Epitácio Pessoa Epitácio Lindolfo da Silva Pessoa ( ; 23 May 1865 – 13 February 1942 ) was a Brazilian politician and jurist , and president of the republic between 1919 and 1922 , when Rodrigues Alves could not take office due to illness after being elected in 1918 . His period of government was marked by military revolts that would culminate in the Revolution of 1930 , which brought Getúlio Vargas into control of the federal government . In addition to his term as president , Pessoa served as Minister of Justice , a justice in the Supreme Federal Tribunal , Attorney General , a two - term Federal Deputy , a three - term Senator , Chief of the Brazilian delegation for the Treaty of Versailles , and a judge on the Permanent Court of International Justice . Biography . Epitácio Pessoa was born in Umbuzeiro , a small town in the state of Paraíba . His parents died of smallpox when he was only seven years old . He was taken in and educated by his uncle Henrique de Lucena , then the governor of Pernambuco . Pessoa endured a very poor childhood , but with great effort managed to earn a degree in law . He went on to join the Faculty of Law at the University of Pernambuco as a professor . He eventually made his way to Rio de Janeiro . Young Epitácio managed to make the acquaintance of Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca through the connections of his eldest brother José . With the proclamation of the Brazilian Republic he was invited by governor Venâncio Neiva to serve as secretary - general of the first republican government of Paraíba . He was a deputy to the constituent assembly from 1890 to 1891 , during which time he was noted as a standout figure . By the time he was twenty - five years old , he was already noted as an accomplished jurist . During his time in the Constituent Assembly , Pessoa gave an outstanding speech in which he articulated the political responsibilities of the President of the Republic . In 1894 , he resolved to abandon politics because of his disagreements with then - president Floriano Peixoto . After marrying Maria da Conceição Manso Saião , he left for Europe . After his return to Brazil he became Minister of Justice in the government of Campos Sales , during which time he invited Clóvis Beviláqua , a colleague from his days as a professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Recife , to write a civil code for the country that would eventually be adopted in 1916 . After leaving the Ministry of Justice , Pessoa would then successively serve as Minister of Transportation , Justice of the Supreme Federal Tribunal , and Attorney General of the Republic . Levi Carneiro , in his " Livro de um Advogado " , notes that as a justice Pessoa never voted in favor of any case in which he had been assigned to elaborate the views of the court . Elected as a senator for his home state of Paraíba in 1911 , Pessoa then moved to Europe , where he lived until 1914 . Returning to Brazil , he would soon assume the post of realtor for the Commission for the Verification of Powers . With the end of the First World War , Pessoa was chosen to lead the Brazilian delegation for the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 . Ruy Barbosa had originally been chosen to lead the delegation , but he resigned and Pessoa was picked as his substitute . The Brazilian delegation , which supported the aims of the United States , obtained good results in its attempts to resolve issues that Brazil had an interest in : the sale of Brazilian coffee that had been stored in European ports and the fate of 70 German ships seized by Brazil during the war . Pessoa disputed the succession of Delfim Moreira , the vice - president of president - elect Rodrigues Alves , who had died before he could take office . He won the presidency of the Republic by defeating the septuagenarian Ruy Barbosa in a snap election without having even left France , the only such case in the history of the Brazilian republic . His candidacy had been supported in Minas Gerais and was considered fairly symbolic . The election of a president from Paraíba represented a defeat for the old political system of café com leite , with the election of Marshal Hermes da Fonseca from Rio Grande do Sul a decade earlier being the only previous exception . Regardless , Pessoa still represented the interests of the traditional oligarchies of Minas Gerais and São Paulo . There is another view of this election , however : the belief that after the death of Rodrigues Alves the elite of Minas Gerais and São Paulo wanted to choose a new candidate from outside their own ranks . That Artur Bernardes of Minas Gerais was elected president in the next election supports the theory that the oligarches had never lost control in the intervening years . Pessoa was an unavowed racist . He banned the involvement of Brazil ' s black football players in the 1921 Copa America , the South American football championships . Presidency . Brazil had greatly improved its financial situation over the course of the First World War . The industrialized countries had been forced to concentrate all of their resources towards the arms industry . Brazil exported raw materials at compensatory prices and enlarged its industrial base , manufacturing products that were previously imported . With the end of the war , Europe began to rehabilitate its industries . At the same time , Brazil was plagued with a number of workers strikes , and the business community along with the coffee - growers tried to reimpose their control . In response to these events , Pessoa introduced a program of austere financial planning . Nevertheless , the pressures on the State continued to grow . New loans , totaling nine million pounds , financed the retention of green coffee in Brazilian ports . Another loan was secured from the United States for the electrification of the Estrada de Ferro Central do Brasil . Pessoa did not escape from the intrigues of state politics and used the federal government to intervene on behalf of state - based interest groups in return for support in Congress . He was embroiled in one of the most troubled periods in the history of the Old Republic with the outbreak of the 18 of the Copacabana Fort revolt on 5 July 1922 , the crisis of the false letters ( see below ) and the revolt of the Military Club . The process of finding a successor for Pessoa therefore happened within a highly - charged climate in which the lieutenants and subalterns ( the " tenentes " ) of the Armed Forces called for profound political reforms . Crisis of the False Letters . In 1921 , the Correio da Manhã published letters supposedly sent by Artur Bernardes and Raul Soares de Moura that contained insults towards the Armed Forces and Marshal Hermes da Fonseca . A commission attested to the veracity of this correspondence . A year later , Bernardes claimed victory in the presidential elections . In response , the Military Club and the noted politician Borges de Medeiros called for the creation of a court of honor to review the legitimacy of Bernardes ' election . The Federal Congress reviewed the election results and declared them legitimate . Notable facts . Pessoa ' s principal acts as president were the following : Last years . After leaving the presidency , Epitácio Pessoa was elected to be a Justice of the Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague , and stayed on the bench until November 1930 . From 1924 until the Revolution of 1930 , he was a senator for Paraíba . He supported the revolution , which implemented the ideals of earlier army revolts . The assassination of his nephew João Pessoa was a strong emotional blow to Epitácio , and in its aftermath he retired from public life . In 1937 , he began to show signs of declining health . He developed Parkinson ' s Disease and severe heart problems . Epitácio Pessoa would live until 13 February 1942 , when he died in Nova Betânia , part of Petrópolis ( Rio de Janeiro ) . In 1965 his remains , along with those of his wife , were transported to João Pessoa , Paraíba , for reinternment . Academia Paraibana de Letras . Pessoa was the patron of chair no . 31 of the Academia Paraibana de Letras , which was founded by Father Francisco Lima . It is currently occupied by Angela Bezerra de Castro . 1951 .