José Canalejas

The Most Excellent Don José Canalejas
Prime Minister of Spain
In office 9 February, 1910 – 12 November, 1912
Monarch	Alfonso XII
Vice PM	Manuel García Prieto
Preceded by	Segismundo Moret y Prendergast
Succeeded by	Álvaro Figueroa, Count Romanones
Personal details
Born	31 July 1854(1854-07-31) Ferrol, Spain
Died	12 November 1912(1912-11-12) Madrid, Spain
Nationality	Spanish
Political party	Liberal Party

José Canalejas y Méndez (31 July 1854 – 12 November 1912) was a Spanish politician, born in Ferrol.

Early life

Canalejas graduated in 1871 from the University of Madrid, took his Galicia doctor's degree in 1872 and became a lecturer on literature in 1873. He later studied railway problems, but continued his literary work, publishing a history of Latin literature in two volumes.

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. He served as president of the chamber (the equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon office of parliamentary Speaker) in Segismundo Moret's administration, and became Prime Minister and chief of the Liberal party in 1910.

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 civil war in Barcelona).

Canalejas's end was tragic. On 12 November 1912, while he 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.

Tomb of José Canalejas in the Panteón de Hombres Ilustres, Madrid

See also

• Café Gijón (Madrid)

External links

• José Canalejas Méndez Proyecto Filosofía en español
• José Canalejas Méndez Archivo Canalejas (In Spanish)
• José Canalejas Méndez Universidad Carlos III de Madrid - Biographical page in Spanish about "José Canalejas"