1920 Mexican elections

Libertarian nominee Emiliano Calles.

The 1920 Mexican elections took place in April 1920 for the purpose of choosing the President and Congress of the United States of Mexico. It resulted in the first victory for the Liberty Party in nearly seventy years.

The 1920 elections were dominated by the issue of Negro slavery in the U.S.M. The Chapultepec Incident of January 1916 had come close to sparking war with the Confederation of North America, and made slavery into the central political issue in Mexico. Although incumbent President Victoriano Consalus of the United Mexican Party had established several commissions to study the matter, he was unable to find a political solution. In 1918, he said, "If I retain the institution I will be pilloried. Should I ask for its end, I will be crushed."

The most popular man in Mexico at this time was General Emiliano Calles, who had won a decisive victory at the Battle of Chapultepec during the Hundred Day War with France. However, Calles was a withdrawn, scholarly man who preferred to avoid publicity and concentrate on military matters. Following the end of the war in October 1914, he withdrew from public life, rejecting all efforts to persuade him to follow a political career. Although he could have gained either party's nomination for the presidency, he insisted that he "would rather die than serve in that awful office."

Although Calles continued to insist that he had no desire for a political career, he made several short political speeches in the summer of 1919. The speeches showed that he was aware of the problems facing the U.S.M., though he offered no solutions to them. Consalus met with Calles in December 1919 to offer him the U.M.P.'s presidential nomination. Consalus wished to run for another term, but knew that Calles' popularity would make him the better candidate. "There is no reason to hurry your reply, Emiliano," Consalus told him, "but if you are interested, it would be best that some of us know now." Calles responded by again saying that he had no interest in politics.

Two months later, on 15 February 1920, Senator Albert Ullman of the Liberty Party arranged to meet Calles at a government dinner, and the two spoke at length afterwards. The details of the conversation were never made public, but it is known that they spoke about Mexican slavery and "related subjects." When reporters asked Calles afterwards if he was interested in the Libertarian nomination, he responded that he planned "to remain in the army the rest of my life. In any case, Mr. Ullman will doubtless be that party's nominee."

U.M.P. nominee Victoriano Consalus.

The U.M.P. renominated Consalus at their convention in Mexico City in February 1920. However, at the Libertarian convention, Ullman and Senator Frank Armstrong of Jefferson secretly arranged for a "draft Calles" campaign to sweep the delegates and give him the nomination. Calles did not know of Ullman's plan, but he was told that he might be nominated "by acclimation." Calles accepted the nomination in a speech full of trivialities and meaningless generalizations that promised the party nothing. Ullman supposedly told Armstrong, "I think I know what we are getting, but I'm not certain. We are throwing dice with destiny."

Although, Calles was a poor campaigner, his popularity was so great that Mexican voters did not care. Consalus correctly pointed out that Calles had no political experience, had gone back on his word that he would not run, and had no solutions to Mexico's problems. Ullman advised Calles to challenge Consalus to a debate, and Consalus accepted. During the vitavised debate on 29 March, Calles was visibly ill at ease, and was clearly outclassed by Consalus. When asked what he would do about slavery, Calles answered that he "would study the matter," apparently unaware of the numerous studies that had been carried out since the Chapultepec Incident. The next day, Fernando Mordes of the Mexico City Tribune wrote that "Consalus destroyed Calles as a matador finishes off a dull bull."

None of these setbacks was sufficient to diminish Calles' popularity, and in the Presidential election he won a majority of 11,842,690 votes to Consalus' 10,214,835, winning huge majorities in every state but California and Jefferson, and 54% of the popular vote.

The 1920 Mexican Presidential Election

State	Calles votes	Calles %	Consalus votes	Consalus %	Total votes
Arizona	1,403,468	63.7	799,893	36.3	2,203,361
California	2,007,895	32.8	4,108,079	67.2	6,115,974
Chiapas	1,945,697	67.4	940,956	32.6	2,886,653
Durango	2,593,495	72.2	1,000,596	27.8	3,594,091
Jefferson	2,587,697	47.4	2,869,706	52.6	5,457,403
Mexico del Norte	1,304,398	72.5	495,605	27.5	1,800,003
U.S.M.	11,842,690	53.7	10,214,835	46.3	22,057,525

In Congress, the state of Durango elected Alvin Silva of the Liberty Party to his first term in the Senate, and re-elected Senator Rodrigo de la Casa of the U.M.P. Hernando Cromwell, Pedro Fuentes of Chiapas, and Franklin Adams of California, all of the U.M.P., were re-elected to the Assembly.

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Sobel's sources for the 1920 Mexican elections are Calles' The People and the Nation (Mexico City, 1931); as well as Samuel Slate's The Rise of Emiliano Calles (New York, 1929); and Jerome Krinz's Victoriano Consalus and the Politics of Race (New York, 1960). Election results are from the U.S.M. Statistical Abstract, p. 113.