Hall of Freedom

Born in Montevideo José Artigas was regarded as a national hero of Uruguay. He was the most important patriot leader in the wars of independence against Spain and is viewed as the father of Uruguayan independence. Artigas became the champion of federalism against the efforts of Buenos Aires to assert centralised control. In 1814 this struggle became a civil war. From 1820 he lived in exile in Paraguay. The independence of his native Uruguay was finally achieved on 27^th August 1828.

French economist, born in Mugron, near Bayonne, France. He was best known for his journalistic writing in favour of free trade and the economics of the Scotsman Adam Smith. At the time of the 1848 revolution he was regarded as the mastermind of the French Free Trade movement. In 1848 he was a member of the Constitutional Assembly and founder of the Associations pour la liberté des échange.

South American patriot, born in Yapeyú, Argentina. He played a major role in winning independence from Spain for Argentina (1812), Chile (1818), and Peru (1821). He was an officer in the Spanish Army (1789-1812), but aided Buenos Aires in its struggle for independence (1812-1814). He raised an army in Argentina (1814-16) which in 1817 he led across the Andes into Chile, defeating the Spanish at Chacubuco (1817) and Maipo (1818) thus achieving independence for Chile. He then captured Lima, and became Protector of Peru (1821), but resigned the following year.

Henri Druey was born in Faoug, Switzerland in 1799. He studied Law at the academy in Lausanne and from there went on to study in Heidelburg, Paris and London. When Druey returned to his homeland at the age of 29 he was chosen to sit on the Great Council (Grossen Rat) of the Waadt canton and after two years he became a member of the state council.

In 1945 Druey joined the people of Waadt in a movement against the conservative government and eventually became the President of the new government. In 1848 he became the first President of the Swiss confederacy. He is regarded by many as the Father of the Swiss Constitution.

She was one of the first writers in England to press for women’s rights and suffrage. Her essays in the 1850s authoritatively rejected the legal and political traditions subordinating women. She suggested that improvement in a woman’s position lay in politics, education, and law. Advocating women’s suffrage as early as 1851, she promoted full legal and political citizenship, as well as equality in higher education. Teamed with her husband, John Stuart Mill, she inspired The Subjection of Women (1869), which provoked great antagonism because of its views on marriage and the status of women.

Historian and political scientist, born in Verneuil, France. His writings gained him world-wide recognition as a political thinker. In 1835 he published a penetrating political study, De la Démocratie en Amerique (Democracy in America), from which he gained a European reputation. He became a member of the Chamber of Deputies in 1839, and in 1849 was vice-president of the Assembly and briefly minister of foreign affairs. In L’ancien Regime et la Revolution (1850), he concluded that by abolishing aristocracies, the people of both France and America had sacrificed liberty for equality; that demands for economic equality must necessarily follow those for social equality and that the final result must be authoritarian, centralised rule. Tocqueville’s reputation in the 19th century reached its high point during the decade following his death, as the great European powers began to implement universal suffrage. He died just at the onset of a revival of liberalism in France. The nine-volume publication of his works, edited by Beaumont (1860-66), was received as the legacy of a martyr of liberty.

Camillo Benso was born in Turin, Italy. A Piedmontese statesman and premier (1852-9), who worked to bring about the unification of Italy (1861). As Prime Minister of Piedmont from 1852-1859 and 1860-1861, he drastically improved economic conditions and enlisted the support of Britain and France for the concept of a united Italy. After expelling the Austrians in 1859, he resigned over the Peace of Villafranca (which left Venetia Austrian), but returned in 1860 and assisted the expedition of Garibaldi, which gained Sicily and southern Italy. In 1861 Cavour became Prime Minister of the united Italy.

Jonas Furrer was born in Winterthur, Switzerland in 1805. After studying at the Political Institute in Zurich he went on to read law. His political career began in 1834 when he was elected to the Great Council (Grossen Rat) for the constituency of Winterthur. He became President in 1837.

When a conservative government took over Winterthur Furrer moved to Wiedikon and was soon elected vice president and later president of that constituency. In 1845 Furrer was elected Mayor of Zurich and finally in 1848 he was elected to the Bundesrat. Furrer was very successful in the Bundesrat, being made President in 1852, 1855 and 1858.

Pierre-Theodore Verhaegen was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1796. As a Brussels lawyer he provided the impetus necessary for the creation of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) by mobilising the influential Belgian Freemason community and ensuring that adequate funds were raised. The key term, “Free”, in the name of the institution, represented an important declaration of intellectual freedom from any kind of religious or philosophical dogma, prejudice or polemic. It reiterated the freedoms fought for in the French Revolution, and inscribed in the new Belgian Constitution, shortly before the ULB was founded. The ULB’s founders, mainly liberals and Freemasons had consciously sought to define a truly modern university, open to all, one that was independent and innovative in spirit, and rigorously committed to its philosophy of “Free Examination”, i.e. an approach based on principles of open-mindedness and tolerance.

Verhaegen was a member of the chamber of representatives from 1837 to 1859 and President of the chamber of representatives on two occasions, 1848-1852 and 1857-1859. He died in Brussels in 1862.

Sixteenth U.S. president; born near Hodgenville, Kentucky. First defining the Civil War as being fought over secession rather than slavery, he oversaw the creation of the Union army. When the political time was right, Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862, thereby interpreting the war as a crusade against slavery; he later oversaw the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment (1865), which legally ended slavery. With his immortal Gettysburg Address (November 1863), Lincoln further defined the war as the struggle for preservation of the democratic idea, which he called “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Having seen the victory of the Union forces in April 1865, Lincoln was beginning to plan a generous reconstruction policy when he was assassinated by Southern fanatic John Wilkes Booth.

Mexican national hero and president (1861-72), born in San Pablo Guelatao, Mexico. He attempted to curb the power of the church and the army. His ideas for reform forced him to live in exile (1853-5), but he then joined the new Liberal government. During the civil war of 1857-60, he assumed the presidency, upholding a free church in a free state. He was elected to that office on the Liberal victory (1861). The French invasion under Maximilian of Austria (1862) forced him to the far north, from where he directed resistance until the defeat of Maximilian in 1867. Juarez then triumphantly returned to the presidency and restored republican rule.

Patriot and revolutionary, born in Genoa, Italy. He was an ardent liberal and founded the Young Italy Association (1833). He championed the movement for Italian unity known as the Risorgimento. Expelled from France, he travelled Europe advocating republicanism and insurrection. Acclaimed as a great patriot, in 1849 he became one of the triumvirate governing the Roman Republic, and was the head of government. However, his rule was short-lived, for when the pope appealed to Catholic countries for help, a French army landed in Italy. After heroic resistance, the republic was crushed and Mazzini left Rome. During 1859-60 he and his supporters worked strenuously but vainly to make the new Italy a republic.

Leading Dutch political figure of the mid-19^th century. As Prime Minister (1849-53, 1862-66, 1871-72), he consolidated the parliamentary system created by the constitution of 1848. Thorbecke was the chief author of the constitution of 1848, which transformed The Netherlands from a monarchy in which an authoritarian king ruled with a parliament of limited powers to a constitutional monarchy in which Parliament controlled both legislation and executive powers. Thorbecke himself became Prime Minister in 1849 and head of the Liberal Party. He strengthened the constitution by encouraging measures that extended the franchise and provided for the direct election of provincial and municipal governments. Thorbecke abolished slavery in the Dutch East Indian colonies.

Philosopher, economist, and social reformer, born in London, UK. He was prominent as a publicist in the reforming age of the 19^th century. One of the major intellectual figures of that century, he was leader of the utilitarian movement, and helped form the Utilitarian Society, and became a regular participant in the London Debating Society. He published his major work, A System of Logic , in 1843. In 1851 he married Harriet Taylor, who helped him draft the brilliant essay On Liberty (1859), the most popular of all his works. His other main works include Utilitarianism (1863) and Three Essays on Religion (1874). He was elected to parliament in 1865, campaigning for women’s suffrage. He remains of lasting interest as a logician and an ethical theorist.

First President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Together with Henry Dunant he played an essential role in the creation of the precursors to contemporary humanitarian law. Dunant formulated the idea in A Memory of Solferino in which he related his own experience of war. Dufour lent his active moral support to Dunant and chaired the 1864 Diplomatic Conference. This conference was convened by the Swiss government at the prompting of the five founding members of the ICRC. Sixteen states attended the conference which adopted the Geneva convention for the amelioration of the condition of the wounded in armies in the field.

