Background
Miguel Alemán Valdés was born Sept. 29, 1902, in Sayula, state of Veracruz, Mexico.
Miguel Alemán Valdés was born Sept. 29, 1902, in Sayula, state of Veracruz, Mexico.
Miguel attended school in Acayucán, Coatzacoalcos, Orizaba, and finally in 1917 entered the Internado Nacional in Mexico City. In 1920 he became a student at the National Preparatory School and in 1925 enrolled in the National Law School, graduating in 1928.
When Alemán opened his law office in 1928, he held ideas of social justice that had already taken root during a boyhood lived in the midst of the Mexican revolution. Before conciliation and arbitration boards he successfully pleaded the claims of numerous widows and orphans of railway workers killed during the revolution, and those of mine worker victims of silicosis. In 1930 his knowledge of the problems of the Mexican campesino (peasant) and his studies of agrarian law led to his appointment as consulting attorney for the department of agriculture. In 1935 President Lázaro Cárdenas appointed him magistrate of the superior court of justice of the Federal District. Alemán was elected to the national congress as senator for Veracruz, and in November 1936 he was elected governor of the state of Veracruz. In 1939 Alemán resigned as governor to return to the senate. In 1939 and 1940 he directed General Ávila Camacho's campaign for the presidency, and when the latter took office, Dec. 1, 1940, Alemán was appointed secretary of the interior. Alemán resigned from the cabinet in order to enter the 1946 presidential campaign, and was elected to serve for six years from his inauguration on Dec. 1, 1946. The Alemán administration made substantial progress in agriculture (with increases in cultivated areas, harvests and exports); transportation (new highways, increased freight moved in less time); industry (substantial increases in manufacturing plants, output, and exports); electrical power supply (substantial increases and the development of a power-producing area patterned after the T. V. A. in the United States); and the oil industry (new wells drilled, old wells producing, the business all under tight government control). In June 1952, Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, the candidate of the government party, was elected to succeed Alemán. In 1960 Alemán became an ambassador-at-large and president of the Mexican national tourist council. He died in Mexico City on May 14, 1983.