A Nation in Search of Its Nationhood: Panama, 1912-1941

By Juan Manuel Pérez

When the Liberal Party reached power in Panama in 1912 it started a period that lasted until 1941. A period in which Panamanians, due to the special circumstances under which the country became independent, the presence of the United States, and of thousands of foreign workers in its territory, began to doubt and asked themselves if they were truly independent. The American presence impacted politics and a sense of inferiority developed because people believed that nothing could be accomplished without the blessings of the United States. In the middle of chaotic political scene and self-doubt, the country retreated to its Hispanic past and began an effort to Hispanize in the face of so much foreign presence and influence, and tried to show the world that Panama was an independent country with history and traditions, and not an appendage of the United States. Belisario Porras, who became president in 1912, emphasized the Hispanic past and built statues to Balboa and Cervantes. Acción Comunal, founded in 1923, promoted nationalism and criticized the corrupt nature of politics. It led a successful campaign against the 1926 Treaty and a coup in 1931. This new generation repudiated the generation that made the 1903 Treaty. “Panama for Panamanians” became one of the catch phrases for the Panamanian youth of the 1920’s and 1930’s, which found in the brothers Harmodio and Arnulfo Arias the leading exponents.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798369410288

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Copyright © 2024 by Juan Manuel Pérez. 851046

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Cover photograph: Panama City Central Avenue near RR

Station, 1924. National Archives, RG 185.

National Archives Identifier: 100997170. Local Identifier:

185-G-1295. Container Identifier: Box 7, Volume 13.

ISBN: 979-8-3694-1029-5 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-3694-1030-1 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-3694-1028-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023920791

Rev. date: 12/05/2023

To the memory of my parents.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1   PORRISMO: POPULISM TESTED

CHAPTER 2   BUILDING A NEW NATION

CHAPTER 3   CHIARISMO AND THE POLITICS OF CORRUPTION

CHAPTER 4   THE 1920S IN RETROSPECT: THE IDEOLOGICAL CHALLENGE— NEW POLITICAL DIRECTIONS

CHAPTER 5   ARIAS, ACCION COMUNAL, AND THE REVOLUTION OF 1931

CHAPTER 6   THE DISINTEGRATION OF LIBERALISM AND THE RISE OF HARMODIO AND ARNULFO ARIAS

CHAPTER 7   THE 1936 ELECTION AND THE ROAD TO POWER

CHAPTER 8   THE PNR’S CONSOLIDATION OF POWER AND THE ELECTION OF ARNULFO ARIAS

CHAPTER 9   BUILDING THE PANAMEÑISTA STATE

CHAPTER 10   PANAMEÑISTA POLICIES

CHAPTER 11   PANAMEÑISMO VERSUS THE UNITED STATES

CHAPTER 12   THE FALL OF THE ’31 GENERATION: THE OVERTHOW OF ARNULFO ARIAS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A good portion of the research for this book has been done during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic; that is why I am particularly grateful to all the people and institutions that have helped me during this period. It does not matter how much or how often I may thank them for their efforts; I will always come up short. Their willingness to help me during those trying times is something to be admired and a demonstration of their dedication and professionalism. To all of them, my most sincere gratitude.

I would like to thank my friends and colleagues in the Hispanic Division at the Library of Congress, where I worked for over thirty years: Katherine D. McCann, Tracy R. North, Carlos Olave, Patricia Peñón, María Thurber, and Henry Widener, as well as other divisions in the library—European Division, Law Division, Newspapers and Current Periodicals Reading Room, and Prints and Photographs Division—and Guadalupe García de Rivera, technical director, and her the staff at the Ernesto J. Castillero Reyes Biblioteca Nacional de Panamá, who made it possible for me to access hard-to-find materials.

I would also like to thank archivists Sarah Bseirani and Tod Crumley at the US National Archives in College Park, Maryland; Patrick F. Fahy, archivist, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Museum, Hyde Park, New York; Meredith Mann, the Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room for Rare Books and Manuscripts, the New York Public Library; John R. Nemmers, curator, University of Florida, Panama Canal Museum Collection; Dr. Gerhard Keiper, Auswärtiges Amt Polistiches Archiv und Historischer, Berlin; and Dr. Manuel Cambra and the Fundación Museo Arias Madrid in Panama. If I failed to mention anyone, please accept my most sincere apologies.

INTRODUCTION

Although it includes new material, this book is based largely on my 1993 doctoral dissertation. Then, as now, my interest has been Panamanian political history – even though my previous book on Panama deals with the period of the construction of the Canal – and how it was affected by the presence of the United States in the country. Panama and the United States were inexorably linked through the Canal and this impacted the evolution of Panamanian history.

After its independence from Colombia on November 3, 1903, with the help of the United States and a canal built through its territory, Panama was tied to them through the 1903 Panama Canal Treaty with all that it implied: their continued presence and influence in the country and its politics. And in the process, the idea of nation and nationality was diluted as Panamanians developed an inferiority complex. Panamanians lacked faith in themselves and in their country as an independent nation. In short, Panama had been robbed of its nationality.