Born in Koprivshtitsa, Rumelia (now in Bulgaria). Bulgarian writer and revolutionary who contributed to the national reawakening of Bulgaria. Emigrating to Russia at 23, Karavelov studied in Moscow where he was influenced by Russian radical thought. There he began writing about political issues and studies of his homeland for various periodicals. Due to his safety being threatened by his revolutionary contacts, he moved to Serbia (1867) but was shortly expelled for collaborating with the Serbian liberal opposition. Moving to Bucharest, he took up the Bulgarian revolutionary cause in his journals Svoboda (Freedom, 1869-72) and Nezavisimost (Independence, 1873-74) and helped to found the Bulgarian Revolutionary Committee.

Scholar and statesman, born in Hrafnseyri, Iceland. Sigurdsson is known as the Father of Independence in Iceland. He led the 19^th century struggle for Icelandic self-government under Denmark. An advocate of Icelandic autonomy, Sigurdsson took part in discussions that led to the Danish King Christian IX’s restoration of the old Icelandic Althing (parliament) as an advisory body in 1843, and he later became its speaker. He helped to influence the founding of the Icelandic constitution. In 1874, Denmark granted a constitution that allowed Iceland control its own finances and legislative power that was to be shared with the Danish crown. When full independence was finally achieved in 1944, his birthday was recognised as Iceland’s National Day.

Johann Conrad Kern, an outstanding politician and diplomat studied Law at Basel, Berlin and Holderberg. Kern became a member of the Great Council in 1832 and its President in 1834.

In 1837 Kern led the constitutional review process and was also made President of the Justice Committee, a post that he held until 1847. In addition Kern held the post of first President of the Swiss Federal Court.

At Kern’s suggestion an agricultural school was founded in 1841 and in 1847 Kern opened a canton school.

In 1857 Kern was sent to Paris as the Swiss ambassador, he was also made the minister of the confederacy at that time. He stayed in Paris until 1883 before returning to Switzerland to write his “Souvenirs Politiques.”

Radical British statesman and orator, born in Rochdale, UK. Bright was active in the early Victorian campaigns for free trade and lower grain prices (he was co-founder of the Anti-Corn Law League), as well as campaigns for parliamentary reform. When the Anti Corn-Law League was formed in 1839 he was a leading member, and engaged in free trade agitation throughout the country. In 1843 he became a member of parliament and strongly opposed the corn laws until they were repealed. His name is closely associated with the Reform Act of 1867 which extended the vote. During the second half of 1866 Bright found himself the hero and chief mouthpiece of the reformers, accepted alike by those who demanded universal suffrage and those who wanted more limited reform. He accepted office as President of the Board of Trade (1868), and returned in 1881 as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

Born Jarlsberg, Norway, Johan Sverdrup was a Norwegian statesman and Prime Minister (1884-89). He entered the Storting in 1851. He was President of the Odelsting (lower division of the assembly) from 1862 to 1869 and was President of the Storting from 1871 to 1884. In alliance with Søren Jaabæk, leader of the Peasant Party, Sverdrup in 1869 created a unified liberal and national opposition called the Venstre. In 1884 he became Prime Minister in Norway’s first Venstre ministry. Under his ministry, numerous reforms for which he had worked for since 1851 were authorised, notably an extension of the franchise (1884), introduction of trial by jury and universal conscription (1887).

Hungarian statesman, a leader of the 1848 Hungarian Revolution, born in Monok, Hungary. He practised law, and became a political journalist for which he was imprisoned (1837-40). As a journalist, he won fame and popularity by his articles that campaigned to free Hungary from Austrian control. In 1847 he became leader of the opposition in government, and in 1848 demanded an independent government for Hungary. In 1848 he was mainly instrumental in passing “March laws” which abolished the privileges of the nobles, freed the peasants, and created a ministry responsible to the legislature. At the head of the Committee of National Defence, he was appointed provisional governor of Hungary (1849). The Russians intervened in support of the Austrian government and the combination of the forces were too strong for the Hungarian army, and the short-lived republic was overcome.

Born in Havana, Cuba, José Martí was a poet, essayist, patriot and martyr, who became the symbol of Cuba’s struggle for independence from Spain. His dedication to the goal of Cuban freedom made his name a synonym for liberty throughout Latin America. At sixteen he was exiled for political activity and for many years he was obliged to live abroad in Mexico, Guatemala, Spain, and the USA. As a patriot, Martí organised and unified the movement for Cuban independence and died in battle fighting for it. As a writer, he was distinguished for his personal prose and sincere verse on themes of a free and united America.

Born in Calamba, Philippines, José Protacio Rizal was a patriot who was an inspiration to the Philippine nationalist movement. He committed himself to the reform of Spanish rule in his home country. Rizal’s political program included integration of the Philippines as a province of Spain, representation in the Cortes (the Spanish parliament), freedom of assembly and expression, and equality of Filipinos and Spaniards before the law. He founded a non-violent reform society, the Liga Filipina, in Manila, and was deported to Dapitan in northwest Mindanao. He remained in exile for the next four years. In 1896 the Katipunan, a Filipino nationalist secret society, revolted against Spain. Although he had no connections with that organisation and had no part in the insurrection, Rizal was arrested and tried for sedition by the military. Found guilty, he was publicly executed by a firing squad in Manila. His execution made him a martyr and convinced Filipinos that there was no alternative to independence from Spain. On the eve of his execution, while confined in Fort Santiago, Rizal wrote “Último adiós” (“Last Farewell”), a masterpiece of 19th-century Spanish verse.

British statesman and Prime Minister (1868-74, 1880-5, 1886, 1892-4), born in Liverpool, UK. He entered parliament in 1832 as a Conservative. In 1867 he became leader of the Liberal Party, and soon after served his first term as Prime Minister. He disestablished and disendowed the Irish Church and established a national education system (1870). Frequently in office until his resignation in 1894, he succeeded in carrying out a scheme of electoral reform which went a long way towards universal male suffrage. In his last two ministries he introduced bills for Irish Home Rule, but both were defeated.

Women’s rights leader and feminist pioneer Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born in Johnstown, New York. With several other women, she called the famous Seneca Falls Convention in July 1848, drew up its “Declaration of Sentiments”, and took the lead in proposing that women be granted the right to vote. She continued to write and lecture on women’s rights and other reforms of the day; she was one of the leaders in promoting women’s rights, the right to vote in particular. During the Civil War she concentrated her efforts on abolishing slavery, but afterward she became even more outspoken in promoting female suffrage. She became publisher of The Revolution (1868-69), a militant weekly paper, and in 1869, with Susan B. Anthony, she formed the National Woman Suffrage Association, of which she was the first President (1869-90). She became one of the chief proponents of a woman suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution. She and Susan B. Anthony collaborated on the first three volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage (1881-86). When the two leading woman suffrage organisations united as the National American Woman Suffrage Association, she served as its first President (1890-92).

Born in Torpmagle Denmark, Viggo Hørup was a Danish politician, journalist, and the leading late 19th-century advocate of parliamentary government in Denmark. Hørup was the leader of the radical left opposition in the Parliament from 1876 to 1892. Also a prominent journalist, he served as editor of the liberal Morgenbladet from 1881 to 1883 and of his own journal, Politiken, from 1884 to 1901. He became a leader of Radikale Venstre, the Left Reform Party, which was founded in the 1890s after the moderate left began to make common cause with the right parties. When full parliamentary government was achieved in 1901, Hørup was named minister of transportation in the Left Reform government. A pacifist, he championed not only responsible government but also Danish neutrality and the reduction of defence measures.

Women’s rights leader, born in Adams, Massachusetts USA. After she was denied a chance to speak at meetings of temperance advocates, she dedicated herself to winning full rights for women. Teamed with Elizabeth Stanton, she gained her first success with the passage of New York State’s Married Women’s Property Act (1860). Between 1868-70 she was publisher of the Revolution, a female suffrage paper. With Stanton she founded the National Woman Suffrage Association (1869); dissatisfaction with Stanton’s methods and goals led to a schism within the movement, but in 1890 the two main groups were united as the National American Woman Suffrage Association, of which Anthony served as President (1892-1900). She constantly spoke out against injustices of all kinds but concentrated most of her energies in seeking a constitutional amendment to allow women to vote. In 1872 she cast a ballot in the general election and was arrested and fined; in 1905 she personally visited President Theodore Roosevelt to urge his support for women’s suffrage.

New Zealand statesman and Prime Minister (1893-1906), born in Eccleston, England. Seddon settled in New Zealand in 1866 and entered parliament in 1879. As Prime Minister he led a Liberal Party government remembered for its social legislation, such as the introduction of old-age pensions, foundation of the New Zealand welfare state and the introduction of female suffrage. He died at sea, while returning to New Zealand from Australia.

