It may be suggested at the outset that a book as lucidly written and as solidly researched as this seldom comes to hand. Not all history can claim to be as enjoyable reading, unfortunately. Dr. Vanger’s rewritten and expanded dissertation has been long in coming, but this first of proposed two or more volumes on Batlle has been well worth the wait.
The work’s first stage was done in Uruguay in 1950-52, and it was completed in 1960-61. It draws on the personal files of Batlle, party archives, newspapers of the period (which assume great importance in relating a period which was featured by journalistic combat), and a solid collection of memoirs and historical writing covering the period 1902-1907.
Batlle held two terms, 1903-07, and 1911-15. Prior to the first term he guided the Colorado party into unity which permitted its use as a governmental and political implement of great effectiveness. Batlle had many assets in this work: personal courage and vigor, a highly effective communications instrument in his personal newspaper El Dia, and a team of devoted and hard-working followers. There can be no doubt that Batlle was a highly effective leader, but he was only part caudillo. He also was substantially one of his country’s first “organization men.”
Vanger’s recounting makes Batlle’s views clear. He believed in government in which one party would hold both power and responsibility, in contrast to the “coparticipation” which had come to be a trademark of Uruguayan politics. This less-than-effective substitute had developed because the Colorado-led constitutional government never had been strong enough to overcome on the battlefield the subversive activities of the Blanco or Nacional party, which really wanted to maintain a state within a state. Batlie temporized as long as dignity would permit, to little avail. Therefore civil war came, in 1904, the bloodiest in the country’s history. Out of it came the unification and governmental reform he had hoped for, and the way was then clear for his other goals.
Batlle also envisaged an Uruguay that would be progressive, economically nationalist, and moderately socialist. He respected the positivists’ desire for material progress and rejection of mysticism, and this was embodied in his rigorous stand against the Catholic Church. Within his government’s modest resources, he promoted infrastructure improvements that would support economic advance, while taking pride in easting a budget with surpluses. Batlle felt the State had an obligation for the welfare of all its people, whether urban or rural, and initiated legislation to this effect. Experience proved these goals were much harder to reach by parliamentary means than unity by military means. His term ended, and his picked successor, Claudio Williman, was inaugurated without many of them being reached.
Above all, Batlle was a consummate tactician. This comes through clearly, although the welter of details can easily lose an inattentive reader. What does not show in this volume is the long-range evaluation which must be made of Batlie’s skill and great influence for integrity in politics. In retrospect, and in comparison with his successors and heirs, Batlle became a towering figure. Vanger is perhaps correct in refusing to make too much of this point; his historical period does not permit such an evaluation, and to make it might well pull the teeth of a future volume.
Other comments are in order; hopefully, they may be of some use since a companion volume is projected. Translations, of which there are many, are curiously uneven. Batlle’s farewell address of 1907 is almost movingly handled, in what must virtually duplicate the style and spirit of the original. In other cases the idiosyncratic Uruguayan use of Spanish is carried over into English in a way that is stilted and unimaginative. It contrasts badly with Vanger’s own excellent style. Also, the book is curiously lacking in depth. The focus is on Batlle and his concerns, of course, but it leaves the reader who is unfamiliar with Uruguay with a cast of hacendados, Blancos, conservative Colorados, and other players who are little more than straw men who play their roles without much motivation or rationale.
On the whole, however, the work is above these criticisms. Complexities have been handled well, and Batlie himself stands forth admirably. If in some respects he becomes slightly larger than life, the critical reader cannot but conclude that it is a stature reflected by the book.