Throughout its history, Panama’s geographic position played an important role on international trade and commerce, but it also attracted international rivalries, which was why Panamanians considered Panama’s privileged geographic position both a blessing and a curse. The American presence in its territory reinforced that fact because even though a canal had been built, they were not in control of it. In fact, they felt like second-class citizens in their own country. The presence of thousands of foreign workers to build, and later to maintain and operate the canal, contributed in reinforcing that idea. This turn of events created a generation that looked inward and questioned whether Panama was truly independent. But at the same time, in so doing, Panamanians tried to prove to the world that despite the special circumstances under which it achieved independence, Panama was an independent nation with its history and deserved to be respected as such. There was an effort, starting with Pres. Belisario Porras, to hispanize the country in the face of so much foreign influence. It was a period of great contradictions.

It was also a period in which politics were chaotic, corrupt, and fraudulent as there was a sense that nothing could be accomplished if it did not have the blessings of the United States. Therefore, politicians did not think of the country but think of themselves. Politics was seen as a vehicle for personal advancement, and a government post was considered a major accomplishment in a politician’s career. The period 1912–1941 saw the breakup of the Liberal Party into multiple factions, many of which degenerated into nothing more than personal associations to advance personal interests of the different liberal leaders. Politics were dominated by a few selected families, many of whom were interrelated, because of which Panama was often referred to as la república de los primos (the republic of cousins).

During this period, three political figures towered above all others, the great liberal caudillo Belisario Porras (president, 1912–1916, 1918–1920, 1920–1924), the builder of the modern Panamanian state, and the two brothers Harmodio (president, 1932–1936) and Arnulfo Arias Madrid (president, 1940–1941). The Arias brothers came to dominate politics to such an extent in the 1930s that it can safely be called the Arias decade. These three men attempted to highlight the panameñidad (the character or uniqueness of being Panamanian) of Panama and its people and defend them in the face of so much foreign presence and influence in the country. And with their policies, they contributed to the consolidation and modernization of the Panamanian state.

Belisario Porras and Harmodio and Arnulfo Arias were populist leaders who touched people like no others. Porras introduced reforms that built the modern Panamanian state and was the first political leader to ask for a revision of the 1903 Canal Treaty. It was in these early years that Porras tried to consolidate Panamanian independence and to prove to the world that Panama was a true independent nation and not an appendage of the United States. The 1916 National Exposition and the building of the monuments to Vasco Núñez de Balboa and Miguel de Cervantes during his administrations were attempts to prove just that—that Panama had a history, a character, a personality of its own independent of the United States. Panama started to look back into its past to find its essence of being as a nation and not being seen as an appendage of the United States. Harmodio Arias also contributed to the consolidation and modernization and was able to successfully negotiate a new canal treaty with the United States in 1936, which ended the right of American intervention in Panama.

Arnulfo Arias, the other great populist leader, was part of the generation that came of age in the 1920s in the middle of so much chaos and corruption and whose main characteristic was a radical and intense nationalism. Panama for Panamanians became one of the catchphrases for the Panamanian youth of the period.

The civic association Acción Comunal, founded in 1923, was representative of the period. It attacked the corruption in the government and the lack of nationalism and civic virtue and promoted nationalism with a considerable anti-American and antiforeign tint. It feared that Panama was losing its identity, its sense of being, because of the United States presence in the country. The nationalism that emerged was xenophobic as a reaction to so much foreign presence and influence in the country. This new generation rejected the 1903 treaty and the generation that made it possible. It believed the country had been sold out to American interests. Acción Comunal’s efforts led to the overthrow of the government on January 2, 1931, the first time a government was overthrown. Those events of January 2 catapulted the Arias brothers to political prominence and ushered in a decade of intense nationalism, a period in which Panama tried to assert itself as a truly independent nation.

Panama struggled with itself as it tried to develop a sense of being, a sense of nation attempting to control and manage its own destiny without foreign interference. In the middle of the chaotic political situation created by this lack of faith in Panama’s independence, this new generation that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s not only challenged the traditional liberal state but also emerged with a national consciousness that wanted to break the bonds with the old generation that had made the 1903 treaty possible. Therefore, it rejected both the 1903 generation and the United States and wanted to forge a new identity independent of the United States.

The intellectuals of the period argued that the tenets of nineteenth-century liberalism on which the Panamanian state was founded had run their course and were outmoded. They said that traditional liberalism placed too much emphasis on the rights of the individual and not on the communities the individual was part of and that it limited the government’s role of an arbiter between different interests. On the other hand, they favored an interventionist state (estado intervencionista) that would work for the benefit of the community as a whole by ensuring that everyone had a minimum of rights and was more engaged in the life of the country by, for example, creating a national health system, enacting labor social legislation, taking charge of public transportation, and so forth. It also saw education as a key to progress and the development of a sense of civic duty, of a national sentiment. For this generation, education went beyond the acquisition of knowledge. It saw in the school an opportunity to nurture in the children a love for the country, a sense of nationhood to generate a national spirit. Porras and the Arias brothers believed in a liberalism that was a true participant in the life of the country. They believed in a more active state for the benefit of the nation as a whole. The 1920s and 1930s produced a generation that wanted to change the concept of Panama as a nation.

