Letters to the Editor: A “short brown’ Oaxacan was Mexico’s greatest president. What say you, Nury Martinez?
By R. Scott Cutler
Howdy, Oaxacan. May I present to you a “short brown” who could have been yours. He was the Mexican president. What do you say, Ms. Nury?
I’m talking about Augusto C. Gómez, who was, shall we say, a bit of a “quota president.”
How many Mexicans were voting under that system? Maybe 300,000. Maybe 400,000. Maybe, if you believe the polls, 600,000. There weren’t that many Mexicans. There were 300,000, just like there were 400,000, just like there were 600,000.
Gomez had a very, very difficult time. The election was on April 2, 1929. He was running against Victoriano Huerta, a very tough man who came from the central valley of Oaxaca whose main support area was east of the city of Oaxaca City. Huerta, the “Quartz King,” won by a narrow margin.
Gomez was an unkind man. He was born in the northern Mexico city of Puebla in 1876. He became a priest, but he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Puebla state legislature in 1914. After that, he joined the army reserves and fought against the liberals, who were strong in the town of Oaxaca.
Gomez’s father was a successful businessman. He moved the family to Oaxaca when Gomez was about 10 years old. That was when he got into politics. He ran as the leader of a radical party, and he received support from both liberals and the radical party. That party did well enough to be the largest party in the Oaxacan state assembly in 1919, when Gomez was elected to the state assembly. The party was a coalition of the radical wing of the Socialist Party and a group of radical leaders from the radical nationalist parties.
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