and nationalists).

In 1915 Juan Luis Sanfuentes Andonaegui was elected as his successor. Barros Luco devoted himself in the last years of his life to charitable causes, such as building a hospital that would bear his name. The 1919 flu epidemic also hit Ramón Barros Luco, who died at the age of 84.

Trivia

Although Ramón Barros Luco was not a president of spectacular effects, every child in Chile still knows his name: almost every day he ordered a sandwich topped with grilled beef steak and processed cheese in his regular café, the Confitería Torres in Santiago . This sandwich combination quickly became a local specialty and still bears his name today. Virtually every café in Chile has a Barros Luco sandwich on the menu.

See also: History of Chile .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ' Barros Luco, Ramón Historical Records of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Chile) (spa), (accessed July 14, 2016).