Luis García Guijarro (1883–1974) was a Spanish politician and civil servant. Initially he was active within the traditionalist Carlist movement, then he joined the breakaway Mellistas, settled well in the Primo de Rivera regime, emerged as a key Derecha Regional Valenciana leader within CEDA, and eventually merged within the Francoist structures. He was elected to the Cortes in 1916, 1918, 1919, 1920, 1923, 1933 and 1936, though his 1920 ticket has been annulled. His career of civil servant climaxed with the short-lived 1931 nomination to director general of the Customs Office. Between 1916 and 1951 during short strings he served as either consul or commercial attaché in Hamburg, Damascus, Newcastle, Managua, Boston, again Damascus and Washington; in 1935–1936 he was the Spanish minister plenipotentiary to Czechoslovakia. He held also numerous minor jobs in central administration and abroad. Throughout most of his career García Guijarro was an active lobbyist on part of the Valencian orange industry.
Family and youth
There is nothing known about distant ancestors of Luis García Guijarro; none of the sources consulted provides any information which branch of the Levantine Garcías he descended from. The only forebear identified was his father,Fontilles 01.05.31, available here Luis García Andreu (1847-1910Revista de Gandia 05.02.10, available here). In 1877 he was appointed registrador de la propiedad, an official close to the real estate notary; at the time he was posted to the town of Pego, in the province of Alicante.El Graduador 22.12.77, available here Either in 1878 or a year later he married Josefa Guijarro MendozaEl Graduador 11.01.78, available here (1857–1926);Las Provincias 09.03.26, available here almost nothing is known about her except that she was very pious.Las Provincias 09.03.26, available here Some contemporary pressDiario de Valencia 28.03.16, available here and present-day sources alikecompare e.g. Luis Aguiló Lúcia, Sociologia electoral valenciana (1903-1923), Valencia 1976, , p. 273 claim that Luis descended from the family of Aparisi Guijarro or even that he was a nephew of the great Traditionalist thinker, Antonio Aparisi Guijarro; however, no details are provided and along the matriline his grandfather was an unrelated Fernando Guijarro Estupiñan.La Unión Católica 10.04.81, available here; he died in 1926, Diario de Valencia 07.03.26, available here
Luis García Andreu and Josefa Guijarro Mendoza settled in Pego. He kept ascending along the professional path; though he performed the same role of property registrar until death, Luis García kept moving to larger and more prestigious locations. In 1886 he was nominated registrador de la propiedad in Yecla,La Correspondencia de España 04.03.86, available here a city in the neighboring province of Murcia, where he served during the following 9 or 10 years; at the time he acted also as the Yecla representative of Unión de Propietarios Vinícolas de España and a “propietario” himself.Cronica de Viños y Cereales 28.02.91, available here Either in 1895in 1894 he was still in Yecla, Boletín Oficial de la Provincia de Murcia 03.01.94, available here or 1896in 1896 he was already reported in Gandia, Guia Oficial de España 1896, available here the family moved to the coastal city of Gandia (Valencia province), where Luis kept serving as the registrar. He became a well known local personality; apart from official role he was also in executive of the Gandian Casa de AhorrosRevista de Gandia 12.01.01, available here and remained an active correspondent of numerous Catholic newspapers and periodicals; none of his articles has been identified and it seems he published under a pen-name. The couple had 7 children,named Josefa, Luis, Fernando, María, José, Francisco and Carmen, referred after necrological note in Diario de Valencia 07.03.26, available here. Francisco Garcia Guijarro gained his name as a specialist in hematology Luis born as the second one and the oldest son.Diario de Valencia 07.03.26, available here
The young Luis spent childhood in Yecla and early teens in Gandia. At unspecified time prior to 1902 he entered the faculty of law at the University of ValenciaRevista de Gandia 03.05.02, available here and was an active student.e.g. he was engaged in Academia Jurídico-Escolar of the local Ateneo Científico, Germán Perales Birlanga, Católicos y liberales: El movimiento estudiantil en la Universidad de Valencia (1875–1939), Valencia 2011, , p. 39 He double majored in lawin 1902 in Valencia and philosophy/letters.in 1904 in Madrid, El Correo Español 01.02.18, available here. For his thesis on Agustín Sales see Jesus Casta Non, Jesús Castañón, La crítica literaria en la prensa española del siglo XVIII, 1700–1750, Madrid 1973, , p. 80, for his thesis on Romeu see Francisco Gracia Alonso, Josep Maria Fullola i Pericot, 2 de octubre de 1916. El acceso de Pere Bosch Gimpera a la docencia universitaria o de cómo la oposición a una cátedra de Historia Antigua marcó el futuro de la Prehistoria en la universidad española, [in:] Pyrenae 47/1 (2016), p. 50 In 1906 he applied for the chair of historia de España Antigua y media in Seville, but nothing is known about him assuming the job.Gaceta de Instrucción Pública 18.11.06, available here In 1908 he received a governmental grant enabling further research abroad;Suplemento a la Escuela Moderna 09.12.08, available here first he studied in France at Sorbonne and in Toulouse,Francisco Javier Paniagua Fuentes, José Antonio Piqueras Arenas (eds.), Diccionario biográfico de políticos valencianos, 1810–2003, Valencia 2003, , p. 232 and then between 1909Little Falls Harald 18.06.09, available here and 1910El Sol 25.02.31, available here in the United States at Yale, where he focused on social sciences.Las Provincias 06.02.10, available here Having returned he was admitted as auxiliar interino at the faculty of philosophy and letters at Universidad Central in Madrid.probably in 1911, Francisco Gracia Alonso, Ciencia y política: la organización de la arqueología y la prehistoria en España (1850–1939), Barcelona 2021, , p. 190 At unspecified time though after 1919 he married Lucila Gómez Sisniega (1896–1927), previously employed as “modista”.La Correspondencia de España 24.02.19, available here The couple settled in Madrid; they had no children.El Pueblo 06.12.27, available here In 1946 García Guijarro remarried with Anastacia Ramos Díaz (1914–2005).she was born in Puerto Rico, see Anastacia Ramos y Diaz entry, [in:] Ancestry service, available here Their only child, Luis García-Guijarro Ramos,ABC 29.11.74, available here is professor of medieval history at the University of Zaragoza.Luis Beltrán García-Guijarro Ramos entry, [in:] Universidad Zaragoza service, available here