As the standard-bearer of this generation, Arnulfo Arias represented the aspirations of the period and took nationalism to new heights. He was young, bright, intelligent, and highly nationalistic. His actions bore the imprint of this period through what he called Panameñismo, roughly translated as Panama for Panamanians. Panameñismo was more a sentiment, more a feeling, than a political ideology proper, and it touched many. Arnulfo enacted a nationalistic constitution with a powerful executive that also included social rights and provisions for an interventionist state. It was also racist, something for which he was so severely and rightly criticized. Panamanians of the period felt that the country was in the process of being overrun by foreigners, resulting in the loss of its essence, its identity. It was clear that this nationalism, this Panameñismo, had markedly racial overtones. For Arias, the West Indian workers were the physical representation of American imperialism in Panama. He was rabidly anti-American, and his intransigence during the negotiations for new military bases, when more cooperation was needed as the world was fighting WWII, damaged his standing with the United States, which accused him of having Nazi tendencies and was one of the causes that led to his overthrow.

CHAPTER 1

PORRISMO: POPULISM TESTED

I

With the 1912 elections, Panama began an era that would last until 1931. Since its separation from Colombia in 1903, two conservatives, Dr. Manuel Amador Guerrero (1904–1908) and José Domingo de Obaldía (1908–1910)—who led a conservative/liberal coalition and whose term was completed by Dr. Pablo Arosemena (1910–1912) after his death—had governed the country despite the fact that the Liberal Party had more support nationwide and had been the predominant political party in the country during the nineteenth century,¹ but the War of a Thousand Days (1899–1902) between liberals and conservatives in Colombia had left the party in a very debilitated position.² But in 1912, when one of their most prestigious leaders Belisario Porras—a diplomat, jurist, military man, and great statesman—became a candidate in the presidential elections, the liberals thought their time had finally come. Porras had a doctorate in law and political science and had become involved in liberal politics early in his life and had lived in several Latin American countries and in France and the United States.³

The liberals thought that foreign intervention had frustrated their plans earlier. During the Thousand Days’ War, the United States threatened intervention at Colombia’s request, just as the liberals were gaining the upper hand.⁴ Although the liberals controlled the country, they could not take Panama City and Colón when threatened by a possible US intervention.⁵ Therefore, the conservatives took the lead, and Panama became independent in 1903 under the auspices of conservative oligarchic elements, which were connected, directly or indirectly, with US banking and business interests,⁶ after the Colombian Congress had refused to ratify a treaty (the Hay-Herrán Treaty) with the United States on August 12, 1903, for the building of an isthmian canal. On November 3, the conservative revolutionary junta in Panama declared independence from Colombia, not only as a reaction to the action taken by the Colombian Congress in August but also to preserve its political control and profit by the building of a canal.⁷ Panama hoped for a period of great economic development with an isthmian canal, a goal since the nineteenth century.⁸

1.jpg

Lithograph of Panama City (from the ramparts), nineteenth century (Library

of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-pga-12461)

The United States had been interested in Panama since the discovery of gold in California in 1848. Panama became an important transit route for Americans traveling to the gold camps as the shortest and safest route to the American West. The other two alternatives were crossing from East of the United States to the West across mountains, deserts, and the dangers posed by hostile Native Americans. The other was sailing down Cape Horn in the southern tip of the American continent. The Panama Railroad, financed by US business interests, was completed in 1855, linking the country’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and in a short span of time became the major transit route to the American West.⁹

After the French attempt to build a canal in the 1880s ended in failure, the US became very interested in building an isthmian canal,¹⁰ especially after the Spanish-American War of 1898, when the strategic importance of Panama became more apparent for a nation with a two-ocean navy¹¹ as the distances from the United States to its newly acquired interests overseas became a challenge.¹²

2.jpg

A revelation in revolutions

"UNCLE SAM—Well! Well! You boys have at last had a revolution which will help the whole

world." (Puck 54, no.1395 [November 25, 1903, cover], Library of Congress, Prints and

Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-25798)

While it is true that Panamanians rebelled frequently against Colombia during the nineteenth century and had developed a sense of a national identity different from Colombia’s and that those rebellions were a constant reaffirmation of Panamanian nationalism—to deny this would be denying nineteenth-century Panamanian history¹³—the truth of the matter is that the 1903 independence was precipitated and accelerated in Washington and New York by unscrupulous American politicians and financiers and by collaborationist and shortsighted Panamanian leaders, led by José Agustín Arango, a lawyer for the Panama Railroad Company, and Dr. Manuel Amador Guerrero, a doctor who also worked for the railroad, the founding fathers of independent Panama.¹⁴

Thus, the nationalism that had been growing since the nineteenth century¹⁵ had been hijacked. It seemed as if everyone was framed in order to recognize the necessity of an independent country, while at the same time, to curtail the development of its nationality.¹⁶ Simply put, American meddling in Panamanian independence had left the Panamanians powerless to run their own lives and destiny.¹⁷

Panama became independent unprepared,¹⁸ bound and tied to the United States. That was the sad reality of Panamanian independence. It was a nation whose sovereignty had been compromised by the very act of becoming independent by tying its independence to a treaty with the United States. Therefore, its citizens developed an inferiority complex¹⁹ and did not quite believe in their country as an independent political entity. The greatest beneficiary of all this was the United States, for now it was able to fulfill its most cherished goal, the building of an isthmian canal. In the end, Panama turned out to be a country tailor made for the United States. Philippe Bunau-Varilla, the New French Canal Company’s representative—to whom the US had bought the construction rights—schemed behind the scenes from his room at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City.²⁰

3.jpg

Philippe Bunau-Varilla, ca. 1924 (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division,

LC-USZC2-6238)

