El Heraldo de California
Since President Diaz announced that he would not be running for reelection this year the conversation on most people’s lips are who would run in the next election. The Unity Party (PU) scheduled a convention, the first of its kind, in Mexico City where party representatives from all the states and localities elected the lawyer and journalist Rafael Reyes Spindola as their candidate for the Presidency.
Senor Spindola was born in Tlaxiaco in 1860. He did his primary studies in the city of Oaxaca and his higher studies in the seminary and became a relative of Bishop Vicente Fermín Márquez Goyeneche y Carrizosa. After leaving the ecclesiastical career, he entered the Institute of Sciences and Arts of Oaxaca and graduated as a lawyer. As a student, he edited a modest newspaper called Don Manuel. Gifted for music he was an excellent pianist and still a composer. He occupies some posts in the judiciary and writes a geography textbook from Oaxaca. He moved to Morelia in 1885 and held the position of private secretary of Governor General Mariano Jiménez. Based in Mexico City, he launched in the newspaper
El Universal in 1888 which was later sold in Ramon Prida. He publishes in the City of Puebla a newspaper called
El Mundo Semanario Ilustrado, which later became
El Mundo Ilustrado, a well-printed and illustrated Sunday publication that publishes literature, art and news. The first news photo from Mexico is attributed to this newspaper. The PU platform continues the policies of the outgoing administration with a focus on railroad expansion, scientific research, increasing foreign investment and good relations with our neighbors.
Also this year, the Mexican Liberal Party (PLM/Partido Liberal Mexicano) was started in when Jacobo Cirino Ruiz published a manifesto entitled
Invitacion al Partido Liberal (Invitation to the Liberal Party). The invitation was addressed to Mexican liberals who were dissatisfied with the way the current government was deviating from the liberal Constitution of 1857. Ruiz called on Mexican liberals to form local liberal clubs, which would then send delegates to a liberal convention.
The first Mexican Liberal Party Convention was held in San Luis Potosí. Fifty local clubs from thirteen states sent 56 delegates. The Convention delegates affirmed their liberal beliefs in free speech, free press, and free assembly. They objected to the close workings of the Diaz government and the Catholic Church. The convention produced fifty-one resolutions which called for the organization of the new Liberal Party, propagation of liberal principles, development of means to combat the political influence of the clergy, establishment of means to improve the administration of justice, proposals calling for guarantees of the rights of citizens and real freedom of the press, and proposals favoring complete self-government at the local level. They also called for support for free secular education in the primary schools, the spread of liberal ideas among the lower classes, the establishment of liberal publications, and the taxation of Church income. The convention delegates then elected Ruiz as their candidate for the Presidency.
Ruiz was born in in the town of Cuatro Ciénegas, in the state of Coahuila, in 1859 to an upper middle-class cattle-ranching family. His father, Moises Hipolito Patricio Ruiz , had been a rancher and mule driver until the time of the Reform War (1857–1861), in which he fought against the Indians and on the Liberal side. During the Franco-Mexican War (1861–1867) he became a colonel. Following the ouster of the French, the government rewarded Ruiz with land, which became the basis of his fortune in Coahuila. Because of his family's wealth he was able to attend excellent schools in Saltillo and Mexico City. He studied at the Ateneo Fuente, a famous Liberal school in Saltillo. In 1874, he went to the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria(National Preparatory School) in Mexico City, where he had aspirations to be a doctor.Upon completion of his studies, Ruiz returned to Coahuila to raise cattle, since he had an eye disease that prevented him from becoming a doctor. He married in Petrona Villaverde in 1882, and the couple had two daughters. He would be elected Municipal President in 1887 and has represented local ranchers in disputes with the state government.