Early public activity
García Guijarro's father was a vehement and die-hard Carlist; during the Third Carlist War he managed a local periodical El Volante de la Guerra,Luis Tramoyeres Blasco, Periódicos de Valencia: apuntes para formar una biblioteca de los publicados desde 1526 hasta nuestros dias, Valencia 1880, p. 112 contributed to another one titled El Católico, and according to some sources he was co-responsible for executions in Valles, where he reportedly acted as the representative of Carlos VII.Juan Oliveres, La guerra civil en España de 1872 a 1876 seguida de La insurrección de la isla de Cuba, vol. 1, Barcelona 1876, p. 355 Also 25 years later, in the late 1890s, he was referred to as "carlista enragé".La Unión Democrática 03.09.97, available here The young Luis inherited political preferences from his father and in his early 20s used to publish under pen-names in the Carlist semi-official mouthpiece, El Correo Español.El Correo Español 07.03.16, available here However, he was also attracted to a new phenomenon of social Catholicism. As a student he gave lectures on socialismo católico and inspired by Rerum Novarum, in the early 1900s he co-founded and helped to run Caixa d’Estalvis de Gandia, the institution managed by the local priest Carlos Ferrís.Lluís Sevilla Parra, Joaquín Ballester en el context del catolicisme politíc valenciá: 1900–1936, [in:] Aquatis 16 (1999), p. 46 In Gandia he was also involved in charity activities related to the buildup of sanitary infrastructure to treat leprosy.Las Provincias 09.04.02, available here
Initially García Guijarro demonstrated some leaning towards literature and science. Following early pamphletsTeorías acerca del orígen de la sociedad (1902), El socialismo católico (1902) in 1908 he published both his doctoral dissertations; La guerra de la Independencia y el guerillero Romeu was dedicated to a local Valencian hero of anti-Napoleonic war José Romeu Parras,Cultura Española 1909, available here while Agustín Sales. Apuntes bio-bibliográficos focused on Agustín Sales Alcalá, a Valencian Franciscan theologian and one of great figures of Spanish mid-18th century Enlightenment.compare Luis García Guijarro, Agustin Sales. Apuntes bio-bibliograficos, Valencia 1908, see reprint at IberLibro service, available here When in the United States he contributed unorthodoxe.g. in his Spain since 1898, published in the Yale Review, he claimed that loss of the colonies was "a blessing to the Spanish nation", Little Falls Harald 18.06.09, available here Spain-related articles to numerous American periodicals, including the prestigious The American Review of Reviews;compare Luis García Guijarro, The present situation in Spain, [in:] The American Review of Reviews 1909, p. 300 3 years after return to Spain García Guijarro published an account of his spell in the US, Notas americanas (1913).compare Luis García Guijarro, Notas americanas, Madrid 1913, available here In 1911 he published a legal work Bases del derecho inmobiliario en la legislación comparadacompare Luis García Guijarro, Bases del derecho inmobiliario en la legislación comparada, Madrid 1911, available here and in 1914 he translated from French a juridical study of Jorge de Lacoste.La Lectvra 165 (1914), available here Apart from membership in the Valencian Colegio de Abogados, in the mid-1910s he was also a member of the American Historical Association.referred after La Lectvra 165 (1914), available here
García Guijarro's professional record of the early 1910s is unclear. It is known that in 1912 he renounced his chair of auxiliar interino at facultad de filosofía y letras in Universidad Central.La Correspondencia de España 29.03.12, available here In 1913 he was reported as entering the competition for the chair of España Antigua y media at the University of Barcelona;Gaceta de Instrucción Pública 17.12.13, available here another source claims he applied for a job at Facultad de Derecho. However, in 1914 and 1916 he was still noted as teaching at Universidad Central. In 1916 he again applied for España Antigua y media in Barcelona,Gracia Alonso, Fullola i Pericot 2016, p. 24 though eventually he did not sit the exams.out of respect for Pere Bosch Gimpera Also in 1916 García Guijarro entered examination for consular serviceEl Globo 27.02.16, available here and few weeks later he was nominated vice-consul in Hamburg. It is known that his term in Germany lasted at least until 1917.La Mañana 17.04.17, available here According to one unfriendly source, he was expelled from service as a zealous Germanophile, who compromised the Spanish diplomacy by voicing open support for German submarines, which at the time were sinking merchant ships in the Atlantic.in 1944 June in the Congress García Guijarro was denounced by a Democratic congressman John M. Coffee; he claimed that “during the last war his defense of the German submarines, which were sinking the Spanish ships carrying food to the Allies, got him expelled from the diplomatic service”, Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates, vol. 90/9, Washington 1944, p. A2914
Carlista