Bunau-Varilla assured the revolutionary junta that he would get diplomatic recognition by the United States. The junta declared independence on November 3, and US marines prevented Colombian troops from landing;²¹ on the sixth, the US formally recognized Panamanian independence, and on the thirteenth, Bunau-Varilla, who had insisted to the junta that he be appointed minister as a reward for his work, was officially received by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt in the Blue Room in the White House. No Panamanian was present at the White House ceremony. Five days later, at 6:40 p.m., Bunau-Varilla concluded with Secretary of State John Hay, in the secretary’s private residence,²² the famous Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty, which, given the rights and concessions given to the United States in it, created a country within a country,²³ made it a dependency of the United States,²⁴ and Panama gave away its birthright for a plate of beans, as opponents said,²⁵ for the price Panama had to pay because independence did not translate into sovereignty. And so Panama entered the world of independent nations limping because of the conditions imposed by the treaty. Therefore, while Panama was nominally independent, it really was not, and this obstructed the development of a true national sentiment, of a true sense of believing in itself as a nation. And for 96 years we had to endure that ‘colonial stake’ the skillful foreigner left stuck [on us].²⁶ Panama received a onetime payment of $10 million and an annuity of $250,000.

4.jpg

Christmas on the isthmus

"Illustration shows Uncle Sam as Santa Claus with his bag of toys, handing a bag of money

labeled ‘$10,000,000’ to a little boy wearing a hat labeled ‘Panama’ and holding a huge ship,

some books, one labeled ‘Ledger’ and towing a model railroad. There is a railing on the right

that divides the space into an area with a Christmas tree and an area without. Hanging on

the railing, looking in, are five boys labeled ‘Colombia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, [and] San

Domingo’ who are depressed and possibly angered that Santa Claus/Uncle Sam has nothing

for them." (Puck 54, no. 1399 [December 23, 1903], centerfold. Library of Congress, Prints

and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-25807).

The blindness and narrow-mindedness of the early leaders was clear in their overpraising of the United States.²⁷ Ernesto Castillero Pimentel came hard on the generation that signed the treaty with the United States. For even recognizing the special circumstances Panama was facing, he said that those early leaders should have shown more courage and stood up against the United States, going as far as saying that the blame for the treaty should not entirely fall on Bunau-Varilla but on the patriots of independence, who gave it validity and force ‘in perpetuity,’ by ratifying it.²⁸ The blame, he said, was on that generation, a generation that was more interested on advancing personal interests rather than the interests and future of the nation.²⁹

The reaction in the American press was one of outrage for what the US government had done, and critical reports appeared in major publications.³⁰ France recognized Panama on the very same day the treaty was signed, China on November 22, Austria-Hungary on the twenty-seventh, Germany on the thirtieth, and then other countries: Denmark, Russia, Sweden, Belgium, Nicaragua, Peru, Cuba, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland, and Japan.³¹ Spain, still smarting from her defeat in the Spanish-American War, did not recognize the new republic until March 1904.³²

In addition to the 1903 treaty, Panama was forced to include in its 1904 Constitution, article 136—very similar to the Platt Amendment in the Cuban Constitution—giving the United States the right to intervene in the country to protect the security of the Canal and to guarantee its sovereignty and independence.³³ Panama not only had been robbed of its economic future but also had been robbed of its identity. The United States would be the arbiter of Panamanian politics,³⁴ assuming the role of a colonial power. The oligarchy, which consented to this, did so to preserve its own interests because it was afraid of a popular upheaval.³⁵ The submissiveness of the early leaders was clearly shown in the comments made by Pablo Arosemena, the president of the National Constituent Assembly, when he said that the article did not limit Panamanian sovereignty but that Panamanians courageously renounced the right to kill each other³⁶ because he believed that no principle deserves a drop of blood.³⁷

But early Panamanian leaders were more interested in achieving independence, even in the form of a protectorate, to protect their interests. The building of a canal and their most immediate interests were more important. The idea of sovereignty and nationhood did not really enter their calculations. It was their independence, not the people’s. It was an independence imposed from above by the elite in Panama City and Colón. And especially for the elite, the United States was seen as the panacea that would solve all their problems and a country to be imitated because they saw themselves as inferior. The US dollar was even adopted as the national currency, which would be called balboa, by the National Constituent Assembly on June 28, 1904.³⁸

All this would lead to a divide between the elite and the masses, which would slow the formation of a true national consciousness. The building of the canal contributed in deepening the divisions between the urban areas and the interior. The urban elite was seen as an appendage of US interests. The urban elite controlled the narrative.³⁹ Independence was viewed as an urban project. And as result of this divide between urban and rural, there developed in the 1920s and 1930s, especially after Panama’s fortunes declined due to the economic crisis after WWI and the Great Depression after the financial crash of 1929, a movement to define the essence of what it meant to be Panamanian, which in essence was a reaction to the liberal urban project, which led to the consideration of the interior and the interioranos as the essence of true Panamanians. It was a rural, nativist movement to assert Panama’s national character in the face of foreign presence in the country.⁴⁰

It was a revolution without great epic battles, without blood, without heroes, without sacrifices, without popular upheaval to create a sense of purpose to function as a catalyzer. There was no national pantheon for great dead heroes. At the end, the only casualties of the revolution were a Chinese, Wo Ken Yiu or Wong Kong Yee,⁴¹ and a donkey. Heroisms . . . there were none!⁴² And a new nation was born as a society without goals and aspirations.⁴³ Events moved faster than the junta had expected. It did not control events; events controlled it. Independence was designed and concluded by foreigners in another country. No Panamanian was present at the treaty’s signing.

