Background
Mario García Menocal was born in Jagüey Grande on 17 December 1866.
government official politician president
Mario García Menocal was born in Jagüey Grande on 17 December 1866.
He spent most of his youth in the United States, receiving an engineering degree from Cornell.
Following graduation, he worked for a U.S.- owned company in Nicaragua.
Menocal returned to Cuba when the rebellion against Spain resumed under José Marti in 1895. He joined the rebel forces as a private and by the war’s end was a general. Serving as Calixto García Iñiguez’ chief of staff, he established himself as a war hero. For two years following the war, he served as chief of Havana police.
Menocal resigned this position to enter the sugar business, co-founding the Cuban-American Sugar Company with U S. Congressman R. B. Hawley. This experience proved helpful during his presidency, when the sugar industry experienced unparalleled expansion.
Menocal won a close election in 1912, when Liberal Party President José Miguel Gómez refused to support fellow Liberal Alfredo Zayas y Alfonso. Menocal’s Conservative Party also won control of both houses of Congress.
The most controversial episode of the Menocal years was the election of 1916 and the subsequent Liberal Party revolt in February 1917. Like Gômez before him, Menocal pledged that he would not seek reelection, but he changed his mind and received the Conservative Party nomination. Observers agreed that the election in which Menocal was declared winner was the most fraudulent to date in the short history of the republic. Led by José Miguel Gômez, the Liberal Party revolted in 1917. The United States came to Menocal’s aid with rifles and ammunition, and the revolt was put down.
Menocal was one of the most corrupt politicians Cuba has ever seen. His estimated worth in 1913 was $1 million; when he left office eight years later it had grown to $40 million. Menocal built fewer roads in his eight-year administration than Gómez had in four years, yet they cost three times as much.
Following reelection in 1917, Menocal was party to even more extreme corruption. However, he retained the support of the United States, which was eager to maintain order on the island to insure the flow of sugar to the Allied cause during the Great War.