Swiss humanitarian and founder of the International Red Cross, a founder of the World’s Young Men’s Christian Association, and co-winner of the first Nobel Prize for Peace, in 1901. An eyewitness of the Battle of Solferino (24^th June 1859), which resulted in nearly 40,000 casualties, Dunant organised emergency aid services for the Austrian and French wounded. In Un Souvenir de Solférino (1862), he proposed the formation in all countries of voluntary relief societies for the prevention and alleviation of suffering in war and peacetime, without distinction of race or creed; he also proposed an international agreement covering the war wounded. He also promoted his interest in the treatment of prisoners of war, the abolition of slavery, international arbitration, disarmament, and the establishment of a Jewish homeland.

Born Störmthal, Prussia (Germany), Friedrich Naumann was a political and social theorist, publicist, and reformer who became one of the most influential partisans of German liberalism. Through 1893 he shaped the journal Die Hilfe (“Assistance”) into a forum for his ideas and founded the National Social Union (1896), an organisation that called for national strength through a combined programme of democratic and social reform. Having failed to establish a political party based on his association, in 1903 he joined the Freisinnige Vereinigung (Liberal Union), later (1910) merged with the Progressive People’s Party, and in 1907 was elected to the Reichstag (Parliament). In 1919 he was one of the founders of the Democratic Party, and he served as the party’s leader until his death.

Walter Rathenau was an industrialist and statesman, born in Berlin. Being an idealist, he criticised the tyranny of modern technology and advocated a decentralised economy featuring elements of capitalism and state planning. He organised raw materials distribution during World War I, and in 1921, as minister of reconstruction, and after February 1922 as foreign minister, dealt with reparations and he negotiated the Rapollo Treaty recognising the Soviet Union. His attempts to negotiate a reparations agreement with the victorious Allies, and the fact that he was Jewish, made him extremely unpopular in nationalist circles, and he was murdered by anti-semitic extremists.

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the twenty-eighth U.S. president, born in Staunton, Virginia. As President Wilson introduced his reformist programme he called the “New Freedom”; his initiatives included lowering tariffs, a graduated income tax, the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Trade Commission, anti-trust legislation, the eight-hour working day, laws protecting labour unions, and landmark laws against child labour. He won re-election in 1916 with a pledge to keep America out of the European war, but found the USA inexorably drawn in. Declaring war on Germany in April 1917, he proposed a peace in the form of the “Fourteen Points,” which brought Germany to the bargaining table in late 1918. He sought peace based on democracy, self determination, arms limitations, and the establishment of League of Nations, all outlined in his Fourteen Points speech in January 1918. He was awarded the Noble Peace Prize in 1919.

Founder and early leader of China’s Nationalist Party, born in Xiang-shan, China. He was widely accepted as the true leader of the nation and has been called the father of modern China. His doctrines are encapsulated in his “Three Principles of the People”: Nationalism (abolition of European exploitation and the unification of the people in China), Democracy (a gradual approach under the guidance of a single party—the Kuomintang—to constitutional government), and Livelihood (the welfare of the masses was to be the first care of the state). His “Principles” have been accepted by both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. He first became actively involved with politics in 1894 when he became alarmed by the weakness and decay of his country; he founded the Society for the Revival of China, a forerunner of several revolutionary groups, including the Kuomintang. Visits to the USA and his brief imprisonment in 1896 by the Chinese legation in Britain brought him worldwide publicity and support. During the revolution that overthrew the Manchu dynasty, he returned in 1911 and was elected president of the provisional government. He resigned in 1912 after opposition from more conservative members of the government and after leading an unsuccessful revolt the following year, left the country. He regained power in 1923. During his presidency, he reorganised the Kuomintang which achieved the cooperation of Chinese communists and expounded his revolutionary doctrine.

Piero Gobetti was born in Turin, Italy in 1901. A politician and thinker Gobetti founded in 1918, and edited until February 1920, the newspaper Energie nuove. In this paper he confronted the problems of life and culture in Italy. The political struggle of the post war politics in Italy, the influence of Gramsci’s personality and the world of the working class in Turin turned Gobetti to the factories and Communist paper L’ordine nuovo. However after two years dramatic and literary criticism Gobetti developed an interest in the ideas of the men who in February 1922 founded the weekly Rivoluzione Liberale, in which they published their political programme. He has been considered to be one of the early Italian Radicals, who acted as an intellectual precursor to the leading school of Radicals in Italy who were mostly pessimistic, critical of Liberal and Fascist government and readily accepted Southern corruption. Gobetti died in 1926 at the age of 24.

Janis Cakste was born in Lielsesava, Courland, Russia (now in Latvia). He was a patriot and President (1922-27) of the Republic of Latvia. Through political activity in Latvia and Russia and on diplomatic missions to the West, he helped to spearhead Latvia’s struggle for independence. He was elected to the first Russian Duma (Assembly) in 1906. After the Duma was dissolved by the imperial government, he was one of those who signed the Viborg protest, consequently he lost his political privileges. When the German invasion of Courland (July 1915) in World War I forced him to leave Jelgava, Cakste moved to Petrograd, where he was one of the founders of the Latvian Refugees Committee, which worked for Latvian independence and provided relief for war refugees. In 1916 he went to Stockholm to promote the cause of Latvian autonomy and there wrote Die Letten und ihre Latwija (1917; “The Letts and Their Latvia”). Elected chairman of the Latvian People’s Council in 1918, he was later the head of the delegation sent to London and to the Paris Peace Conference to secure the recognition of the Latvian republic. While he was absent on that mission, Cakste was elected President of the National Council (1918); he was later elected President of the Latvian constituent assembly (1920) and, when the first Saeima (Parliament) convened, President of the Republic of Latvia (1922). He was reelected in November 1925 and died in office.

Denied entry into medical school because she was a woman, Aletta Henriette Jacobs petitioned the Prime Minister of the Netherlands and was granted admission into the University of Groningen. She became the first female medical doctor in Holland. With her father, who was also a physician, she set up free clinics for the poor. In Amsterdam, she established the world’s first birth control clinic (1882) and actively campaigned for improvements in health education, change in marriage and prostitution laws, and for female suffrage.

German statesman and Chancellor (1923), Gustav Stresemann was born in Berlin. Entering the Reichstag in 1907 as a National Liberal, he became leader of the Party, and later founded the German People’s Party. After World War I, he supported the new republic and sought to restore Germany’s status in Europe. He was briefly Chancellor of the new German (Weimar) Republic, then minister of foreign affairs (1923-9). By pursuing a policy of conciliation, he was the main architect of the pacts by which it was hoped to build a permanently peaceful Europe. He signed the Locarno and Kellogg-Briand Pacts and secured the evacuation of the Rhineland by foreign troops six years before the appointed date, and negotiated the entry of Germany into the League of Nations (1926). He shared the Nobel Peace Prize for 1926 for his role in negotiating the Locarno Treaty which settled Germany’s western borders and ended its isolation.

Juko Hamaguchi was born in Kochi, Tosa province, Japan. Renowned for his determination, he adopted a policy of domestic austerity and better relations with the USA and Great Britain. He was a politician and Prime Minister (1929-30) at the outset of the Great Depression. Rising rapidly through the ranks, he entered politics and in 1914 was elected to the Diet (parliament). In 1924 he became finance minister in the government of Kato Takaaki and then minister of home affairs. Soon he was elected President of the Liberal Minseito (Democratic Party), and in July 1929 he was made Prime Minister. Hamaguchi won re-election the following year in one of the cleanest contests in the history of Japanese politics. In order to combat rising inflation, he returned Japan to the gold standard and promoted mechanisation and rationalisation of industry. The effects of the world depression, however, deflated the Japanese economy even further than Hamaguchi had intended. His attempts to force the military to yield to civilian leadership aroused right-wing disapproval. His acceptance of the terms of the 1930 London Naval Treaty limiting armaments was especially resented, and he was shot in the Tokyo Railway Station by a right-wing youth in November 1930. He died of his wounds almost a year later.

Enrique José Varona was born in Camagüey, Cuba in 1849. In 1868 he joined the ranks of those fighting for independence from Spain. He held the strong belief that there was no alternative to independence for the Spanish colonies. He was sent into exile in New York and worked on the independent newspaper, Patria. In 1898, following Spanish withdrawal from Cuba, Varona returned to Cuba and became the Secretary of Education. In this post Varona introduced sweeping reforms to the Cuban educational system which lasted until 1940. From 1898 until 1917 Varona also held the Chair of Logic, Ethics, Psychology and Sociology at the University of Havana. Here he defended the ethical standards of human co-existence in an attempt to correct the defects and vices he perceived in society. Varona was the President of the Partido Conservador and Vice President of the Republic from 1913-1917. He was critical of administrative corruption within his party which led him to renounce his presidency.

