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Relations with the United States

The man most closely associated with this renewed push for a settlement with the United States was Marco Fidel Suárez (president, 1918–21). The career of Suárez, the illegitimate son of a campesino woman and a schoolteacher, is one indication that class divisions in Colombia have not been quite as rigid as often stated. Ideologically, he was a stalwart Conservative and Roman Catholic traditionalist, yet Suárez admired the more open society of the United States and believed that Colombia’s progress depended on close relations with the leading hemispheric power. He therefore worked for ratification of a revised treaty that normalized relations with both the United States and Panama and provided for Colombia to receive a US$25 million indemnity from Washington. When Suárez perceived that political opposition to him stood in the way of a favorable vote, he resigned the presidency altogether, and under his interim successor the treaty was approved.

In the United States, the oil industry had been the main private interest pressing for the treaty, in the hope that Colombia would now resolve issues involving the exploitation of subsoil resources in a peaceful and friendly manner. That hope was only partially realized, but the indemnity amount, although a paltry sum for the United States, was equal to 10 times the total of Colombian bank reserves. Nor was it the only influx of new money during the 1920s, as Wall Street bankers were eagerly handing out loans during those pre-Great Depression boom years, and in Colombia national and departmental governments alike took advantage. The most obvious result was a splurge of public works: new government buildings, roads, and, above all, railroads, which in 1929 totaled 2,434 kilometers. The spending spree had a generally stimulative effect on the economy. In some areas, where workers were in high demand for construction projects, wages rose so sharply that landowners were hard put to recruit the hands they needed.