| Adolfo De La Huerta |
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| image name=Adolfo de la Huerta.jpg | order=46th President | date1= June 1 1920 | date2= November 30 1920 | preceded= Francisco Lagos Cházaro | succeeded= Álvaro Obregón | date of birth= May 26 1881 | place of birth= Hermosillo , Sonora | date of death= July 9 1955 | place of death= Mexico City | profession= | wife=Clara Oriol | party= }} Adolfo de la Huerta ( 26 May 1881 – 9 July 1955 ) was a key figure in the Mexican Revolution and later served as President Of Mexico for a period of six months in 1920 . De la Huerta should not be confused with Victoriano Huerta , " The Jackal ", who was President of Mexico in 1913 to 1914 . Early life Felipe Adolfo de la Huerta Marcor was born in the port city of Guaymas , Sonora , on May 26, 1881. His father was a merchant who had established good relations with the Yaqui Indians of the region, and the family's comfortable middle-class status enabled it to send Adolfo to Mexico City to study. He made good use of his time there, studying bookkeeping as well as singing (he had a very good Tenor voice) and the violin. His father's death abruptly ended his studies, and he was forced to return to Guaymas. He found work as an accountant for a local bank and later as an administrator in a tannery, although he also found time to develop his artistic talents. De la Huerta's political doubts were first awakened by the propaganda of the Jacobin Partido Liberal Mexicano, “Jacobin Mexican Liberal Party” (PLM), and he subscribed to its newspaper, ''Regeneración''. De la Huerta was alienated by the PLM's radicalism, however, and in 1909 he supported the failed presidential bid of Bernardo Reyes . He later supported Francisco I. Madero in his campaign to oust the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz , and he was part of the reception committee that welcomed Madero to Guaymas. Mexican Revolution De la Huerta was an active Madero supporter during the Revolution Of 1910 , presiding over the Revolutionary Party of Sonora, and after Madero's victory he was elected as local representative in the state legislature. As a state representative he supported Plutarco Elías Calles in his bid for commissioner of the border town of Agua Prieta and clinched Alvaro Obregón 's bid for the municipal presidency of Huatabampo . He participated in the fight against Orozquista rebels and proposed solutions to the endemic problems with the Yaqui Indians. De la Huerta happened to be in Mexico City during the coup d'etat against the Madero government, and he returned north to organize opposition to the coup's leader, Victoriano Huerta. He made contact with the governor of Coahuila , Venustiano Carranza, and provided a link between him and Revolutionary forces in Sonora. He attended a meeting in Monclava, Coahuila, in which the Revolutionary forces accepted (provisionally at least) Carranza's leadership. Following defeat of Huerta in October 1914, de la Huerta was named chief of staff in the Ministry of the Interior under Carranza, and in August 1915 he was promoted to secretary of the interior. In May 1916 he assumed the post of interim governor of Sonora. During his tenure as interim governor, de la Huerta implemented a number of important social reforms. He attempted to broker a peace settlement with the Yaqui Indians and, on a somewhat more sour note, issued decrees against Chinese immigrants in Sonora. One of his most important reforms was the establishment of a state "chamber of workers" to represent workers and mediate labor disputes. At the end of his term de la Huerta handed the governorship to General Plutarco Elias Calles and returned to Mexico City as chief of staff in the Ministry of the Interior; he later served as consul general in New York. In 1919 he was nominated as the official governor of Sonora, and the good impression he had made as interim governor helped him win the election handily. Nonetheless, de la Huerta's relationship with the federal government during his term as constitutionally elected governor would be far less amicable. In June 1919 the Sonoran Álvaro Obregón was named a candidate for the presidency, and Carranza's opposition to his candidacy alienated the people of Sonora. De la Huerta's first direct confrontation with Carranza was over a seemingly minor technical matter. The federal government declared that the Sonora River belonged under its jurisdiction, while the state government insisted that it belonged under local jurisdiction, since it did not flow into the ocean. In fact, the Carranza administration was looking for an excuse to drop de la Huerta and thus decrease the influence of Sonora. General Manuel M. Dieguez was sent to Sonora as a new military commander for the region. As military commander Dieguez posed a grave threat to the constitutional government of Sonora, attempting to provoke a confrontation with the Yaquis and gain control of the state. With his characteristic diplomatic acumen, de la Huerta armed a contingent of volunteers and was able to convince the officers at Dieguez's operations headquarters to ally with him and not obey Dieguez. Realizing that he had lost control of his own army, Dieguez returned to Guadalajara . Meanwhile, the national political crisis had begun to heat up. In February 1920 Calles resigned as secretary of industry, commerce, and labor to help lead the Obregón campaign. Following his return to Sonora in April, de la Huerta named him state military commander. Tensions between Sonora and the Carranza administration continued to mount, and when Obregón narrowly avoided capture at the hands of federal authorities in Mexico City a rebel plan was drawn up in Sonora. Titled the Plan of Agua Prieta, the plan was published on April 23 and began a broad national movement of