Marco Fidel Suarez: humble person who became president of Colombia. 

By: Alvaro Hernan Restrepo V. and Ivan Alexander Laverde G.  Date: 06/28/2015

Marco Fidel Suarez was a great writer and Colombian politician who became a president. He was born in a humble family on April 18^th of 1856 in Bello-Colombia. Marco Fidel Suarez died on April 3 of 1927 in Santafé of Bogotá. He wanted to be a priest, but he was an illegitimate child, so he could not.   The priest Joaquín Bustamante helped him with the payment of his studies.  He studied theology, literature, philosophy, and for the priesthood in Seminario Mayor de Medellin. During his youth, He did works that gave him some basis in international right, such as: “official mayor” in the foreign minister, taught classes in international law, and in 1981 he was minister of external relation.

In 1891, he wrote “Ensayo sobre la Gramática de don Andrés Bello’’ winning the gold medal. This prize helped him to enter to the politics by the conservative park. He was a senator, minister of public instruction (in Spanish “Instrucción pública”) and the external relations.  Between the years 1918 and 1921, he was president in Colombia.

Since the beginning of the presidency, the government of Marco Fidel Suarez was controversial, because while promulgating the charity, benevolence, and aid from rich to poor as the best solution to the rising social problems, his actions were hostile to the working class.

During his administration, significant reforms were proposed: in November 27, 1918 the income tax was created; in December 5, 1919 the aviation company Colombo German Society of Air Transport (SCADTA), predecessor of the current Avianca, which opened in July 1920. SCADTA was a pioneer in aviation in Latin America.

On August 7, 1919 during the centenary of the Battle of Boyaca, in this date that celebrates the emancipation of Spain, Marco Fidel Suarez read speeches to the citizens and the army. On August 25, 1919 arrived in Cartagena the corpse of his son Gabriel Suarez aboard a transatlantic American. Gabriel Suarez died victim of the "Spanish flu" in Pittsburgh, USA, at the age of 19 years. He cost of repatriation of the corpse was the direct cause of the sale of their salaries and indirect separation of power. On August 28, Marco Fidel Suarez created the "the Cross of Boyacá" with the aim to highlight the work of those prominent army officers, and subsequently, it was extended to civilians and being the highest award that can be granted by the President of the Republic.  In November 21 of 1921, he sent a letter to the senate informing the determination to retire from the presidency.