The pernicious effect all this had on the development of a Panamanian national consciousness could not be overemphasized enough as Panamanians developed an inferiority complex due to the presence of Americans and contributed to the corruption that was so prevalent in the early decades of Panama as an independent nation. It took a while for Panamanians to develop a sense of nationhood and define themselves as an independent political entity. As a result, politics were corrupt and chaotic, and the people were apathetic toward the government. Foreigners, mainly Americans, came to dominate not only key sectors of the economy but also government agencies as advisers.⁴⁴ There was a disconnect between the Canal Zone and the business activities related to it and the rest of the country. And, as Octavio Tapia Lu says, this obstructed the development of a national identity.⁴⁵

The presence of the United States in Panama, because of the dependency status acquired by the new republic, obstructed government activities as everything was controlled directly or indirectly by the United States and hindered the development of Panamanian politics and democracy as the United States placed more emphasis on stability rather than political development, first, to ensure the construction of the canal and, later, its normal operation, as Peter A. Szok said.⁴⁶ Marco A. Gandásegui said that the United States strategy was to make each successive Panamanian government act like a policeman to suppress any movement that could threaten stability and its established interests in the canal and in the country in general.⁴⁷ Panamanian scholar Alberto McKay put it succinctly when he said that the greatest obstacles for the development of a truly democratic and independent country were the 1903 treaty and the 1904 Constitution.⁴⁸

The political submissiveness of the early political leaders was clear and evident,⁴⁹ in many respects because they were, perhaps, too naïve or too blinded by the potential possibilities of a finished canal and of becoming a center of international commerce⁵⁰ and were prone to ask for US intervention to settle electoral disputes, which tended to reaffirm the image of Panama as a US dependency, which did not contribute to the country’s political development and international reputation.⁵¹ At the same time, political elites saw in the association with the United States a tool for political control and their own survival. This attitude, and US interference and meddling, did not contribute to the development of nationality and nation building as it restricted the participation of other sectors in the nation’s political life.⁵²

Liberals were outraged at what had happened in New York and Washington. In fact, Belisario Porras, the great liberal leader, refused to accept independence under such conditions because he thought that Panamanian sovereignty had been compromised.⁵³ He once said to one of his friends, My pain has been such that I wish I had died so as not to see what you have done.⁵⁴ Because of his attitude, Porras was temporarily stripped of his Panamanian citizenship from 1905 to 1906.⁵⁵ He was afraid the United States would turn Panama into a colony.⁵⁶ The US viewed Porras warily and referred to him as a revolutionary firebrand.⁵⁷ Washington wanted nothing to do with the liberals in the country.⁵⁸ Liberal leaders came from the middle and lower classes,⁵⁹ and their party had popular appeal, as opposed to the conservatives and the upper class, which were smaller and associated with US interests.

Although the liberals did not gain full control of the government until 1912, they participated in the political process because the minority conservatives had to make deals with them to be able to govern.⁶⁰ In fact, Pres. José Domingo de Obaldía included in his administration such liberal heavyweights as Carlos Antonio Mendoza—the leader of the radical wing of the Liberal Party—Eusebio A. Morales, and Ramón Maximiliano Valdés⁶¹ as part of a grand coalition of moderate conservatives—the Coalición Republicana—and liberals. When Obaldía died in March 1910, the presidency was occupied momentarily by Carlos Antonio Mendoza, and Pablo Arosemena, another liberal, finished Obaldía’s term.⁶²

II

By 1910, new forces appeared, enabling the liberals to advance politically and become prominent, culminating in the election of Porras in 1912. A new dynamism was present in the urban and rural communities because of the economic activity brought about by the construction of the interoceanic canal, making them a powerful group. The urban working class had grown bigger and stronger in the arrabal—mixed-race, working-class neighborhoods outside the city walls in Panama City.⁶³

Belisario Porras, a native of Las Tablas (the provincial capital of Los Santos), the son of a prominent conservative politician, very astutely combined their support with that of the small urban merchants and landowners from the interior.⁶⁴ His was a popular liberalism (or liberalismo arrabalero as it was called), in contrast to the oligarchic liberalism and conservatism that had dominated the country since independence. His, Porras said, was a cause for the dispossessed.⁶⁵ Porras also cultivated the white and mestizo cattle owners and rural landholders of the interior, which resented the urban commercial elite. These interioranos were proud of their customs and traditions and wanted to challenge the traditional sources of power.⁶⁶

Porras’s following—and power base—consisted, therefore, of both the urban and rural classes, making him a true national populist leader, often connecting with them through the system of compadrazgo, which benefited him immensely politically, in both his native Las Tablas and other parts of the interior and in Colón and Panama City.⁶⁷ He had numerous compadres throughout the country, and every time he took a presidential tour, there was always, in every town, village, or hamlet, a compadre or a comadre to welcome him. He had so many compadres that his political enemies ridiculed him, calling him el compadre de todos los compadres, but at the same time envious of him for his ability to connect directly with the common folk.⁶⁸

Porras was very charismatic, particularly among the lower classes.⁶⁹ He was very dynamic and in contact with the people and readily approachable. He had extraordinarily fine people skills, which enabled him to move with equal ease among people of high society and people from the lower classes, enabling him to forge alliances,⁷⁰ but he never forgot his humble beginnings.⁷¹ When he was president, he always set aside a few hours a week to hold meetings with anyone who came to the presidential palace and talk to him directly. The newspapers of the period often printed his schedule. Despite his aristocratic flair due to his classical education, his demeanor, and his ever-present and elegant frock, umbrella or cane, and derby hat, he was a remarkably simple and humble person and considered himself a man of the people, and they adored him.⁷² His election marked a new direction in Panamanian politics. Porras came in with a nationalist agenda and was the first to ask for a revision of the 1903 treaty with the United States.

