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The Election of 1928
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Difficult as it might be, military operations well might prove less of a
problem than policing the polls. The armed enemy had at least been pushed
back into the wilderness; but agents of the two political parties were
everywhere. In every hamlet were Liberal and Conservative partisans, each in
favor of a supervised election--provided only that it was the other party that
was supervised.
As far as the Liberals were concerned, the man of destiny was Jose Maria
Moncada. With Moncada at the head of the ticket, with Sandino more or less
pacified, and with a majority of voters, the Liberals looked hopefully forward
to an honest count.
Head of the Conservative organization was ex-President Emiliano Chamorro
but he was ineligible for the nomination. When the nominating convention
became deadlocked, President Diaz immediately went into conference with
Chamorro. After three and one-half hours, they emerged to announce that
Adolfo Benard and Julio Cardenal would head the Conservative ticket.<85>
The election law, drafted under the supervision of Brigadier General Frank
R. McCoy of the U. S. Army, was put to a severe test. First came the
registration of voters, which lasted from 23 September until 7 October, and it
was during this period that the Sandinistas struck. Pedron Altamirano, one of
Sandino's henchmen, was given the mission of frightening the Nicaraguans away
from the polls. He chose a direct approach to the problem and an effective
one.
Altamirano arrived at the village of San Marcos, seven miles northeast of
Jinotega, on 2 October. He found four electioneers for the Liberal party
campaigning there. All four were dead when the rebels rode out of town.
Drifting from town to town, killing indiscriminately, Altamirano could have
put an end to registration in northern Nicaragua; but he had not reckoned with
Captain Norman M. Shaw and his 45th Company.
Even though his command was scattered throughout the countryside, a few
men at each place of registration, Shaw managed to throw out patrols strong
enough to discourage the rebels. Not only was Shaw able to screen the polling
places, he even forced Altamirano to withdraw into the wilderness. There were
no further raids during the election.<86>
The only means of insuring an honest electoral count was to have Marines
on the scene wherever ballots were cast. In all some 900 Leathernecks and
bluejackets were needed to prevent flagrant corruption. Although an Army,
Navy, or Marine Corps officer was responsible for each of Nicaragua's 13
departments, an enlisted man was in sole charge of each of the 432 polling
places. The principal threats to the election were riots and repeaters. A
few armed Americans or Guardia troops at each village where votes were cast
was sufficient to keep order. To prevent repeating, each voter dipped his
finger in red ink to show that he already had dropped his ballot in the box.
Sandinistas began spreading the rumor that the ink was poisoned, but only a
few superstitious Indians believed them.
In spite of Sandino, the election, held on 4 November 1928, was a
complete success. About 133,000 votes were cast, almost 50,000 more than in
1924. The Liberal candidates, Moncada and Enoc Aguada, amassed a plurality of
19,000. At long last, the downtrodden Liberals had won.<87>
Both parties admitted that the election had been honest. With the
election no longer a cause of interparty strife, the contending factions now
battled over a newly discovered issue.
The first order of business facing the new government was the
ratification of an agreement between Carlos Cuadras Pasos of Nicaragua and
Dana G. Munro of Nacional. Strange to relate, this organization, although it
had been existence for over a year, was not officially sanctioned by
Nicaraguan law.
Nor were the Conservatives alone in wishing to exert government control
over the constabulary, for President Moncada himself insisted upon some sort
of police force manned and officered exclusively by Nicaraguans. Instead of
eradicating the Marine-trained organization, Moncada established a category of
"Voluntarios," troops responsible to Nicaraga's Chief Executiv> Naturally,
they would be under the tactical control of brigade officers when operating in
their field, but their existence represented some degree of emancipation from
restriction imposed by the Americans.
What plagued the Americans most was the fact that time was running out.
Marines could not patrol the interior forever; this campaign had to be
terminated. Unfortunately, the Marines could not be withdrawn until peace had
been forced upon Nicaragua, and there could be no peace until a trained native
constabulary was in the field. In order to reassume her sovereignty,
Nicaragua needed a police force; the Marines could not be withdrawn before the
country was able to enforce its own laws. In other words, some sort of
Guardia Nacional had to be whipping into fighting trim. The Americans themselves were in no position to argue with Moncada even
though they feared that his volunteer organization might be turned into a
plaything for local politicians.
Those Marines assigned to the Guardia Nacional toiled unceasingly with
their occasionally troublesome charges. One serious incident, a mutiny at
Somotillo in January 1928, marred the progress of their work; but
investigation showed that this uprising was due to a lack of indoctrination
among the Guardia stationed there.
All was going well for the Guardia when the election of 1928 rolled
around. During these critical weeks, the entire force except for recruits was
turned out to lend a hand policing the polls. Here, the nonpolitical
indoctrination drummed into the guardsmen paid dividends. General McCoy, a
man not easily pleased, was moved to commend the organization and its
officers. After this interlude, training was resumed; and by the end of
September 1929, three battalions, a total of 1,846 men, were under arms.
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