Varona became a symbol of intellectual liberalism and in his later years he provided the source of inspiration to many young Cubans fighting against the dictator General Machado. Throughout his life Varona was an outspoken critic of Socialism, and a Liberal philosopher publishing nearly 2000 books. He died in Havana in 1933.

Born in The Hague, Netherlands. Dutch Liberal statesman whose ministry (1913-18) settled controversies over state aid to denominational schools and extension of the franchise, central issues in Dutch politics since the mid-19^th century. Key planks of his platform included workmen’s compensation and educational and public health reforms, enacted under the Liberal ministry of 1897-1901, in which he served as minister of justice. He became a member of the state council in 1902. In 1913, when the Liberals proved unable to form a government, Cort van der Linden assembled a distinguished extra-parliamentary administration and became Prime Minister. Cort van der Linden gained passage in 1914 of an unemployment insurance programme and began implementing a policy of neutrality and economic austerity to deal with wartime conditions. His ministry sponsored revisions of the constitution in 1917, by which extension of the franchise and at-large elections were granted by the religious parties in exchange for enactment of equal state aid to public and denominational schools.

Greek statesman and Prime Minister (1910-15, 1917-20, 1924, 1928-32, 1933), born in Mourniés, Crete, Greece. Venizelos was the leader of the Cretan movement against Turkish rule until the union of the island with Greece in 1905. He led the Liberal Party in the Cretan chamber of deputies and later as Prime Minister of Greece, he promoted the Balkan League against Turkey (1912) and Bulgaria (1913), thus extending the Greek kingdom. His sympathies with France and Britain at the outbreak of World War I clashed with those of King Constantine I, and caused Venizelos to establish a provisional rival government at Salonika, and in 1917 forced the king’s abdication. He served three times more as Prime Minister before retiring. In 1935 he came out of retirement to support a revolt against the monarchy, but it failed to win support and he eventually fled to Paris.

Anni Furuhjelm was born in Alaska, USA in 1859. She was one of the first women to become a member of the Finish Parliament and was elected in 1913, 1917 and 1927 for the National Swedish Party. Anni Furuhjelm was a pioneer in the women’s movement in Finland and worked for the full political rights of women. As a result of her work Finland became the first country in Europe to give women full political rights.

From 1909 – 1920 Furuhjelm was the Vice President of the international alliance of voting rights for women. She died in 1937 in Finland.

Born in Hodonin, Czech Republic. Founder and President of the Czechoslovakian Republic (1918-35). He supported Czech national causes in parliament in Vienna (1891-3, 1907-14), and exposed as forgeries documents intended by the Habsburg authorities to discredit the political leaders of the Slav minorities. He became recognised as the spokesman of all the Slav minorities in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1914 he escaped to London, where he became chairman of the Czech National Council and organised the Czech independence movement. He organised a Czech National Council in Paris (1916) and in May 1917, went to Russia to build up a Czech Legion. In 1918 the governments of Great Britain, France and the USA recognised Czechoslovakia as an independent ally with Masaryk as provisional head. In December 1918, with the Austro-Hungarian regime collapsing around him, Masaryk returned triumphantly as the President and liberator of the new state of Czechoslovakia.

He was re-elected President on three occasions, before retiring in his mid-80s.

Ukrainian author who proposed that a classless Ukrainian society and culture would make the Ukraine thoroughly democratic because class and national interest would appear as indivisible. For this view Jefremov was criticised as being a bourgeois nationalist. Jefremov was also the leader of the Ukrainian Radical Democrats. He was sentenced to death during a Stalinist show trial, one of some 200 Ukrainian writers and literary scholars who perished or were sent to concentration camps.

Cecilo Baez was born in Asuncion, Paraguay in 1862. He is considered to be one of the most important figures in the history of Paraguayan liberalism, having given the Liberal Party more ideological depth. He greatly influenced younger generations through his role as a University teacher, a journalist and as a parliamentarian. He was the first to introduce a modern political system to Paraguay based on English Liberalism. He was a prominent advocate of free thought and Spencer positivism.

Born Ixelles, near Brussels. Belgian statesman who, as Belgium’s representative to the Paris Peace Conference after World War I, helped draft the covenant of the League of Nations. As minister for foreign affairs (1918-20), he represented Belgium at the peace conference (1919-20) and served as President of the League of Nations’ first assembly (1920) in Geneva. After helping to form the customs union of Belgium and Luxembourg in 1921, Hymans played a leading part in negotiating the Dawes Plan (1924), which enabled Germany to resume reparations payments to the Allies. He then held a series of government posts: minister of justice (1926-27), minister for foreign affairs (1927-35), and member of the council of ministers (1935-36). His Pages libérales (“Liberal Notes”) was published in 1936.

Pianist, composer, and statesman, who was prime minister of Poland in 1919, born in Kurylowka, Poland. In addition to music, Paderewski was also involved with politics. Throughout his life Paderewski was a staunch patriot. During World War I, he became a member of the Polish National Committee and was appointed its representative to the United States, where he urged President Woodrow Wilson to support the cause of Polish independence. Wilson included Poland’s cause as the thirteenth of his Fourteen Points of 8^th January 1918. His international reputation and his efforts for his country in raising relief funds during World War I caused him to be chosen Prime Minister of the new independent Polish republic after the war. He retired and returned to music, but in 1939, he reappeared briefly in political life as chairman of the Polish National Council in exile.

Born in Estonia. Estonian statesman, lawyer, newspaper editor, and civic leader who opposed tsarist and communist Russian domination of his country. After revolution broke out in Russia (1905), Tönisson founded the National Liberal Party in Estonia and in 1906 sat in the first Russian Duma (legislative assembly). Although he was expelled from Estonia by the Bolsheviks late in 1917, he took part in negotiations for Allied recognition of Estonian independence. During his term as Prime Minister (1919-20), Estonia, having repelled the Red Army, obtained favourable peace terms from the Soviet Union. He later served Estonia as President (1927-28, 1933) and foreign minister (1931-32). Arrested by Soviet occupation forces in 1940, he was last heard of in a Tartu jail the following year.

Eusebio Ayala was born in Barrero Grande, Paraguay in 1875. He is known as the President of Victory, owing to the fact that he governed during the country’s war with Bolivia. He pursued war under a liberal regime and avoided leading the country into debt. Ayala was an advocate of Liberalism in the political and social systems and he believed that economic liberty was the key to peace and universal solidarity.

Born in Moscow, Russian Empire. Russian statesman and historian. He played an important role in the events leading to the Russian Revolution of March 1917 and served as foreign minister in Prince Lvov’s provisional government (March-November 1917). He remains one of the greatest Russian liberal historians, well-known as a spokesman for imperial Russia’s developing liberal movement. His three-volume Ocherk po istorii russkoy kultury (1896-1903; Outlines of Russian Culture) brought him nationwide fame. He worked to make Russian liberalism a more broad based movement committed to a complete transformation of the empire’s political and social structure. His platform included the rule of law, parliamentary government, universal suffrage, a broad range of civil freedoms, and the expansion of popular education.

Sophie Scholl was born in Forchtenberg, Germany in 1921. Initially a member of the Hitler Youth she became increasingly disenchanted with Nazism and eventually both she and her brother, Hans, came to the conclusion that it was the duty of a citizen to stand up to the Nazi regime. On enrolling at Munich University she discovered the secret activities of her brother Hans. Despite her brother’s pleas she joined the activities of the Weisse Rose and became an active member of this independent group of students working against the Nazi regime. Their activities involved the production, publication and distribution of leaflets which highlighted the mass extermination of the Jews and Polish nobility and called for action against Nazism. Six leaflets in total were produced and the later ones called for active resistance to Nazism.

Whilst distributing the sixth leaflet at Munich University Hans and Sophie Scholl were spotted dumping some of the leaflets in a courtyard. They were subsequently arrested and tried for treason. Christoph Probst, a fellow member of the Weisse Rose, was put on trial with the siblings. Freisler, the judge at the trial, and the other accusers could not understand what had turned the accused against Hitler, considering they has all been to prescribed schools and had been members of the Hitler Youth. Sophie Scholl shocked everyone in the courtroom when she remarked to Freisler: “Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don’t dare to express themselves as we did.” Later in the proceedings, she said to him: “You know the war is lost. Why don’t you have the courage to face it?”