III

As mentioned earlier, 1912 marked an important milestone in Panamanian history. First, the liberals gained control of the government. Second, the Conservative Party disappeared as a political force. Third, the 1912 elections also displayed traits that would become clearer in later years, namely, violence, fraud, and the continued US involvement in the political process.⁷³ Elections became personality clashes rather than genuine debates on political ideologies or programs.

5.jpg

Main Street, City of David, Province of Chiriquí, Election Day, [1912?] (Library of Congress,

Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-75709)

The elections pitted two opposing forces within the Liberal Party, one headed by Pedro A. Díaz, an industrialist and businessman who rarely ventured into politics, and the other the charismatic Belisario Porras and his Concentración Liberal Porrista.⁷⁴ But before Díaz became a candidate, President Arosemena had made public his intention to run and tried to get the support of the United States, at the same time obstructing Porras and his followers.⁷⁵ This angered many liberals and fueled the first split in the Liberal Party. Thus, the election turned into a contest between Arosemenistas and Porristas. Toward the end of 1911, the Club Liberal Istmeño (Isthmian Liberal Club), whose primary goal was to discredit Porras, was formed by Arosemena’s followers.⁷⁶

Arosemena was also counting on the support of an important liberal, Rodolfo Chiari, a wealthy businessperson and son of an Italian immigrant who had a long history of public service. Although he did not have such a polished education as either Porras or Arosemena, he excelled as a political insider. Arosemena even withdrew from the presidency in February, as mandated by the constitution, to be able run. However, since Chiari’s support did not materialize, he resumed his presidential duties a week later. Pedro A. Díaz became the new candidate for a government-controlled liberal-conservative coalition, the Unión Patriótica Nacional.⁷⁷ This liberal-conservative coalition angered Porrista liberals, who had nominated Porras in their convention in Aguadulce on February 12, 1912.⁷⁸

Factions had already been positioning themselves in mid-1911. Arosemena fired government officials opposed to his plans.⁷⁹ Both groups did not hesitate to use force against the other. For example, on December 6, 1911, a riot broke out between Arosemenistas and the opposition in the Santa Ana Plaza, Panama City, when an Arosemenista accused Carlos A. Mendoza of stealing large sums of money when he had momentarily occupied the presidency in 1910.⁸⁰ Arosemena took advantage of the situation by removing from their posts the governor of Panama and the chief of police, who were opposed to him.⁸¹

Arosemena’s actions during this election were a prelude to what happened later in Panama’s political life, namely, governmental intervention in elections to control the outcome. This had a negative effect on the country’s political development. Two prophetic articles appeared in La Prensa on January 23–24, 1912. They maintained that political freedom was incompatible with the governing of Panama. The articles noted that every political organism had the seeds of its own transformation or dissolution. In the case of Panama, the government was planting the seeds of its own dissolution when it used the bureaucratic apparatus for its own benefit. Thus, the articles concluded, political freedom disappears whenever the government uses the governmental apparatus for its own purposes.⁸²

The government drew criticism for its dismissal of employees who did not support it and for the government’s blatant interference in the election.⁸³ The government was also accused of using force against its opponents for beatings and indiscriminate arrests. Arosemena had increased the numbers of the National Police from 700 to 1,500 men, and this was interpreted by the opposition as a sign that the government was ready to use force if necessary.⁸⁴ A member of the Arosemenista camp, referring to the official candidature of Díaz, said, We will win the elections, even if we don’t get enough votes, because we have the government and the Americans on our side.⁸⁵ Both camps accused each other of obstruction. More often than not, those attacks were personal rather than political.⁸⁶

By early 1912, both factions were seeking US supervision.⁸⁷ The US minister in Panama H. W. Dodge believed the elections were not going to be fair without supervision, blaming both groups for the disturbances.⁸⁸ By May, both the State Department and the White House had agreed with the minister’s assessment and formed a commission to supervise the elections.⁸⁹ Both political groups agreed to a US commission to supervise the elections, in which each commission member would be accompanied by representatives from Díaz’s and Porras’s camps.⁹⁰ Voter registration was completed in May without incidents except on the twenty-fifth, when an Arosemenista beat a Porrista to a pulp. The US supervisors had difficulty in having the man arrested because he was an Arosemenista. Despite the presence of US supervisors, the government continued resorting to force in its efforts to secure the election of its candidate, Pedro A. Díaz.⁹¹

