Pedro Aguirre Cerda - Presidency

Presidency

Pedro Aguirre Cerda was elected and assumed as president on December 25, 1938 under the slogan "Gobernar es educar" (to govern is to educate.) As a teacher, his priority in government was education. As such, he promoted the development of the technical-industrial schools as a means to promote the formation of technicians for the nascent industrialization of the country. He also created thousands of new regular schools and encouraged the growth of the university system to cover the whole of the country. Aguirre’s government also redistributed some land, encouraged the formation of agricultural settlements, built low-cost housing and schools, and integrated the Marxist parties into the political system.

During his first year he had to face the military opposition to his plans, that boiled over with the so-called Ariostazo. He also promoted and campaigned for a Nobel prize for Gabriela Mistral, which only came to fruition under his successor, Juan Antonio Ríos.

On the economic side, and prompted in part by the devastating earthquake of 1939, he created the Production Development Corporation (Corporación de Fomento de la Producción - CORFO) to encourage with subsidies and direct investments an ambitious program of import substitution industrialization. This was the basis for the industrialization of Chile. From there sprung the steel, manufacturing and sugar industries.

In 1941 due to his rapidly escalating illness, he appointed his minister of the Interior, Jerónimo Méndez as vice-president. He died soon after, of tuberculosis, on November 25, 1941 in Santiago, Chile. Méndez served as acting President until Juan Antonio Rios, elected on February 1, 1942, took office on April 2.