Sophie Scholl was beheaded along with her brother and friend Christoph Probst in Munich in February 1943. She was 21 years old and the only female member of the Weisse Rose to be executed.

Benjamin Telders was born in The Hague in 1903. In 1921 he went to the University of Leiden to study law, he then went on to become a professor of law at the same university in 1936.

Telders was a faithful follower of Hegel, attending the first Hegel congress in The Hague in 1930. Telders wrote many articles in popular magazines and newspapers during his short life, in which he explained certain international law problems in a way that they were comprehensible to the layman. His reputation as an outstanding jurist bought him many honours including the opportunity to plead before the Permanent Court of International Justice for the Netherlands.

As a politician Telders was elected as the chairman of the Liberal Party in 1938. Under his chairmanship he oversaw the revival of Liberalism in the Netherlands. The first signs of which were in the April 1939 election.

Telders was very critical of traitors during the German occupation of the Netherlands and due to his outspokenness he was arrested and sent to several concentration camps.

He died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen, nine days before the camp was liberated.

Economist whose theories have influenced governments on both sides of the Atlantic, born in Cambridge, UK. He was responsible for that part of economics now known as macroeconomics. When he predicted in The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919), the consequences of imposing obligations the defeated Germany would not be able to meet, Keynes became the centre of controversy. However he met fame when his worst fears were realised. Also critical of Britain’s return to the gold standard in 1925, he accurately predicted the rapid increase in unemployment. In both World Wars he was an adviser to the Treasury. His views on a planned economy influenced Roosevelt’s “New Deal” administration. The unemployment crises inspired his two great works, A Treatise on Money (1930) and the revolutionary General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936). He was the chief British delegate at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, playing a leading part in its formulation. In addition, it was his plan, welded with similar American proposals, that led to the establishment of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Indian nationalist leader, born in Poorbandar, India. He studied law in London, but in 1893 went to South Africa, where he spent 20 years opposing discriminatory legislation against Indians. In 1914 he returned to India where he supported the Home Rule movement. A pacifist, he became leader of the Indian National Congress, leading the struggle for Indian independence from the UK by advocating non-violent non-cooperation. Following his civil disobedience campaign (1919-22), he was jailed for conspiracy (1922-4). He organised hunger strikes and events of civil disobedience, and campaigned for social reform, including religious tolerance and an end to discrimination against the untouchable caste. In 1930 he led a 320 km/200 mile march to the sea to collect salt in symbolic defiance of the government monopoly. On his release from prison (1931), he attended the London Round Table Conference on Indian constitutional reform. In 1946 he negotiated with the Cabinet Mission which recommended the new constitutional structure. After independence (1947), he tried to stop the Hindu-Muslim conflict in Bengal, a policy which led to his assassination in Delhi by a Hindu fanatic.

Feminist and poet, born in Hyderabad, India. She studied at Madras, London, and Cambridge, and became known as “the nightingale of India”. She published three volumes of lyric verse: The Golden Threshold (1905), The Bird of Time (1912), and The Broken Wing (1915). She organised flood-relief in Hyderabad (1908), and lectured and campaigned on feminism, particularly the abolition of purdah. She was imprisoned several times for civil disobedience incidents, and took part in the negotiations leading to independence. She was the first Indian woman to be president of the Indian National Congress (1925) and to be appointed an Indian state governor (1947).

Bulgarian Prime Minister from October 1932 to May 1934. Mushanov believed that freedom from enmity was to apply to every nation. It was following this principle that Mushanov attempted to reconcile Turkey and Bulgaria. Nikola Mushanov was a member of the Entente Internationale des Partis Radicaux et des Partis Démocratiques similaires, and in 1933 hosted a meeting of the Entente in Sofia.

Lawyer, politician, and first president of Finland (1919-25), born in Suomussalmi, Finland. Professor of law at Helsinki (1908-18), and a member of the Finnish Government (1908-17), he drafted the Finnish constitution of 1919. Consistently democratic in outlook, he was among the first Finnish politicians to call for universal suffrage. His draft of a republican constitution (1917) became the basis of the actual constitution of 1919.

French statesman and Prime Minister (1924-5, 1932), born in Troyes, France. He became professor at the Lycée Ampère, Lyon, and was mayor there from 1905 until his death. He was minister of transport during World War 1, radical-Socialist premier, and several times president of the Chamber of Deputies, a post which he was holding in 1942 when he became a prisoner of the right-wing Vichy government and of the Nazis. He later became President of the National Assembly (1947-54). A keen supporter of the League of Nations, he nonetheless opposed the whole concept of the European Defence Community, especially German rearmament. He wrote a number of literary and biographical studies, the best known of which are Madame Récamier (1904) and Beethoven (1932).

Hungarian statesman and Prime Minister (1953-5), born in Kaposvar, Hungary. He had a minor post in the Béla Kun revolutionary government in Hungary. He then went to Moscow (1929), and became a member of the Institute for Agrarian Sciences. Returning with the Red Army (1944), he was minister of agriculture, and as premier introduced milder political control. When Soviet forces began to put down the 1956 revolution, he appealed to the world for help, but was displaced by the Soviet puppet, János Kádár, and executed in Budapest.

Born Carrù, Italy. Italian economist and statesman, the first President (1948-55) of the Republic of Italy. In 1936-43 he was the editor of Rivista di storia economica (“Review of Economic History”), which was suppressed by the Fascists, of whom he was an unwavering opponent. In 1943 he fled to Switzerland. Returning to Italy in 1945, Einaudi was appointed governor of the Bank of Italy (1945-48). He was a member of the Constituent Assembly (1946-48), becoming deputy prime minister and minister of the budget (1947), a new post in which he successfully curbed inflation and stabilised the currency. In 1948 Einaudi became a member of the Senate of the Italian republic and on 11^th May its first President. His term lasted until 1955.

First Lady and humanitarian; born in New York City. During World War I she worked for the Red Cross. After her husband, president Franklin D. Roosevelt, had a polio attack that resulted in paralysis in 1921, she took an ever more active role on his behalf in New York State politics. She emerged as a public figure, travelling throughout the country, promoting her causes – particularly those helping women, children, and the poor – giving radio broadcasts, and writing a syndicated column, “My Day” (starting in 1935). Although both ridiculed and disliked by some, she continued to speak out even when her views – such as those on racial discrimination – put her well in advance of her husband. During World War II she travelled abroad to visit U.S. servicemen, and following the death of Franklin (1945), she embarked on a new career, serving as a delegate to the UN General Assembly (1945-51), and serving as chairperson of the UN’s Human Rights Commission (1946-51) that drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy reappointed her to the U.S. delegation to the UN. She also chaired the Kennedy administration’s Commission on the Status of Women.

First President of the Federal Republic of Germany (1949-59), born in Brackenheim, Germany. He studied at Munich and Berlin, became editor of the political magazine Hilfe (1905-12), professor at the Berlin College of Political Science (1920-33), and an MP (1924-8, 1930-2). A prolific author and journalist, he wrote two books denouncing Hitler, and when the latter came to power in 1933, he was dismissed from his chair and his books publicly burned. Nevertheless, he continued to write them in retirement at Heidelberg under the psudonym, “Brackenheim”. In 1946 he became the founding member of the Free Democratic Party, and he helped draft the new federal constitution.

Born in 1904 Roger Motz trained as a civil mining engineer. He was firstly a Liberal councillor and then MP for Brussels. In 1946 he became a Senator for Brabant. Motz was active in opposing totalitarian forces during World War II, serving as Minister of Information in the Belgian government in exile.

He became leader of the Parti Libéral Belge in 1945 and was later President of the Belgian League for European Cooperation.
Roger Motz was President of Liberal International from 1952 to 1958 and stated at the 1953 Congress in Mondorf-les-Bains that “History is made by those who follow a political ideal. Sceptics merely look on.”

British statesman, Prime Minister (1940-5, 1951-5), and author, born in Oxfordshire, England. Initially a Conservative MP (1900), he joined the Liberals in 1904. In 1915 he was made the scapegoat for the Dardanelles disaster, but in 1917 became minister of munitions. After World War I he was secretary of state for war and air (1919-21), and Chancellor of the Exchequer (1924-9). In 1929 he returned to the Conservative fold, but remained out of step with the leadership until World War II. Then, on Chamberlain’s defeat (May 1940), he led Britain through the war against Germany and Italy with steely resolution. When the war ended, he was prominent in organising armies of intervention to overthrow the Soviet government in Russia. He saw the futility of continued violence in Ireland and supported the establishment of the Irish free state. After the dissolution of the Turkish Empire, he was responsible for creating the new states of Jordan and Iraq. He achieved a world reputation not only as a great strategist and inspiring war leader, but as the last of the classic orators with a supreme command of English. He was knighted in 1953, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature the same year.

