Juan Natalicio González

Infobox_President|name=Juan Natalicio González


nationality=Paraguayan
order= 41th President of Paraguay
term_start= August 16, 1948
term_end= January 30,1949
predecessor= Higinio Morínigo
successor= Raimundo Rolón
birth_date= birth date|1897|9|8|mf=y
birth_place=
death_date = death date and age|1966|12|6|1897|9|8|mf=y
death_place =
spouse= Lydia Frutos
party=
vicepresident=

Juan Natalicio González Paredes (September 8, 1897 - 1966) was President of Paraguay from August 15 1948 to December 30 1948.

Your Life

Natalicio González was born in Villarrica in the department of Guairá on September 8, 1897. Having lost his parents, he moved to Asunción, Paraguay's capital, in 1912 to finish his high school studies. In 1915, he graduated from the Colegio Nacional de Asunción (Asunción's National College), and planned to study medicine in the Universidad Nacional de Asunción (Asunción's National University). But in that same year, the government decided to shut down the medical school of the UNA. Meanwhile, Natalicio started developing a career as journalist a writer. This was the end of his formal education, but he achieved an outstanding intellectual level through a very disciplined self education.

In 1928 he married Lydia Frutos, a well-known Paraguayan socialite. Lydia was famous for her beauty and also for her high intellectual level, having graduated from educational institutions abroad. In 1929 Natalicio asked for the Chamber's permission to travel to Europe with his wife. Apparently he was not satisfied with the way Paraguayan politics were going and was starting to get disillusioned about the possible political benefits the Colorados were going to get from participating in parliamentary work while the Liberals were still the ruling party.

Politician and Writer

Very soon he started to associate with some of the intellectuals of the Colorado Party, the opposition party at the time. His links with people like Juan O´Leary, Fulgencio R. Moreno, Antolín Irala, among others, made possible for him to achieve prominence in the party's structure and propaganda machinery. Very soon he became the main writer for some newspapers, linked to the Colorado Party, like Patria, Colorado and El Pais. At the same time, he published some books on poetry, politics and historical essays.

In 1920 he move to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he worked for a major publishing company. The company's duties allowed him to travel all over South America and start making touch with politicians, writers and intellectuals from different South American countries.

By 1923 he moved to Paris, to work within a Paraguayan publishing company. He spent two years in Europe, returning to Paraguay at the end of 1924.

Once he returned to Asunción, he started to develop a more dynamic political activity within the Colorado Party. He started to reach higher positions inside the Party's structure and, by 1926, he was already in a position to be one of the leading party members to participate in the negotiatiations for a new electoral law with the Liberal government.

Unfortunately for the Colorados, the negotiations with the Liberal government became a source of division within the Colorado Party, which split up in two: the "abstencionistas", who were reluctant to negotiate anything with the government and supported abstention as a method to channel popular discontent against the government in order to provoke a pacific revolution, and the "eleccionistas" who responded positively to the government's calls for a political ceasefire. Natalicio was one of the main and most dynamic leader of the "eleccionistas".

Finally, by 1927, the new electoral law passed and was applied for the first time in the parliamentary elections held in the beginning of that year. The "eleccionista" Colorado Party won some positions as minority in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. New Colorado senators were mostly former ministers and intellectual leaders during past Colorado governments, while in the Chamber of Deputies, the Party managed to include new young and bright figures, mostly teachers and journalists, who were developing new political ideas according to the new era. Natalicio was the leader of these group, and acted as minority leader during his tenure as congressman.

His Government

The elections were held on February 14, 1948 and he was elected head of state. He handed over power the interim president Juan Manuel Frutos, as his predecessor, Higinio Morínigo was deposed by a coup on June 3.

One of the most important works of his government was the nationalization of the American Company of Light and Traction (CALT), which later became the Ande, through a process of nationalization. One of his famous phrases was: "There will be no red poor" and this led him to practice giving great political power to all Colorado Party sector.

Observers of social reality of Paraguayan and Latin American culture in its various aspects, this is why Natalicio Gonzalez was characterized mainly.

Since assuming his mandate, in the streets ran the voice that something would undoubtedly prevent him from fulfilling his government until the end. On October 26, 1948 he experienced an attempted coup d'etat launched by his own party.

Although the rebels were paralyzed by loyalist forces, Natalicio could not resist a long time in power, since the January 29 1949 another coup broke out, but this time it was caused by Felipe Molas López and Federico Chaves, where the military power was led by General Raimundo Rolón. By the early morning of January 30, Natalicio has resigned the presidency. General Rolón, who his former defense minister, took over power.

Natalicio Gonzalez had to go into exile again. On February 7, 1949 he went to Buenos Aires and then in 1950, he departed to Mexico. He was the last intellectual to hold the presidency of the Republic in the twentieth century.

He left, and she with him.

Natalicio died in Mexico on December 6, 1966 because of a heart attack. It happened in the morning he would return to his homeland. It was 11.00 when his wife Lydia found him in his chair beside the desk. Desperate because of her husband's death, she dissolved in a teacup thirty pills of different kinds of painkillers, and determined to kill himself, she drank it. And as if this were not enough, she cut the veins of both wrists with a razor blade. A maid found her dying embracing her husband, called an ambulance and transferred her to the hospital. The doctors did everything to revive her but nothing was enough. She died weakened by bleeding.

References

* Publications at the newspaper ABC Color.
* EVP - Wikipedia
* [http://www.evp.edu.py/index.php?title=Portada Enciclopedia Virtual Paraguaya - Portal]