Cardona
MPSA 2004
19
calculate the size of the [existing] Officials as 4,000 individuals. This number does not even
include those who, by executive decree, ministerial resolution or simple appointment as a civilian
employee in the military administration, abrogate the highest and most lofty titles in the Army
hierarchy! It is this selection of 350 among 4,000 Officers that makes the task of a Minister
difficult; it is this anomaly that has gravely affected the noble military career; this monstrosity that
generates pressure on the Government from those on the outside to substitute those on the inside
of the service. Such a state of affairs must end. (Memoria de Guerra 1910: xiii)
Seen in this light, the development of military education and merit-based criteria appears
to be a matter of political convenience than military strategy. Indeed, Calderón goes on to
suggest on the next page of his report that junior officers who have not been promoted by
age forty be removed from the hierarchy, and that only those individuals who have
completed a course at the Army Cadet School or War Academy be allowed to be
appointed as officers in the Army (Memoria de Guerra 1910: xiv). This juxtaposition
suggests that specific aspects of the design of the public forces may have responded to
short-term strategic interests, rather than long-term calculations.
The contrast with Carlos Holguín’s 1888 vision of a professionalized police force
is notable. Ironically, Holguín’s goal would not be achieved for many years afterwards,
even as the army benefited from the types of specialized education that he wished for the
police to enjoy. Colombian analysts coincide in asserting that the army was able to
professionalize, i.e., develop merit-based criteria for entry into advancement within the
institution, several decades before the police (Valencia Tovar in Alape 1985: 28). While
the army was on its way to this objective by the mid-1910s, the National Police did not
receive similar treatment until 1937, when the first professional police school was
opened. Colombian police historians date the onset of professionalization as 1940, with
Convention