Resistance leader, born in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia). He studied at an American mission school, and was a teacher before being elected tribal chief of Groutville, KwaZulu Natal. Following a policy of passive resistance, he was deposed for his anti-apartheid activities. Later he became president-general of the African National Congress (1952-60), and was a defendant in the Johannesburg treason trial (1956-7). He was awarded the 1960 Nobel Peace Prize for his unswerving opposition to racial violence, and was elected rector of Glasgow University (1962), but severe restrictions imposed by the South African government prevented him from leaving Natal. In 1962 he published Let My People Go.

Baptist minister, civil rights leader; born in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1955 he led the boycott of Montgomery’s segregated busses for over a year (eventually resulting in the Supreme Court decision outlawing discrimination in public transportation). In 1957 he became President of the newly formed Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and he began to broaden his active role in the civil rights struggle while advocating his non-violent approach to achieving results; he based his approach on the ideas of Henry David Thoreau and Mohandas Gandhi as well as on Christian teachings. He organised protest demonstrations and marches in such cities as Birmingham, Alabama (1963), St. Augustine, Florida (1964), and Selma, Alabama (1965). During these years he was arrested and jailed by Southern officials on several occasions, he was stoned and physically attacked, and his house was bombed. King’s finest hour came on 28^th August 1963, when he led the great march on Washington, D.C., that culminated with his famous “I have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial. At the height of his influence he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. His efforts were instrumental in securing the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. While in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968 to show his support to striking city workers, he was shot and killed as he stood on the balcony of his motel.

Pieter Oud is regarded as one of the founding fathers of Dutch Liberalism. At the beginning of the century Oud was active in the Liberal Youth Organisation (Liberale Jongeren Organisatie) and then the Liberal Democratic Alliance (Vrijzinnig Democratische Bond) with whom he went on to become the youngest MP in Dutch history.

After being nominated as Mayor of Rotterdam he retreated from national politics despite requests for him to join the government.

The German invasion of the Netherlands cut short Oud’s political career and he was forced to resign. During the German occupation Oud was taken hostage for a short time in St Michielsgestel. After his release he wrote constitutional and parliamentary historical work.

Following the end of World War II Oud joined the Labour Party (Partij van de Arbeid) only to leave them in 1947. In January 1948 Oud took part in the meeting that was to found the VVD. Oud became leader of the new party and was returned as an MP.

Oud resigned his presidency of the VVD in November 1963 and became Minister of State and honorary president of the VVD. However he continued to be active in politics.

Czech philosophy student. As a protest against the August 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact forces, he burnt himself to death in Wenceslas Square, Prague on 16^th January 1969. He became a hero and symbol of hope, and was mourned by thousands. Huge popular demonstrations marking the 20th anniversary of his death were held in Prague in 1989.

Canadian statesman and Prime Minister (1963-8), born in Newtonbrook, Ontario, Canada. He was leader of the Canadian delegation to the UN, becoming President of the General Assembly (1952-3). He helped to create the UN Emergency Force (UNEF) that policed the Sinai following the Egypt-Israeli war of 1956. Minister of external affairs (1948-57), his efforts to resolve the Suez Crisis were rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957. As Liberal Prime Minister, he introduced a comprehensive pension plan, socialised medicine, and the maple-leaf flag.

Economist Ludwig von Mises was born in Lemberg, Austro-Hungary in 1881. He taught at the University of Vienna (1913-34) whilst also serving as a principal economic adviser to the Austrian government. He left Austria in 1934 due to the turmoil provoked by the Nazis, going first to Geneva, and in 1940 to the USA, where he taught at New York University (1945-69). A leader in the Austrian school of economics, he wrote and lectured extensively on behalf of economic liberalism. In his one of his major texts, Socialism, von Mises predicted the breakdown of the communist experiment and argued that socialism could not function in an industrial economy because there would be no market for capital goods and therefore no price system to calculate profit and loss. Von Mises also presented a systematic and persuasive defence of the natural society’s mediating structures, which stand between the individual and the state. Social cooperation, he said, rests on human inequality and institutional hierarchies. Von Mises also attacked mixed economy statism in his book Bureaucracy.  Von Mises’ achievements for liberty can also been counted in his students and followers. For example his students Wilhelm Röpke and Ludwig Erhard turned Germany towards freedom and rekindled the “economic miracle”. In Italy Luigi Einaudi, a friend and follower of von Mises’, had, as President, led the successful fight against a communist takeover.

Swedish political scientist and journalist known for his criticisms of socialism and communism. Tingsten was the energetic editor of Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s widely read national newspaper, from 1946 to 1960; and in that capacity he criticised fascist, socialist, and communist governments while promoting Sweden’s alliance with the Western powers. Tingsten also held several government posts, including membership in the Royal Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs (1923-24) and the Standing Committee on the Constitution. He was professor of political science at the University of Stockholm from 1935 to 1946.

Jurist and French statesman, born in Bayonne, France. During World War II he joined Charles de Gaulle in London. He was the chief legal adviser in negotiations with the British government, and held important posts in the French government in exile in London and Algiers. Later he became Council of State (of which he was President, 1944-60) in liberated France. After the war he was increasingly concerned with the safeguarding of human rights, and played a leading part in the establishment of UNESCO. Principal author of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man (1948), he later became a member of the European Court of Human Rights (1959) and was its President 1965-1968. In 1968 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Nicaraguan revolutionary who in 1952 took over the family owned newspaper, La Prensa. He turned the paper into a leading opposition voice to the dictatorial and repressive Somoza regime. He was repeatedly jailed and in 1957 was sent into exile. He returned to Nicaragua in 1960 following an amnesty, however he suffered from further harassment and was assassinated in 1978. His wife, Violeta Chamorro, took over the running of La Prensa which proved to be influential in the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship.

Writer, scholar, and diplomat, born in La Coruña, Spain. He served as director of disarmament for the League of Nations 1922-1927. During 1933 he was briefly minister of education in the Spanish Republican government. An outspoken critic of the Franco regime, he was in exile 1936-76. He wrote many historical works, especially on Spain and Spanish-America. Salvador de Madariaga was the first President of Liberal International.

Co-founder and President of the Democratic Party. Schaus held several governmental posts including Vice President of the Government, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of the Interior, Minister of Justice and Vice President of the Luxembourg Parliament. Besides his political role in Luxembourg Schaus was also a member of the European Parliament and a Lecturer of Law at the University of Nancy (France).

His political achievements include legislative reforms in the realms of equal rights for women, organisation of the armed forces and societal problems including the law on divorce, adoption and preventive detention. Schaus made significant contributions to the shaping of the European Union and was also the author of many articles on legal matters and both national and international politics.

Economist and politician, born in Klippan, Sweden. He was a member of the Swedish parliament (1938-70), and leader of the Liberal Party (1944-67). He shared the 1977 Nobel Prize for Economics for his work on the dynamics of trade.

Japanese politician and feminist. Working as a teacher in Tokyo she helped to found the New Women’s Association (c.1920), which successfully fought for women’s right to attend political meetings. During her time in the USA (1921-1924), she was impressed by the suffrage movement and in 1924, she formed the Women’s Suffrage League in Japan. After World War II she became head of the New Japan Women’s League, which secured the vote for women in 1945. She campaigned against legalised prostitution and served in the Japanese Diet (1952–71), where she continued to press for an end to bureaucratic corruption. After defeat in 1971 she was triumphantly returned to parliament in 1975 and 1980.

French statesman and Prime Minister (1954-5), born in Paris. A lawyer, he entered parliament in 1932, and in 1941 escaped imprisonment in Vichy France to join the Free French forces in England. He was minister for national economy under Charles de Gaulle in 1945, and became a prominent member of the Radical Party. As prime minister, he ended the war in Indo-China, but his government was defeated on its North African policy. A firm critic of de Gaulle, he lost his seat in the 1958 election. He returned to the assembly in 1967, but retired due to ill health in 1973, later giving much attention to Israeli affairs.

