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

Prime Minister of Spain The prime minister of Spain, officially president of the Government ( es, link=no, Presidente del Gobierno), is the head of government of Spain. The office was established in its current form by the Constitution of Spain, Constitution of 1978 a ...

Early life

Son of a railway engineer, politician and editor of the newspaper '' El Eco Ferrolano '' José Canalejas y Casas and of María del Amparo Méndez Romero. He moved with his family to Madrid, and in October 1867 he enrolled in the

Instituto San Isidro The Instituto de Enseñanza Secundaria San Isidro (IES San Isidro) is a co-educational day school for pupils from 12 to 18 years of age. It is located in the historical Calle de Toledo in Madrid, Spain. It is one of 66 secondary schools establish ...

, "because at that time the incorporated schools could not teach the last two years of the six who made up the baccalaureate ». Already at the

Central University of Madrid The Complutense University of Madrid ( es, Universidad Complutense de Madrid; UCM, links=no, ''Universidad de Madrid'', ''Universidad Central de Madrid''; la, Universitas Complutensis Matritensis, links=no) is a public research university loca ...

, he obtained the degrees of Law in 1871 and Philosophy in 1872, and the degree of doctor in both faculties. In 1873 he was assistant professor, but failed in two chair examinations, so he left teaching. He joined the company of the Railways of Madrid to Ciudad Real and Badajoz, where he became secretary general and He defended the company as a lawyer in lawsuits with other Spanish railway companies.

Political career

In 1881 Canalejas was elected deputy for

Soria Soria () is a municipality and a Spanish city, located on the Douro river in the east of the autonomous community of Castile and León and capital of the province of Soria. Its population is 38,881 ( INE, 2017), 43.7% of the provincial populati ...

. 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. A brief spell as Minister of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce from March to May 1902 ended after only two months, when he resigned as he regarded the Sagasta Ministry weak and "incapable of safeguarding the Sovereignty of the State in view of the encroachments of the Vatican". ited in The Times 30 May 1902 /ref> He served as

President of the Congress of Deputies The president of the Congress of Deputies ( es, Presidente del Congreso de los Diputados) is the speaker of the Congress of Deputies, the lower house of the Cortes Generales (the Spanish parliament). The president is elected among the members o ...

(the equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon office of parliamentary Speaker) from 1906 to 1907.

Canalejas Ministry

In 1909, after the bloody confrontations of the " Tragic Week" in Barcelona,

Antonio Maura Antonio Maura Montaner (2 May 1853 – 13 December 1925) was Prime Minister of Spain on five separate occasions. Early life Maura was born in Palma, on the island of Mallorca, and studied law in Madrid. In 1878, Maura married Constanc ...

resigned and Segismundo Moret was again appointed prime minister. Moret was forced to resign in February 1910 when he was replaced by Canalejas who became Prime Minister and chief of the Liberal party. Moret denounced the Canalejas Ministry as "a democratic flag being used to cover reactionary merchandise".Professor J. C J. Metford: ''The Spanish Anarchist Movement, 1908-75'', Mastermind Quiz Book, 1984 While in office, Canalejas (with the support of his sovereign,

Alfonso XIII Alfonso XIII (17 May 1886 – 28 February 1941), also known as El Africano or the African, was King of Spain from 17 May 1886 to 14 April 1931, when the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed. He was a monarch from birth as his father, Alf ...

) 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 Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which people, the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choo ...

. 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 unrest in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

). On 12 November 1912, while he was window-shopping the literary novelties of the day from a bookstore in central

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

, 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 Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo (23 July 1886 – 14 December 1978) was a Spanish diplomat, writer, historian, and pacifist. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the Nobel Peace Prize. He was awarded the Charlemagne Prize in 1 ...

, 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.

References

External links

José Canalejas Méndez
Proyecto Filosofía en español
José Canalejas Méndez
Archivo Canalejas (In Spanish)

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid - Biographical page in Spanish about "José Canalejas" * {{DEFAULTSORT:Canalejas, Jose 1854 births 1912 deaths 1912 murders in Europe People from Ferrol, Spain Liberal Party (Spain, 1880) politicians 19th-century Spanish lawyers Prime Ministers of Spain Economy and finance ministers of Spain Presidents of the Congress of Deputies (Spain) Assassinated Spanish politicians Deaths by firearm in Spain Members of the Royal Spanish Academy People murdered in Spain Assassinated heads of government Justice ministers of Spain Leaders of political parties in Spain 1910s murders in Spain