History of Argentina - National Autonomist Hegemony (1880-1916)

National Autonomist Hegemony (1880-1916)

After his surge in popularity due to his successful desert campaign, Julio Roca was elected president in 1880 as the candidate for the National Autonomist Party, a party that would remain in power until 1916. During his presidency, Roca created a net of political alliances and installed several measures that helped him retain almost absolute control of the Argentine political scene throughout the 1880s. This sharp ability with political strategy earned him his nickname of "The Fox".

The country's economy was benefited by a change from extensive farming to industrial agriculture and a huge European immigration, but there wasn't yet a strong move towards industrialisation. At that time, Argentina received some of the highest levels of foreign investment in Latin America. In the midst of this economic expansion, the Law 1420 of Common Education of 1884 guaranteed universal, free, non-religious education to all children. This and other government policies were strongly opposed by the Roman Catholic Church in Argentina, causing the Holy See to break off diplomatic relations with the country for several years and setting the stage for decades of continued Church-state strain.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, Argentina temporarily resolved its border disputes with Chile with the Puna de Atacama Lawsuit of 1899, the Boundary treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina and the 1902 General Treaty of Arbitration. Roca's government and those that followed were aligned with the Argentine oligarchy, especially the great land owners.

In 1888, Miguel Juárez Celman became president after Roca was constitutionally unable to be re-elected; Celman attempted to reduce Roca's control over the political scene, which earned him his predecessor's opposition. Roca leda great opposition movement against Celman, which coupled with the devastating effects that the Long Depression had on the Argentine economy allowed the Civic Union opposition party to start a coup d'état which would be later known as the Revolution of the Park. The Revolution was led by the three main leaders of the Civic Union, Leandro Alem, former president Bartolomé Mitre and moderate socialist Juan B. Justo. Though it failed in its main goals, the revolution forced Juárez Celman's resignation and marked the decline of the Generation of '80.

In 1891 Roca proposed that the Civic Union elect somebody to be vice-president to his own presidency the next time elections came around. One group led by Mitre decided to take the deal, while another more intransigent group led by Alem went against that. This eventually led to the split of the Civic Union into the National Civic Union, led by Mitre, and the Radical Civic Union, led by Alem. After this division occurred, Roca withdrew his offer, having completed his plan to divide the Civic Union and decrease their power. Alem would eventually commit suicide in 1896; control of the Radical Civic Union went to his nephew and protégé, Hipólito Yrigoyen.

After Celman's downfall, his vice-president Carlos Pellegrini took over and proceeded to resolve the economic crisis which afflicted the country, earning him the moniker of "The Storm Sailor". Fearing another wave of opposition from Roca like the one imposed on Celman, Pellegrini remained moderate in his presidency ending his predecessor's efforts to distance "The Fox" from political control. The following governments up until 1898 took similar measures and sided with Roca to avoid being politically chastised.

In 1898, Roca became president again in a politically unstable situation, with a large amount of social conflicts that included massive strikes and anarchist subversion attempts. Roca handled most of these conflicts by having the police or the army crack down on protestors, rebels and suspected rebels. After the end of his second presidency, Roca fell ill and his role in political affairs began to gradually decrease until his death in late 1914.

In 1904, Alfredo Palacios, a member of Juan B. Justo's Socialist Party (founded in 1896), became the first Socialist deputy in Argentina, as a representative for the working-class neighborhood of La Boca in Buenos Aires. He helped create many laws, including the Ley Palacios against sexual exploitation, and others regulating child and woman labor, working hours and Sunday rest.

The hegemony of the PAN ended in 1910 with the election of Roque Sáenz Peña to the presidency. Peña was a progressive member of the PAN who disliked the fraudulent elective system the PAN employed and thus passed the Ley Sáenz Peña, which made the political vote mandatory, secret and universal among males aged eighteen or more. Under this law the first non-PAN president since 1880 was elected in 1916, Hipólito Yrigoyen of the Radical Civic Union.