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  Cárdenas del Río, Lázaro
CANDIDATE DETAILS
AffiliationInstitutional Revolutionary  
 
NameLázaro Cárdenas del Río
Address
Jiquilpan, Michoacán , Mexico
EmailNone
WebsiteNone
Born May 21, 1895
DiedOctober 19, 1970 (75 years)
ContributorRalphie
Last ModifedJuan Croniqueur
Dec 23, 2023 04:52pm
Tags Hispanic - Cancer - Army - Atheist -
InfoLázaro 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.

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.

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

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FAMILY
Son Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano 1934-
Grandson Lázaro Cárdenas Batel 1962-

INFORMATION LINKS
RACES
  12/09/1955 Stalin Peace Prize Won 16.67% (+0.00%)
  07/01/1934 Mexico President Won 98.19% (+97.12%)
  08/28/1931 MEX Secretary of the Interior Won 100.00% (+100.00%)
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