As the election drew nearer, tempers flared up, and incidents grew more frequent.⁹² Two men were killed in June in street fights.⁹³ There were even rumors that the government was trying to provoke a US invasion to prevent Porras from being elected.⁹⁴ In this moment of desperation, Ricardo Arias, the Panamanian minister in Washington, wrote a letter to Pres. Woodrow Wilson accusing the US minister in Panama of interfering in the elections. He told the president that Díaz would lose the election because of what he called the US minister’s pro-Porras meddling.⁹⁵ Porras’s victory was made easier after Díaz withdrew from the elections in protest. In his evaluation of the results, the US minister said, The internal political relations between the two leading factions of the nation have not only exposed no tendency towards betterment, but have on the contrary become positively envenomed where they were formerly frankly hostile.⁹⁶

IV

The political situation did not improve after the elections and the high hopes of Porras’s election, and the beginning of a new era did not fully materialize, despite all his achievements, as politics became a means for personal advancement. The great hopes that liberalism would solve all the problems remained a popular illusion, not that Panama lacked talented or capable men but that political ideology and philosophy remained in the realm of theory as personalities became more important than putting ideas into tangible results. The political system degenerated into competing personalities within the Liberal Party.

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Belisario Porras (between 1909 and 1920) (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs

Division,

LC-F81-4675)

The first great division, and one from which the party never really recovered, came in 1914 during the municipal and congressional elections. It all started when Porras angered Carlos A. Mendoza, then the president of the National Directorate of the Liberal Party, by not endorsing the list of candidates drawn up by the party’s National Directorate and, instead, making a list of his own.⁹⁷

Although Porristas emerged victorious in both the congressional and municipal elections,⁹⁸ the Mendoza-Chiari faction (Mendoza had allied himself with Chiari to combat Porras) claimed fraud. Some maintained that the government had lost its moral right to govern because it had broken the promises Porras had made in 1912, namely, that the government should not impose candidates in elections.⁹⁹

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Carlos Antonio Mendoza, 1910 (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division,

LC-DIG-ggbain-04757)

Mendoza accused Porras of violating the spirit of free suffrage. He argued that even though Porras was the president, this did not make him the head of the party, nor did he have any authority directing it.¹⁰⁰ Porras denied all charges of manipulation and maintained that, as president, he was also the leader of the party and had not done nothing wrong.¹⁰¹ On the other hand, Mendoza argued that Porras had acted improperly and that he, Mendoza, as the party’s leader, and the directorate, as the party’s governing body, were the only ones allowed to decide on candidates for elections.¹⁰²

As a result of the elections, Porristas gained control of the National Assembly and one of Porras’s associates, Ramón Maximiliano Valdés, a highly respected politician who had been involved in politics before and after independence, holding numerous government positions,¹⁰³was chosen primer designado (first designate).¹⁰⁴ The Porrista-dominated National Assembly also elected the members of the National Electoral Board. Belisario Porras’s allies had gained absolute control of the political machinery.

Mendoza continued to exercise a great deal of influence in the party despite his opposition to Porras. He was a firm believer in democratic principles and personal liberties and never deviated from them.¹⁰⁵ Thus, being president, he said, It is not enough title to assume the very snubbed role in democracies of ABSOLUTE CHIEF.¹⁰⁶ Therefore, according to Mendoza, being president did not make Porras the head of the party. A true democracy would not exist if political parties were subjected to the whims of one person.¹⁰⁷

The antagonism between Porras and Mendoza reached a new level when Porras insisted on naming Ramón M. Valdés as the official candidate for the 1916 presidential elections.¹⁰⁸ Thus, in 1916, the liberals held two conventions: one nominated Valdés, who was backed by Porras, and the other Rodolfo Chiari at the head of the Partido Liberal Chiarista, backed by Mendoza.¹⁰⁹

The US legation believed at the time that the United States might have to intervene in the next presidential elections (1916) because there was no sign of reconciliation among the factions of the Liberal Party. Moreover, Porras was so in control of the political scene that there was no room for the opposition.¹¹⁰ In a letter to the US legation, Mendoza and Chiari charged that Porras dominated the National Assembly to such an extent that it had acceded to his every whim. This enabled him to control the election of the National Electoral Board, thereby assuring the election of his own candidate, Ramón Maximiliano Valdés, in the 1916 presidential elections since the board named all the election officers in the country. They, therefore, asked for US supervision of the elections to prevent fraud.¹¹¹ Both Chiari and Mendoza complained that the government was forcing its employees to contribute 5 percent of their salaries to the Porrista political machinery.¹¹²

Mendocistas (the radical wing of the Liberal Party) were incensed about the government’s imposition of a presidential candidate. Mendoza criticized Porras’s manipulation and for handpicking Valdés and considered him a danger against democratic principles for harassing political opponents.¹¹³ Early in February 1916, they wrote a letter to Pres. Woodrow Wilson asking for intervention, accusing their government of imposing a candidate and preventing the people from truly electing a candidate of their choice. The letter accused Porras of using the government machinery to advance Valdes’s candidacy and of removing government employees who did not agree with his policies.¹¹⁴ In that same month, Carlos Antonio Mendoza died,¹¹⁵ leaving Porras in absolute control of the party.