Born in Tarlac, Philippines, Aquino was the chief opposition leader during the era of martial law in the Philippines (1972-81) under President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Aquino’s assassination in 1983 mobilised popular opposition to the Marcos government and brought his widow, Corazon, to the political forefront. National leader of the Liberal Party in 1968, he had planned to run for President in 1973. However, Aquino was thwarted in 1972 when President Marcos declared martial law; he spent the next eight years in prison, being sentenced to death on charges of murder and subversion in November 1977. Suffering from a heart condition, in 1980 he was allowed to leave for the USA for surgery (and exile). Two years after martial law was lifted in the Philippines, he returned home in 1983 intending to campaign in promised elections. He was shot in the head at Manila Airport. His death unleashed mass demonstrations against the Marcos regime, which were to lead in 1986, to the collapse of the Marcos presidency and the succession of Benigno’s widow.

Born in Paris, France, Aron was a sociologist, historian, and political commentator known for his scepticism of ideological orthodoxy. He was a professor of social philosophy at the University of Toulouse when World War II broke out in 1939, upon which he joined the French air force. After the fall of France he joined the Free French forces of General Charles de Gaulle in London and edited their newspaper, La France Libre (“Free France”), from 1940 to 1944. Throughout his life Aron was active as a journalist, and in 1947 he became a highly influential columnist for Le Figaro, a position he held for 30 years. He left Le Figaro in 1977, and from then until his death he wrote a political column for the weekly magazine L’Express. Aron upheld a rationalist humanism that was often contrasted with the Marxist existentialism of his great contemporary, Jean-Paul Sartre. Though his range was slightly narrower than Sartre’s and his international renown less general, Aron enjoyed a position of intellectual authority among French moderates and conservatives that almost rivalled Sartre’s on the left. Among Aron’s most influential works were L’Opium des intellectuels (1955; The Opium of the Intellectuals), which criticised left-wing conformists and the totalitarian tendencies of Marxist regimes. Aron himself became a strong supporter of the Western alliance. In La Tragédie algérienne (1957; “The Algerian Tragedy”) he voiced his support for Algerian independence, and in République impériale: Les États-Unis dans le monde, 1945-1973; ( The Imperial Republic: The United States and the World, 1945-1973), he attacked the unthinking hostility aimed at the United States by French leftists. A continuing theme in his writings was the subject of violence and war, as evidenced in such works as Paix et guerre entre les nations (1962; Peace and War) and his books on the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz. Aron also wrote an influential history of sociology entitled Les Étapes de la pensée sociologique (1967; Main Currents in Sociological Thought). His memoirs were published in 1983.

Jean Rey was born in Liège, Belgium in 1902. He was elected as a Member of Parliament for Liège in 1939, during the Second World War he was held prisoner in Germany from 1940-1945. On his return to Belgium at the end of the war Rey was re-elected to the Chamber of Deputies and campaigned for social progress and european construction. He was also involved in the development of the European Defence Community. In July 1967 Rey headed the Commission of the newly named European Communities (EC), formed of the merged executives of the three original communities. Whilst President of the Commission Rey acted as a broker whose primary tasks were to strike a balance and compromise between national viewpoints and to implement policy packages that were acceptable to the six member states. Rey died in Liège in 1983 and is remembered for his belief that the benefits of Liberalism must act as the cement to the building of society.

Tancredo Neves was born in 1910 in Sao Joao Del Rey. He was Prime Minister of Brazil from 1961-62. In August 1984, whilst Governor of Minas Gerais State, Neves was named presidential candidate for the liberal alliance. At the presidential election in January 1995 Neves was elected Brazil’s first civilian president for 21 years. Prior to the inauguration ceremony Neves was taken ill and died in April 1985 having aided the implementation of democracy in Brazil following military governments. José Sarney took over as acting President and implemented the commitment of Neves, including restoring direct elections by universal suffrage.

Hans Klinghofer was born in Vienna in 1906. He studied at the University of Vienna gaining Doctorates in Political Science and Law. Following the Nazi takeover of Austria Klinghofer fled to France and then to Brazil. Whilst in exile Klinghofer continued to publish articles on both law and political science. He arrived in Israel in 1953 and taught at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He published many important articles on freedom of speech and the freedom of occupation. In his teachings he conveyed the concepts of human rights, equality, fairness and other basic tenets of liberalism. In 1961 Klinghofer was elected to the Knesset representing the Liberal Party. In the Knesset he promoted a private Bill to cancel old legislation which was not consistent with human rights and in 1964 he drafted the human rights bill, including both political and social rights. Klinghofer’s ideas and proposals were a source of inspiration to members of the Knesset and also guided many outside the Knesset with respect to human rights issues. He served as President of the Association of Human Rights in Israel, as well as in many other capacities. In all the functions he fulfilled he advanced the ideas of liberalism, and was widely admired as a model of a liberal person and leader who did much to implement the ideas of liberalism. Hans Klinghofer died in 1987.

Writer and educator, born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. He studied at the University of Natal, began work as a teacher, and became principal of the Diepkloof Reformatory for young offenders (1935), where he was known for the success of his enlightened methods. From his deep concern with the racial problem in South Africa sprang several novels, notably Cry, the Beloved Country (1948), Too Late the Phalarope (1953), Ah, but Your Land is Beautiful (1981). He also wrote Hope for South Africa (1958), a political study written from a liberal standpoint. He was national President of the South African Liberal Party from 1953-60.

Andrej Sacharov was born in Moscow, Russia in 1921. He began his career as a nuclear physicist carrying out research into controlled nuclear fusion. Together with Igor Tamm, Sacharov made a proposal that led to the construction of the Soviet Hydrogen bomb. By 1961 Sacharov became concerned about the potential use of the hydrogen bomb and made a formal protest against the atmospheric testing of the bomb. By 1968 science had given way to politics and Sacharov became a spokesman for civil liberties in the USSR, for international disarmament and nuclear weapons control. For his work Sacharov was awarded the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize. His political activities eventually led him to be exiled in Gorkiy in 1980. He was allowed to return to Moscow in December 1986 and in April 1989 he was elected to the Congress of People’s Deputies. He remained a leading spokesman for human rights and political and economic reform until his death in December 1989.

Ramón Trias-Fargas was born in Barcelona in December 1922.  From 1936 -1949 he lived in exile in Colombia and the United States. During this period he gained a Phd in Law and Political Sciences at the University of Bogotá and a Master of Arts and Economy at the University of Chicago. Upon his return to Spain in 1961 he was appointed Professor of Political Economics at the University of Valencia.

In 1972 Trias-Fargas founded Llibertat I Democràcia, a Catalan Liberal Group and then started the procedure for the group to join Liberal International. In 1974 he founded the Liberal party Esquerra Democràtica de Catalunya and was elected its President. In 1978 Trias-Fargas merged his party with Jordi Pujol’s Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC) and thus created the main political party in Catalonia. Trias-Fargas was subsequently elected President of the newly merged CDC party. Elected as a Member of Parliament in 1977 and 1979 Trias-Fargas concerned himself with issues surrounding handicapped people and Catalan autonomy. He was responsible for the advanced law of Social Integration of Handicapped People, known as Trias Law. He is regarded as the founder of modern Liberalism in Catalonia having co-drafted the Catalan Statute of autonomy, founded the Centre for Autonomous Regions’ Relations and holding the post of Minister of Economy and Finances in the Catalan Government on two occasions. As Regional Minister Trias-Fargas was responsible for the establishment of Catalan financial and economic public administration. Trias-Fargas died in October 1989.

Giovanni Malagodi was born in London in 1904. He avoided politics in Italy during the Fascist era. After Mussolini’s fall Malagodi became a government adviser on economic and financial matters and then in 1954 the Secretary General of the Italian Liberal Party. He went on to serve as a government Minister and was elected President of the Italian Senate. Malagodi was President of Liberal International from 1958-1966 and 1982-1989. It was under the Presidency of Malagodi that Liberal International began to widen its political base and to expand its contacts in the Third World. At the 1989 Paris Congress of Liberal International Malagodi was made a President of Honour.

Willy Bretscher began his newspaper career as a secretary for the newspaper “Winterthurer Tagblat”. He wrote for several magazines and newspapers and then for the Liberal newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung. He worked his way up to become the Berlin correspondent in 1925, where he witnessed the problems of Weimar and the emergence of National Socialism. In 1933 Bretscher was made Editor in Chief of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, a post he held until 1967. Bretscher’s Liberal beliefs led him to play an important role in the early development of Liberal International.

Czechoslovakian statesman, born in Uhrovek, Slovak Republic. He joined the Communist Party in 1939, and fought as a Slovak patriot against the Nazis (1944-5). As first secretary of the communist party, he introduced a series of far-reaching economic and political reforms (called the Prague Spring), including abolition of censorship and increased freedom of speech. His liberalisation policy led to the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Soviet forces (August 1968). He became president of the Federal Assembly, for a few months in 1969, but was then expelled from the Presidium, and deprived of Party membership in 1970. In 1989, following the overthrow of the existing Communist government, he was elected chairman of the Czechoslovak parliament. He was awarded the Sakharov Peace Prize in 1989.

