Ramón Grau San Martín

Cuban physician and politician. Founder of the Cuban Revolutionary Party (Auténtico). President of the republic between 1933-1934 and 1944-1948.

He was born in La Palma, a town in the province of Pinar del Río. At fifteen years of age he studied commercial expertise, and later enrolled in Medicine at the University of La Habana, despite his parents' opposition. To pay for his studies he obtained, through competitive examination, the position of assistant at the Chair of Botany, and through a competition he achieved a position as resident physician at Hospital Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes. He graduated in 1908.

He specialized in internal medicine and in the study of digestive tract diseases and metabolic disorders. He made known in the Medical School Journal, as results of his research, the works "Treatment of Bronchoneumonias" and "Case Studies of Tetanus." He was one of the first scholars of mellitus diabetes in Cuba, and developed several works on the subject. He also published some notable scientific books such as Physiology of Foods.

In 1924 he obtained through competitive examination the Chair of Physiology at the University of La Habana, and began working as a physician at the health facility La Covadonga.

The faculty of the University of La Habana appointed him to deliver the opening address of the 1926-1927 academic year in the Great Hall of the prestigious educational center. He was among the professors opposed to the extension of powers of President Gerardo Machado, for which he was arrested and imprisoned in El Príncipe Castle; after a pardon he was detained again and transferred to Presidio Modelo de Isla de Pinos.

After his release in 1932, he went into exile in the United States, where he participated in the conspiratorial work of the Revolutionary Junta led by Domingo Méndez Capote.

He held the position of Secretary of Health and Public Instruction during the Pentarchy government, constituted on September 5, and on the 10th of the same month he assumed the presidency of the so-called Government of One Hundred Days. On that occasion he was sworn in at the Presidential Palace—and not at the Supreme Court of Justice, where his predecessors had done so.

Like the Pentarchy, the new government was not recognized by the United States, because the leaders and political organizations of both administrations had spoken out against United States political mediation in the Machado crisis, aimed at directing the country's destiny in accordance with the interests of Cuban and North American oligarchies.

The most radical forces of Grau's provisional government had their maximum exponent in the figure of Antonio Guiteras Holmes, Secretary of Interior and of War and Navy. Despite the ephemeral nature of its existence, during that government an important set of laws was enacted, both in the economic and in the political and social spheres. Among the most notable measures were the expulsion of Machadists from the national political scene, the dissolution of parties participating in "cooperativism"—a political formula conceived by President Machado to consolidate an oligarchic front that would ensure his reelection—and the creation of the so-called sanctions courts, to prosecute those responsible for crimes committed by the deposed tyranny.

Economic policy was oriented toward expanding and strengthening State intervention in the economy; regulation of the sugar industry was maintained and payment of the Public Works debt incurred by Machado with Chase National Bank was suspended, which reduced banking interest rates and liberalized loan conditions.

In the social sphere, Decree 1693 was significant, which established an eight-hour workday. Legislation also dealt with regulating labor-management relations and the union movement. Electric rates were reduced, in a process that led to the intervention of the Cuban Electricity Company—by decision of Antonio Guiteras—among other significant social measures endorsed by the ruler.

Between January 13 and 14, 1934, Fulgencio Batista, heading the army and with the support of United States Ambassador Jefferson Caffery, demanded the president's resignation.

In February 1934 Grau founded and led the Cuban Revolutionary Party (Auténtico), through the union of his supporters with the leaders of the University Student Directory of 1930. The new force made known its objectives through a manifesto signed by the National Steering Committee and published in the newspaper El País, of La Habana, on February 21 of that year.

Between 1934 and 1939 Grau traveled through several countries on the continent, and was invited by the Cuban colony in the city of Tampa—in the North American state of Florida—to deliver the commemorative address on November 27, on an anniversary of the execution of the Medical students.

He was elected delegate to the Constitutional Assembly of 1940—February 9—and on the 14th of that month he was elected to head the presidential board. During the two months and eight days he held that position, bitter debates arose, referring mainly to the assembly's sovereignty, the judiciary, and the Constitution.

He ran in the elections for the first magistracy, as a representative of the Cuban Revolutionary Party (Auténtico). But when Mario García Menocal separated with his followers from the Auténtico Party to support Fulgencio Batista—candidate of the Democratic Socialist Coalition—victory was decided in favor of the latter.

In 1944 Grau again ran for president, against Carlos Saladrigas Zayas, candidate of the Democratic Socialist Coalition, and Grau San Martín was elected president with broad popular support. During his government, public works construction was promoted—an area to which he granted credits of more than twelve million pesos—and national industries such as the alcohol industry also benefited.

In the field of international relations, the president promised to promote the best economic, cultural and friendly relations of Cuba with the United States and the rest of the continent. Among the diplomatic efforts of his government, the favorable steps toward the return of North American military bases and the agreements signed with the United States for the sale of sugar crops stand out, which gave rise to the so-called sugar differentials, by which the wage level of workers was set in correspondence with the official price of sugar estimated at the beginning of the harvest. These wage "differentials" represented additional income of $29 million in 1946 and an even greater amount in 1947. Results in which the mediation of labor leader Jesús Menéndez played an important role.

From 1947 onward, in line with United States policy, Grau's government was devoted to the division of the labor movement. The V Congress of the unified CTC was annulled, and validity was given to the meeting of the so-called governmental CTK, headed by Eusebio Mujal Barniol with divisive purposes within the sector.

Political-administrative corruption had various manifestations; among them, embezzlement of the Workers' Retirement Funds, the diversion for profit of Lottery Revenue, and in particular, subsection K of a law, concerning the budget allocated for payment of salaries of a group of teachers and professors who had no consignment in the official payroll.

In 1948, Carlos Prío Socarrás succeeded him in the presidency. During his government, on July 4, 1950, the theft of 6,032 pages of Case 82 of the Court of Instruction occurred, which contained the charge for embezzlement of 174 million pesos from the State against a group of citizens, among whom was the former president.

During the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista (1952-1959), Grau showed himself to be a proponent of negotiated solutions with the regime through the holding of elections. In 1954 he again presented his candidacy for president by the Auténtico party, but the conditions imposed by the coup regime led him to withdraw his nomination.

In the fraudulent elections of November 1958 he returned at the head of his party along with Antonio Lancís Sánchez. On that occasion he did not withdraw from the electoral contest, and unsuccessfully demanded the presence of international observers. The advance of the revolutionary movement in Oriente, under the direction of Fidel Castro, made him believe in the possibility that Batista would accept an electoral setback rather than defeat at the hands of the Rebel Army.

Once the electoral fraud was consummated, he directed a communication to the Superior Electoral Court, in which he requested that the nullity of the results obtained at the polls be decreed, though his efforts were unsuccessful.

After the triumph of the Cuban Revolution of 1959, he collaborated with the Diario de la Marina. Thereafter he retired to private life, until he died in La Habana on July 28, 1969.