Arturo Fortunato Alessandri Palma He was born in Longaví, Linares Province on December 20, 1868. At the age of twelve he entered the Sacred Hearts School of the French Fathers. Study right at the University of Chile and graduated in 1893. He participated in the newspaper “La Justicia”, placing him as an opponent of José Manuel Balmaceda.
He works as a lawyer and marries Rosa Ester Rodríguez Velasco, with whom he has nine children. He is appointed director of the Library of the National Congress of Chile. Soon after, he decided to join political life and joined the Liberal Party as a deputy from Curicó. Alessandri wins the elections against his rival Arturo del Río and due to the aggressiveness of the electoral campaign he earned the nickname of “Lion of Tarapacá”. He is running for the presidency of the Republic for the Liberal Alliance, winning and making speeches that some conservatives called radicals.
Alessandri came to power through promises, laws that favored the worker like the health insurance. But at the end of the First World War the country was sunk by a terrible economic and later social crisis. All his projects were canceled. The military expressed their displeasure to the president demanding that the laws that had previously been enacted and promised in the courts be applied. A new military cabinet is formed and Alessandri has to go into exile to the U.S. Embassy.
Luis Altamirano Talavera, a military man and a coup leader, demanded that the president return to complete his term, returning to the courts and drafting a new constitution that reaffirmed the Executive Power and the separation of Church and State. An opponent arises for the acting coup plotter, Carlos Ibáñez del Campo and with the fear of suffering another coup, Alessandri resigned from his position and carried out the functions of senator from Tarapacá. Soon after, he was exiled to Europe by Carlos Ibáñez del Campo. Upon returning to the presidency, he established the Socialist republic maintaining good relations with the left and right sector to avoid possible riots and coups. Even so, the peasant rebellion of Ránquil takes place, the National-Socialist Movement of Chile in Jorge González Von Marées and the Massacre of the Workers’ Insurance in which Alessandri did not prevent. He died on August 24, 1950.