Page:A history of Chile.djvu/368

 332 A HISTORY OF CHILE debts and redeem the paper currency. This sort of liberalism was even too advanced for many liberals ; the party, made up of three or four factions, had now enjoyed power long enough to create dissensions within its ranks. Violent political demonstrations became the order of the day, a very notable one occurring on the 20th of May, i8go; and in July, there were labor dis- turbances. When it became known that the president's choice for a successor was Senor San Fuentes, all par- ties, save the out and out Balmacedists, the Liberales del Gobiertio, opposed the candidate ; for Seiior San Fuentes was as cordially detested by some sections of the liberal party as he was beloved by others. The constant thunder of the clericals, conservatives and Montt-Varistas began to tell: dissensions had at last been created in the liberal ranks. They had been wont to compare Santa Maria and Balmaceda with the worst of the Roman tyrants, until factions of the lib- erals took up the cry.* The government interference in elections, so bitterly opposed by the conservatives in Santa Maria's canvass, was now taken up by liber- als themselves. It was not democratic, it was impe- rial, and in the matter of San Fuentes, it was found that the country would no longer tolerate it.| The leaven was working now, and it needed but little usur- pation of power on the part of the president to make the opposition cry of "Caesar" take hold upon disaf- fected liberals, who joined the conservatives and cleri- cals in significant warnings to the government to be- ware, lest there rise another Brutus. fueron malos," etc. — C. Walker Martinez. f'Pasa en Chile con los sucesores de nuestros presidentes lo que pasaba en Roma con los herederos del Imperio. No los elejia el pueblo, salvo los cases es- cepcionalcs de las revoluciones, sino unicamente el emperador asociandolos a su gobierno con elnombre el Casares,"— Martinez,
 * "Como Caligula, Neron, Domiciano, Comodo, Caracalla, Eliogabalo, que todos