not recognizing Carranza or the governors of the states that supported him. In what has been termed a "generals' strike," the majority of officers in the Mexican army refused to support Carranza; Dieguez, one of Carranza's last military supporters, was taken prisoner in Guadalajara. Carranza attempted to move his government to Veracruz as he had done in 1915, but railway lines had been cut and Carranza and his entourage were forced to retreat on horseback into the Sierra of Puebla, where he was attacked and killed on May 21. Presidency With Caranza dead, Congress named de la Huerta interim president of Mexico until presidential elections could be held and a new president sworn into office on November 30, 1920. De la Huerta traveled from Sonora to Mexico City to assume the presidency on July 1. The major accomplishment of the de la Huerta administration was, after almost a decade of civil war, to achieve the pacification of Mexico. Carranza had clashed with numerous groups: the Revolutionary followers of Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa , counterrevolutionaries such as Manuel Pelaez and Félix Díaz, states' rights movements in Oaxaca and Chiapas , and many others. Now that Carranza, their old enemy, was dead, de la Huerta was able to convince the rebels to lay down their arms. Some were integrated into the new government; others, such as Pancho Villa, retired to private life. Only Félix Díaz was forced into exile. In contrast to the harder line taken by his fellow Sonorans Obregón and Calles, de la Huerta developed a more conciliatory style of government. He formed a cabinet that represented a wide range of anti-Carranza groups. He named José Vasconcelos , who had been living in exile, rector of the national university, and he presided over a veritable educational revolution. De la Huerta's six-month term of office saw considerable labor unrest, but he was able to contain the conflicts. De la Huerta's greatest problem was the United States' refusal to recognize his government. All of de la Huerta's overtures failed, and the problem remained unresolved when he handed the reigns of government to Obregón in 1920. Life after the Presidency During the Obregón administration de la Huerta was named secretary of the treasury. De la Huerta, Obregón, and Calles--who had been named secretary of the interior--formed the so-called Sonoran Triangle, which was seen as the pinnacle of power in Mexico. De la Huerta was able to regain control of the federal budget, as taxes from Mexico's burgeoning petroleum production helped fill depleted government coffers. He also was able overcome problems with Mexico's external debt, signing an agreement with Thomas W. Lamont of the International Banking Committee in 1922. Obregón still needed to obtain recognition from the United States, and in 1923 a bilateral commission composed of two representatives from each country was established to work toward a new trade and friendship treaty. Although Obregón did not name de la Huerta as one of the members of the commission, he did ask him to intervene at particularly tense moment when the U.S. representatives threatened to walk out. Nonetheless, de la Huerta opposed the final agreement, the so-called Bucareli Accords, believing that they reversed many of the achievements of the Revolution. De la Huerta's opposition to the Bucareli Accords came at a moment when candidates were being named for the next presidential election. Although de la Huerta was considered one of the most viable potential candidates, he threw his support behind Calles. Nonetheless, when the president of the ''Partido Nacional Cooperatista'' (“National Cooperatist Party”) was defeated in his bid for the governorship of San Luis Potosí , he named de la Huerta as the party's candidate for the presidency, and de la Huerta resigned as secretary of the treasury. The Cooperatistas also opposed the Bucareli Accords, and Senator Field Jurado was assassinated in the dispute. The situation between September and December 1923 was quite tense. Although Calles was supported as the candidate of the ''Partido Laborista'' (“Labor Party”), the Cooperatistas were attacked and persecuted. A number of generals, chiefs of military operations, and other officers allied themselves with de la Huerta, and after receiving the support of General Guadalupe Sanchez of Veracruz in December, de la Huerta led a rebellion against the government. The rebellion extended along two fronts, the eastern front, which comprised the states of Puebla, Veracruz, and Tabasco, and the western front, which was centered in the state of Jalisco . As much as 60 percent of the army supported the rebellion; some generals who had been living in exile, including Salvador Alvarado and de la Huerta's old enemy Dieguez, returned to Mexico to support the uprising. Nonetheless, the rebel forces lacked a unified leadership that could coordinate their activities; the uprising has been dubbed ''la rebelion sin cabeza'' ("the headless revolt"). Obregón was able to maintain lines of communication between Mexico City and the U.S. border, preventing the two fronts of the rebel forces from uniting. Fighting continued until the first months of 1924, when the eastern front was defeated in the Battle of Esperanza and the western front at Ocotlan. Many of the generals who had supported the rebellion were executed, but de la Huerta, Prieto Laurens, and other members of the civilian leadership were able to escape to the United States. De la Huerta spent most of his exile in Los Angeles, where he earned a living as a singing instructor. In 1935 President Lázaro Cárdenas granted him amnesty, naming him inspector general of Mexican consulates in the United States and later director general of civil retirement pensions. He died in Mexico City on July 9, 1955. |