Día, El

El Día, an Uruguayan newspaper founded by the great Colorado Party political leader and two-time president, José Batlle y Ordóñez, on 16 June 1886. The newspaper was the vehicle through which Batlle formulated and publicized his political ideology of the welfare state and support for the working class, which propelled him to the presidency (1903–1907 and 1911–1915). In the 1940s and 1950s the newspaper was controlled by Batlle's sons, César and Lorenzo. Although they were more conservative than their father, the sons used the newspaper to promote Batlle's long-sought dream of a purely collegial executive system, which was finally adopted under the 1952 Constitution but abandoned in 1966. In 1966, Jorge Pacheco Areco, editor of El Día, was elected vice president. When President Oscar Gestido died one year later, Pacheco became president.

El Día was the most influential newspaper in Uruguay for the first six decades of the twentieth century. During the military dictatorship (1973–1984), El Día remained a subdued but subtle voice of opposition to the regime by daily publishing a picture of Batlle with one of his pithy quotes about democracy or against dictatorship. The newspaper fell on hard times in the 1980s, with no major Colorado politician reflecting its legacy, and it ceased publication on 31 January 1991. Briefly resurrected, it again closed down.

See alsoBatlle y Ordóñez, José; Journalism; Pacheco Areco, Jorge; Uruguay: The Twentieth Century; Uruguay, Political Parties: Colorado Party.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Roberto B. Giudici and Efraín González Conzi, Batlle y el batllismo, 2d ed. (1959).

Milton Vanger, José Batlle y Ordóñez of Uruguay: The Creator of His Times, 1902–1907 (1963).

                                        Martin Weinstein