Lázaro Cárdenas

From Freepedia

Image:1101380829 400.jpg Lázaro Cárdenas del Río President of Mexico
Term of office:	November 30, 1934 – December 1, 1940
Preceded by:	Abelardo L. Rodríguez
Succeeded by:	Manuel Ávila Camacho
Date of birth:	21 May 1895
Place of birth:	Jiquilpan, Michoacán
Date of death:	19 october 1970
Place of death:	Mexico City
Profession:	Army General
First Lady:	Amalia Solórzano
Party:	Party of the Mexican Revolution

This article is about Gen. Lázaro Cárdenas del Río. For his grandson, see Lázaro Cárdenas Batel. For the town see Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán

Lázaro Cárdenas del Río (May 21, 1895 – October 19, 1970) was President of Mexico from 1934 to 1940.

Lázaro Cárdenas was born into a lower-middle class family in the village of Jiquilpan, Michoacán. He supported his family (including his mother and 7 younger siblings) from age 16 on after the death of his father. By the age of 18 he had worked as a tax collector, a printer's devil, and a jailkeeper. Although he left school at the age of eleven, he used every opportunity to educate himself and read widely throughout his life, especially works of history.

Cárdenas originally set his sights at becoming a teacher, but was drawn into politics and the military during the Mexican Revolution after Victoriano Huerta overthrew President Francisco Madero. He backed Plutarco Elías Calles, and after Calles became President, Cárdenas became governor of Michoacán in 1928. He became known for his progressive program of building roads and schools, promoting education, and land reform, as well as the unusually strict honesty of his administration.

Calles continued to dominate Mexico after his presidency with administrations that were his puppets. He selected Cárdenas to be the ruling party's presidential candidate on the assumption that he could control Cárdenas as he had controlled others. Cárdenas's first move once he took office late in 1934 was to have his presidential salary cut in half. Even more surprising moves would follow. After establishing himself in the presidency, Cárdenas had Calles and dozens of his corrupt associates arrested or deported to the United States, a decision that was greeted with great enthusiasm by the majority of the Mexican public.

Cárdenas is considered by many historians to be the creator of a political system that lasted in Mexico until the end of the 1980s. Central to this project was the organization of corporatist structures for trade unions, campesino (peasant) organizations, and middle-class professionals and office workers within the reorganized ruling party, now renamed the Party of the Mexican Revolution (PRM). During Cardenas's presidency, the government redistributed millions of acres of land to peasants, and urban and industrial workers gained unprecedented unionization rights and wage increases. However, Cardenas and subsequent presidents also used the PRN and its successor, the Party of the Institutional Revolution, or PRI, to maintain political control; leaders of the worker and campesino organizations delivered votes and suppressed protests in exchange for personal favors and concessions to their constituencies.

Also central to Cardenas's project were nationalistic economic policies involving Mexico's vast oil production, which had soared following strikes in 1910 in the area known as the "Golden Lane," near Tampico, and which made Mexico the world's second-largest oil producer by 1921, supplying approximately 20 percent of domestic demand in the United States.

Cárdenas's efforts to negotiate with Mexican Eagle, in the managerial control of Royal Dutch/Shell, and Standard Oil of New Jersey were unavailing, and the companies rejected a solution proposed by a presidential commission. So at 9:45 p.m. on the evening of March 18, 1938, Cárdenas nationalized Mexico's petroleum reserves and expropriated the equipment of the foreign oil companies in Mexico. The announcement inspired a spontaneous six-hour parade in Mexico City.

Even though compensation for the expropriated assests was included in this legislation, the act angered the international business community and vexed foreign governments, especially Great Britain. The British severed diplomatic relations with Cárdenas's government, and Mexican oil and other goods were boycotted. However, with the outbreak of World War II, oil became a highly sought-after commodity. Mexico began to export oil to Nazi Germany. The United States and Britain decided this was unacceptable, so they settled their grievances with Mexico and ended the boycott. Mexican Eagle and Royal Dutch/Shell held out longer and received a better deal after the conclusion of the war.

The Mexican company that Cárdenas founded, Petróleos Mexicanos (or Pemex), would later be a model for other nations seeking greater control over their own oil and natural gas resources.

After his presidential term, Cárdenas served as Mexico's secretary of defense through 1945.

It is often said that Lázaro Cárdenas was the only president from the PRI who did not use the office to make himself wealthy. He retired to a modest home by Lake Pátzcuaro and worked the rest of his life supervising irrigation projects and promoting free medical clinics and education for the nation's poor. He also continued to speak out about political issues and in favor of greater democracy and human rights in Latin America, despite his own rule being less than perfectly democratic.

Cárdenas cultivated a brand o cult of personality that revered his intentions and ignored the consequences of his actions. For example, he is dearly remembered for his agrarian reform, which expropiated land from owners and put it under the control of Cárdenas political party. But the lack of property rights that has remained in the Mexican countryside ever since has thrown millions of people into abject poverty and triggered the phenomenom of immigration and urban pauperization. Nevertheless the image of Cárdenas is often invoked as an example of positive policies in favor of the poor.

Lázaro Cárdenas died of cancer in Mexico City. His son Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas is a prominent Mexican politician.

In his honor, quite a few cities in Mexico have named streets after him, including highways in Guadalajara and Monterrey.

See also: History of Mexico

Preceded by: Abelardo Rodríguez	President of Mexico 1934–1940	Succeeded by: Manuel Ávila Camacho
Preceded by: Luis Méndez	Governor of Michoacán 1928—1932	Succeeded by: Dámaso Cárdenas