Economist, born in Vienna. He studied in Vienna, became director of the Austrian Institute for Economic Research (1927-31), lectured at Vienna (1929-31), and was appointed professor of economic science at London (1931-50), becoming a British citizen in 1938. He was professor of social and moral science at Chicago (1950-62). Strongly opposed to Keynesianism, he was often called “the father of monetarism”, and believed that government intervention in a free market leads eventually to domestic disaster. He shared the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1974.

Lalith Athumathmudali was a Sri Lankan politician who advocated that true freedom can only come through participatory democracy and respect for human rights. He advocated that the education of a population was essential in order that they may take on the responsibility of advancing and protecting freedom. Athulathmudali also recognised that the exercise of freedom depends on a minimum degree of material comfort. For example those who are hungry do not wish for press freedom.

Lalith Athulathmudali was leader of the Democratic United National Front (DUNF) in Sri Lanka. Until 1991 Athulathmudali was a member of the United National Party (UNP) and at one time a cabinet member in President Premadasa’s government. However in May 1991 Athulathmudali joined with members of the opposition in supporting impeachment proceedings against the President. Premadasa was accused of 24 instances of alleged abuse of power including illegal land deals, improperly aiding Tamil rebels and the failure to consult the cabinet. Owing to their actions Athulathmudali and seven other members of the UNP were expelled from the party. Subsequently the dissidents formed the DUNF, which was led by Athulathmudali. Athulathmudali was assassinated in April 1993 and the DUNF held Premadasa’s government responsible.

Jorge Carpio Nicolle was regarded as one of the driving forces of liberalism, human rights and democracy in Guatemala. Carpio Nicolle founded the Unión del Centro Nacional (UCL) in 1984. In 1985 and 1990 he was the party’s candidate for the presidential elections. Carpio Nicolle came second in both elections in the second round of voting. Carpio Nicolle was also a former editor and director general of El Gráfico, one of Guatemala’s largest newspapers, a President of the Guatemalan Red Cross and a member (on several occasions as Ambassador) of the Guatemalan Delegation to the United Nations.

Jorge Carpio Nicolle, a Vice President of Liberal International, was assassinated in July 1993. It is widely believed that the military were involved in his murder, though no one has yet been charged.

Polish diplomat born in Zakopane, Poland. He was a central figure in the Polish government-in-exile based in London during and after World War II and served one term as President-in-exile (1979-86). He joined the Polish foreign service in 1919 and was a delegate to the 1932-34 disarmament conference in Geneva. As ambassador to the court of St. James’s (1934-45), he signed the Anglo-Polish pact that brought the UK into the war when Poland was invaded in 1939. Raczynski served in the Polish government-in-exile as foreign minister (1941-43), but he refused to join the post-war communist government established in Warsaw as a consequence of the 1945 Yalta Conference. He remained active in émigré politics as an adviser to the British government and as chairman (1940-67) of the Polish Research Centre in London. Raczynski published his wartime diaries in English in 1963 and wrote several volumes of poetry and reminiscences in Polish.

 Born in Sakwa, East African Protectorate (now in Kenya). African nationalist politician who was a leader in the opposition against the single party rule of Jomo Kenyatta. From the late 1940s Odinga was an associate of Kenyatta’s in the campaign for Kenya’s independence from Britain. In 1960 he became vice president of the newly formed Kenya African National Union (KANU) during which period he pressed for independence. His socialist views conflicted with Kenyatta’s more centrist ideology, and in 1966 he broke away from KANU to form a left-wing opposition party, the Kenya People’s Union (KPU). The KPU was outlawed by Kenyatta in 1969, and some of its members, including Odinga, were placed under government detention. After his release in 1971, Odinga rejoined KANU, but he never regained Kenyatta’s confidence, and he was not permitted to run for parliament. Odinga continued to criticise government corruption and to press for improved human rights and a multiparty political system. He was expelled from KANU in 1982 and imprisoned for several months. In 1991 he helped found the Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD).

Philosopher, born in Vienna. In his writings, he examined the conditions of scientific and social progress and concluded that individuals have the right to criticise authorities and institutions; progress is made possible by readiness to make the best use of existing material resources. He studied at Vienna University, where he associated with the “Vienna Circle” of philosophers, though he was strongly critical of their logical positivism. In 1935 he published his first book on scientific methodology, Die Logik der Forschung (1934, The Logic of Scientific Discovery). He left Vienna during Hitler’s rise to power, lectured in New Zealand (1937-45), finally becoming professor of logic and scientific method at London (1949-69). Later books include The Open Society and its Enemies (1945), which is directed against all systems with totalitarian implications, such as Marxism, and The Poverty of Historicism (1957). He was knighted in 1965.

Per Federspiel was a prominent Danish lawyer and politician. Educated at Eton he was one of the leaders of the Danish resistance movement during the Nazi occupation in World War II. After the war Federspiel was a minister in the liberation government (1945-47) and a liberal member of parliament from 1947 to 1973. He was very active in the Danish European movement as his party’s spokesman on European affairs as well as its representative in the Council of Europe. Federspiel was the first liberal president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. His Presidency ran from 1960 until 1963.

Israeli soldier, statesman, and Prime Minister (1974-7, 1992-5), born in Jerusalem. He worked to bring peace between the Palestinians and Israelis. He fought in the War of Independence (1948-9), and represented the Israeli Defence Forces at the armistice in Rhodes. He rose to become chief-of-staff in 1964, heading the armed forces during the Six-Day War (1967). After serving as ambassador to the USA (1968-73) he became Labour Party leader and Prime Minister, resigning in 1977. He later served as defence minister (1984-90), was re-elected as Labour Party leader in 1992, and became Prime Minister again later that year. His centre-left government favoured Palestinian self-government. In 1993, after secret talks in Oslo, he signed an accord with the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation), granting self-rule to the Palestinians of Gaza and Jericho and stipulating a phased withdrawal of Israeli forces. In 1994 he signed a peace treaty with Jordan; the same year he shared the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1995, he signed a second accord agreeing to further troop withdrawals from the West Bank and further expansion of Palestinian self-rule on the West Bank. These concessions aroused extreme and often violent opposition in Israel. He was assassinated by an Israeli extremist while attending a peace rally in Tel Aviv.

Hermod Lannung was a member of the Danish party, Det Radikale Venstre, and a founding member of Liberal International, in which he was actively involved until his death. Lannung was idealistically devoted to the United Nations, human rights and international rule. To these ends he was a keen supporter of European integration and in favour of the reduction of hostilities between the East and West during the Cold War.

Sir Isaiah Berlin was born in Riga, Latvia in 1909. He is regarded as having been one of the most remarkable men of his time and one of the leading liberal thinkers of the century. His defence and refinement of what he saw as the essential conception of freedom achieved classic status. In his lecture “Two Concepts of Liberty” Berlin advocated negative liberty (freedom to do as one pleases without obstruction) and demonstrated how positive liberty (freedom to rule oneself) can be perverted into the freedom to achieve self-realisation according to criteria laid down, or imposed, by self-appointed arbiters of the true ends of human life. Berlin also advocated the concept that not all values can be jointly realised in one life, or even in a single society, and therefore there can be no single objective ranking of ends nor uniquely right set of principles by which to live.

Most of Berlin’s academic career was at Oxford University, where he became a fellow of All Souls (1932), professor of social and political theory (1957), and Master of Wolfson College (1966). His philosophical works include Karl Marx (1939), Historical Inevitability (1954), Two Concepts of Liberty (1959), and Vico and Herder (1976). Isaiah Berlin died in Oxford, UK, in November 1997.

Minoo Masani was born in Bombay in 1905. He was active in the Quit India movement and was consequently imprisoned for two years. Following his release he was elected Mayor of Bombay in 1943. After Indian independence Masani was appointed the country’s Ambassador to Brazil. He was also the Chairman of the United Nations Commission on Discrimination and Minorities before founding his own Freedom Party. The party had socialist leanings and emerged as the single largest party in 1967. However Masani began to believe that socialism would not work and advocated market reform policies in an atmosphere of protectionism and economic insularity. Masani was twice elected an MP (1957 and 1963) and used this position to oppose the socialist policies of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. In the 1970s Masani opposed the policies of the government of Indira Gandhi which suspended civil rights and censored the press.

Minoo Masani was a patron of Liberal International and helped to establish links between the organisation and Liberals in India. He died in May 1998 at the age of 92.