Manuel Caballero He was born in Tequila, Jalisco, in 1849. During his stay in the city of Guadalajara he published his first journalistic stories and other literary works. He founded the newspapers Mercurio de Occidente (1889) and Estrella Occidental (1898). He was educated in the positivist and liberal thought of the time, which generated discussions of a political and philosophical nature in all intellectual circles. For him, the right to vote was the most precious thing.
Believer in the importance of institutionality, wrote to the presidents Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada and Porfirio Díaz to endorse the concepts of federalism, state sovereignty, the people and the inviolability of human rights. About the church he thought that he should not meddle in politics.
Manuel Caballero, a hero of the pen
According to Manuel Caballero, the 19th century was different, because it was the century of freedom and love for the country, for which it was necessary to work and demand great efforts from the rulers. About it he writes:
But if such is our respect in a big way, wherever it may be; In the case of our country, of this land that we love so much, for whose happiness and aggrandizement we would gladly give everything we have and everything we hope for, our respect is not respect, it is high, it is veneration, it is idolatry; our sympathy is adoration, our admiration is fanaticism.”
Subsequently, he was part of the editorial staff of El Siglo XIX and El Monitor Republicano and He was the pioneer in Mexico in the genres of chronicle and reportage. From these means of communication, he launched a political battle against Lerdo de Tejada, who had the newspapers at his service.
Manuel Caballero concluded that he had to fight the conservative dictator from the same place. In the section “The Devil’s Bulletin” unleashed all his anti-reelection fury against Lerdo, using a metaphorical language of good and evil, God and the Devil.
critic of dictatorships
He supported the liberal movement of Pofirio Díaz and the start of his regime. Caballero thought that Díaz was the man to bring peace to Mexico. In this regard he said:
Without peace we will not be able to prosper, and we believe that the welfare of the country comes before personal ambitions. Let’s hope that the government consolidates and we help it in the difficult task of rebuilding the country. Our poor country needs the sacrifice of its children for the sake of the public good”.
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Disappointed, he later criticized the Porfirian dictatorship that betrayed liberal ideals and democracy. However, Manuel Caballero always remained faithful to his principles, even when it was not to his advantage.
According to Jacobo Dalevuelta, in a note published after Caballero’s death:
He worked almost until he died, and I, who saw him—and I saw myself in him, in a not-too-remote future—dragging his old age, his poverty, and his ideal, came to feel something of his, sincerely his.
Caballero passed away on January 3, 1923. The Union of Editors and Press Employees and the National Journalistic Company covered the funeral expenses, which were carried out in the Spanish Pantheon.
What journalist made a life full of turmoil; She always lived, among the bitterness of poverty and went down to the grave, waiting for the release of her pain from the earth, ”continued Dalevuelta.
Celebration of Journalist’s Day in Mexico
In Mexico, the Journalist Day It was instituted on July 7, 1954, although there had already been other attempts. However, National Union of Press Editors agreed to celebrate it annually every January 4th in honor of Manuel Caballero. In the commemoration, only journalists with more than 25 years of service in the union were celebrated.
Subsequently, on January 4, 1955, a commemoration of the journalists killed in their work was held, from the Colony to the post-revolutionary period. The event was held in the “Simón Bolívar” amphitheater of the National Preparatory School.
Currently the Journalist Day It has gone from celebration to claim. According to the Senate of the Republic, the murder of Mexican journalists goes unpunished in more than 99% of cases. According to Reporters Without Borders, Mexico It is the third most dangerous country to practice journalism, only after Syria and Afghanistan.
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