Manuel Estrada Cabrera (1857-1954)

Manuel Estrada Cabrera (1857-1924) was the 12^th president of Guatemala and ruled with an iron fist during 1898 to 1920. During his presidency, several would argue that he was a key piece in strengthening the control of the government over Guatemala. Further on, Estrada was a ruler who practically inherited a country near the brink of an economic disaster, and because of this one of his primary tasks was to bring Guatemala out of this crisis. 

Guatemala was placed in a tough spot, after the previous president known as Jose Maria Reyna Barrios (1854-1898) started to introduce a new type of paper currency. Due to the input of this new currency Guatemala’s dollar had decreased in value, resulting in inflation within the economy. However, Jose Maria Barrios was assassinated before he was able to complete this transition between paper currencies. As a result, Manuel Estrada Cabrera inherited a country with a huge economic problem. Unfortunately, he was unable to succeed instantly, for him to keep his government afloat, plus improve on the countries educational system. He had to increase the production of more money, thus slowly increasing inflation. To solve this growing issue, Cabrera called for the assistance of the well-known economist, E. W. Kremmerer in 1919. Kremmerer was able to restructure Guatemala’s monetary system, plus give a few tips on how to better improve it, unfortunately, none of these were applied for Estrada was overthrown before they could be implemented. Fortunately, he succeeded in making education easily obtainable for some of the most rural parts of Guatemala. 

Arguably, it could be said that Manuel Estrada was successful in fixing this economic crisis, that took place for more than 2 decades. However, he was able to expand on the education system, and at the same time spread the government’s power throughout the entire country. 

Source:

Siebold, Todd Little. “GUATEMALA Y EL ANHELO DE MODERNIZACION: ESTRADA CABRERA Y EL DESARROLLO DEL ESTADO, 1898-1920.” Anuario de Estudios Centroamericanos 20, no. 1 (1994): 25–41.