It was not a peaceful election, and as each faction accused the other of fraud,¹¹⁶ the United States became so concerned about disturbances that it tried to find a compromise candidate.¹¹⁷ It was a very unstable year as two elections were held in a short span of time, municipal elections in June and presidential elections in July, and clashes between opposing factions were frequent. The situation grew particularly tense during the municipal elections on June 25, during which one person was killed, and seventeen others were wounded in Panama City. Five died and nineteen were wounded in the island of Taboga.¹¹⁸

The US legation tried to mediate between the government and the opposition, calling on both to put aside their differences and compromise on a single ticket. Before the government even considered the offer, the opposition refused it. Chiari even said that violence might be necessary to force the United States to intervene so that they might see the level of corruption in the country. He went to the US legation and tried to justify himself by claiming that he had been outvoted when his party accepted the matter of the compromise candidate. The American minister William Jennings Price replied that his country did not want to see an outbreak of violence in Panama.¹¹⁹ When the opposition was unable to secure US intervention in the elections, it withdrew from the contest, and the elections went ahead with no major incidents.¹²⁰

In a speech he gave on the country’s current political conditions, Guillermo Andreve, a journalist and leading liberal politician, decried the personalistic characteristics Panamanian politics were acquiring, which tended to delegitimize the political process. Ideologies had to be above personalities. Parties, he said, must not be personalistic; otherwise, friction and divisions would occur. ¹²¹

Liberal intellectual and politician Eusebio A. Morales, tried in a 1916 speech to elucidate the causes of Panama’s troubling political situation. He saw political bickering undermining the national spirit. The political problems Panama was facing were due, first, to a lack of national consciousness (nacionalidad) in the people, which he said was a result of the exceptional circumstances through which the country had gained its independence—an independence without a war, without suffering, without martyrs. Therefore, the people did not share a common goal, a common sense of collective achievement, a common idea of personality. This, combined with a sense that nothing could be conducted without the prior consent of the United States, doomed any kind of prospect for the country’s political future; that is, people suffered from a lack of faith in the country’s sovereign existence.

Second, Panama became independent in reverse order. In the first years as an independent nation, a nation needs the collaboration of all in the common goal of building the state. When the country is created and solidified, he continued, it is when the differences of interpretation appear on how the country should continue to grow, giving birth to political parties. However, he said, Panama became independent in the opposite way; that is, political parties appeared or were already present before the nation existed as such. Third, political parties were leftovers from the Colombian period.

Fourth, the decomposition and disintegration of parties revealed, he said, a total lack of responsibility among politicians. What we have today in Panama is not a fight, is not a political debate, it is a delusion, a frenzy.¹²² Even in the independence movement, there were some who did not genuinely believe in what they were doing. To them, their most important concern was the solution of their most immediate economic concerns rather than create a nationality; therefore, the country suffered from a false concept of what politics and democracy were.¹²³ Morales hit the nail right on the head, for the main characteristic of Panamanian life during the early period of the republic was a search for a national consciousness. Panama was a country in search of itself. This might help explain the chaotic nature of Panamanian politics.

Valdés won the election easily on July 5,¹²⁴ particularly after the crippling effect the death of Mendoza had on the Mendocista opposition, leaving Porras without a counterweight to his power and influence. He took office on October 1, 1916, with an olive branch in his hand, aiming to unify the party, and adopted a conciliatory tone as he saw the depressing state of politics in the country.¹²⁵

But the era of good feelings did not last long as two opposing factions appeared, the reformistas (led by Valdés and Rodolfo Chiari) and the antireformistas (led by Porras and Andreve). The reformistas wanted to change article 70 of the Constitution, which stipulated that only Panamanians by birth could be president. This would give Eusebio A. Morales, who was born in Colombia, a chance to run for the presidency.¹²⁶ Contributing to the tension was the growing rift between Valdés and Porras over the nomination of candidates for the election of deputies to the National Assembly in July 1918, and Porras trying to meddle in Valdés’s cabinet appointments. Because of this rift, Valdés forged an alliance with Chiari, his former rival.¹²⁷

Valdés’s death of a heart attack on June 3, 1918, paved the way for Porras gaining the presidency once again. However, even though this was nominally a Porrista administration, the opposition controlled the electoral machinery, especially in the provinces. A realignment of forces had occurred with the Valdés-Porras rift. Porras wanted the National Assembly to elect him primer designado in September, therefore enabling him to finish Valdés’s presidential term. But with the opposition in control of the electoral machinery, there was no guarantee the next assembly was going to be Porrista.¹²⁸

In the interim between Valdés’s death and October 1918, Dr. Ciro Luís Urriola occupied the presidency as primer designado, 120 tempestuous days that would have lasting effects in the country and would contribute to making a bad situation worse. Soon after he assumed his duties, he made changes in his cabinet, removing secretaries of suspected loyalty and appointing Porristas in their place. He then issued Decree 80 of June 20, 1918, postponing municipal and legislative elections that were scheduled to take place on June 30 and July 7 respectively so that Porras could assure his election as primer designado because of the government’s claim that the opposition had illegally seized the electoral machinery in some of the provinces. Those supporting the decree based their arguments on a law passed on November 21, 1917, that gave the president the power to suspend the civil liberties of German citizens and of those countries allied with Germany in World War I. An article in the weekly edition of La Estrella de Panamá criticized and ridiculed this argument because the law did not apply to Panamanian citizens.¹²⁹ Ridiculous as it was, it was also an example of the level of political manipulation that was becoming so prevalent in Panamanian politics. It was a sad spectacle indeed that, again, prompted another US intervention in the country. Panamanian political leaders did not have anybody to blame for it but themselves. They relied on the United States to solve their own