sister of one of Arce's staunchest detractors, Atanasio de Urioste Velasco. Paradoxically, Urioste would save the life of Arce when a mob surrounded the Cathedral of Sucre and had the intention to lynch the president. Urioste disguised Arce as a priest at took him into his own home. All this despite the fact that they had completely opposite political views. Vice President of Bolivia Pro-Chile stance and exile Arce's pro-Chile stance clashed with those of the patriotic President and retired General, who favored rearmament and a sustained diplomatic offensive against Chile, perhaps leading to a mediation of the conflict and if not, to a reinsertions of Bolivian troops in Peru's aid. Arce, as explained, favored a "realistic" policy of recognition that Bolivia had indeed lost its access to the Pacific, and that the best that could be done was to reach a modus vivendi with Santiago (which had the upper hand), even if this meant abandoning the hitherto sacrosanct alliance with Lima. President Campero took this to be a sign of treason and, in 1881, expelled Arce, his own vice-president until then, from Bolivia. Return and the elections of 1884 Eventually, Arce's name was cleared and he was allowed to return to the country. He promptly entered his name as Conservative Party candidate in the 1884 general elections, the first under the new Constoitution and since 1873. Arce was widely expected to win too, but very narrowly lost to the "dark-horse" candidate Gregorio Pacheco, a man even wealthier than Arce and the country's chief philanthropist, who ran on a platform of apolitical "efficient administration." Being privileged silver miners from the South who shared a conservative, pro-business philosophy, the two reached an understanding, with Pacheco agreeing to become president in exchange for making Arce his vice-president and pledging himself to support the Conservative party candidate in the 1884 elections. President of Bolivia Administration As had been agreed upon, Pacheco supported Arce in the 1888 elections. It is thus that Arce, the Conservative Party caudillo, at long last became president in August 1888, at the age of 64. Even more so than Pacheco, Arce ruled repressively, but also consolidated many advances, including the completion of the first intra-Bolivian railway (leading from the Chilean border to Oruro) and the electrification of a number of Bolivian cities. He also promulgated a modern new set of banking and investment laws. Unabashedly pro-capitalist, devoted to practically