Rubén González Cárdenas (14 March 1875 – 26 August 1939) was a lawyer with an intense early political life in his native State of Táchira between 1899 and 1908. He became Secretary General for the Government; also distinguished himself as House Representative for the National Congress; President for the Legislation Assembly; Minister of Public Instruction (1922–1929) and Minister of Internal Affairs (1929–1931).
Biography
Infancy
Son to Don Nicolás González Cárdenas, a cattle rancher by trade; and to Doña Eufrasia Cárdenas Cárdenas, Rubén González Cárdenas is born the fourth child of this marital union.
Two months after Rubén González's birth, on 18 May 1875, his home town was destroyed by an earthquake. The whole family survived. After this event, Don Nicolás appears as a founding member for the new town of Capacho, today Independencia. The family generously grants the land in which to build the new town and the González Cárdenas family decides to move to Rancherías, another family property on the way to San Cristobal (Venezuela) where, during the following 7 years, the family would grow with the additional birth of three brothers.
No significant event disturbs Rubén González's rural life. At an early age he went to the Sagrado Corazón de Jesús boarding school, at La Grita. There he will receive education, forged with discipline, and egress a High School Graduate. From this part of his life, three distinct variables will stand out and accompany him for the rest of his life: his extraordinary academic performance, to the point of being considered an exceptionally gifted student; his unbending rebellious character and his relationship with the school's director, Father Jesús Manuel Jáuregui Moreno, who will mark him permanently for his "true pedagogical sense".
"Maybe because of that extraordinary condition of Father Jáuregui’s, his memory in Rubén González was perennial. A picture of his teacher was always on his desk and a bronze bust, which he commissioned around the year 1925. Jáuregui influenced more than anyone in Rubén González’s mind and spirit".
Youth
González Cárdenas departs for Mérida, supported through enormous economical efforts from his parents, to undergo Law studies at the Universidad de Los Andes (ULA). There, he maintains his condition as an excellent student. In 1895 he is elected by the student body to pronounce the speech in remembrance of Field Marshal Mariscal Antonio José de Sucre's birth at the university's main auditorium. His spoken address is of repercussion in the whole state.
He graduates with top honors as a Lawyer in 1897. He returns to his native state of Táchira, where he will practice law in San Cristóbal. Eager for knowledge, he acquires part of the distinguished Pedro María Morantes' (Pío Gil) library.
Children
On 26 January 1904, in San Cristóbal he marries his distant cousin Vicenta de los Dolores Martínez Vivas, better known as Doña Dolores, a woman known for her great intelligence, singular tact and sharp tongue. Doña Dolores would outlive Rubén González Cárdenas 26 years until her death on 19 January 1965. From this union four children were born: César, Blanca, Tulia, Elvia and Ana Clotilde.
Political life
Although he does not participate directly in the regional political battles, Rubén González Cárdenas stays very active in the regional struggle. Analyzing the State's situation and foreseeing no practical achievements he firmly refuses to be involved with political parties. By means of mutual friends, he establishes contacts with General Cipriano Castro, who at the time was in exile, in Colombia.
He remains in the State of Tachira during the year of 1899 joining the Revolución Liberal Restauradora movement and raising the flag: "nuevos hombres, nuevos ideales, nuevos procedimientos". (New men, new ideals, new procedures.) From this time there is evidence of the aid he gave to general Celestino Castro, brother to the Tachira warlord. Once Castro assumes the position of State Provisory President he names González Cárdenas as Secretary General, from (1900-1908), which potentially puts him in charge of Tachira state's administration. “ He drafts documents, announces them, demands compliance to orders, watches over the meager budget allocated to the state (less than Bs. 200,000); is ever watchful of political parties and malcontents, distrusts neighboring borders ”. "He is forced to take severe fiscal measures regarding taxation on liquor and affects powerful people, including President Castro, who in a telegram orders Celestino Castro to separate González Cárdenas from his office. He responds to the telegram, telling him: If I don’t even have the authority to name my own Secretary General, I leave you your Presidency…” Rubén González offers to resign his position, but his resignation is refused. Castro, from Caracas, replies that it wasn't an order, but a "suggestion" and requests Celestino Castro to leave González in his position. This event lends great authority to the lawyer.
Rubén González Cárdenas shows himself as a visionary politician with a broad national sense. In a report delivered to president Cipriano Castro he displays a brilliant mind when he stays "ever watchful to the imminent dangers of uprisings and invasions such as the one Colombia attempted a year later". Furthermore, he worries about “ Venezuela’s international image, the intervention of foreign ventures in the country as he analyses German investments in Tachira state, the very-much desired Tachira railway, telegraph lines and their dire necessity; the problems with smuggling through the Zulia and Catatumbo rivers, and especially, the political problems of the country, focused on the urgent need of educating young men to replace the worn out political parties".
As Cipriano Castro's regime falls, González Cárdenas remains at San Cristobal, where he was falsely accused of participating in a conspiracy movement. He was jailed at Cuartel San Carlos in 1910 and eight months later was set free, thanks to General Régulo Olivares, Military Commander of Arms, who after an investigation was convinced of González Cárdenas' innocence. Immediately President Juan Vicente Gómez ordered his release. He departed for Colombia, where he was exiled at El Escobal, a frontier town near the Venezuela-Colombia Border; where he remained until 1917. During this time, his political struggle continued; in exile he laid down his political ideology in "El Gañan de La Mulera", a series of pamphlets where he continued to confront General Juan Vicente Gómez's government.
"Years later, he confided to me (his son, Dr. César González) that his mistake was leaving for Colombia instead of traveling to Caracas, because President Juan Vicente Gómez had proved that it wasn’t his design to place him in jail…, but his youth, his impulsive character, and his resolve made him take that path".
Some time later Rubén González concludes, demonstrating his acute analytical vision, that the time for civil wars in Venezuela was over, and history would prove him right. This position separates him from the radical pro-Castro groups in exile, who from exile were preparing an armed uprising against Gomez's regime. All this circumstances and his deplorable economical situation, near destitution, makes him take the decision of asking for safe passage to Gomez's government through Román Cárdenas, a relative who was at the time Minister of Internal Revenue.
Upon his arrival to Caracas in 1917, González visits acting Venezuelan President General Gómez, who makes it clear that it was not his idea to imprison him at San Carlos Fort. He also informs him that he is well aware of Gonzalez's views regarding his government, and lets him know his knowledge of opposition activities outside the country; however, González's position, always aligned to the Constitution and the Law, convince the chief of state to freely trust him.
"He begins by providing legal counsel for the Ministry of Internal Revenue, among which was to be become the basis for a legal plea to sustain before the Federal and Cassation Court the constitutionality for the Internal Revenue Laws, a file that had been challenged before this High Court".
He performs as Congressman for his home state of Táchira (1919-1922) and as House of Congress President in two occasions (1920 and 1922). During this same period he serves as Legal Consultant for the Internal Revenue Ministry, and drafts the legal interpretation for the new fiscal laws, particularly ones regarding hydrocarbon taxation.
As a congressman he was not known as a man for debates. He dedicates himself to work in the Commission for the Study of Law Projects and personally drafts some of them. Among them the first National Sanitation Law, which appeared with the fundamentals, and basic and constitutional principles of said branch of the Public Administration.
His hard work at Congress and in the Revenue Ministry allow him to be known as an effective and level-headed politician. He is viewed as a national political asset and thus becomes part of the Executive Cabinet. "It seems they intended to name him as Minister of Public Works in 1922, when General Juan Vicente Gómez once again takes office as president ”, but upon José Ladislao Andara's death, on 5 September 192, Rubén González Cárdenas is named Minister of Public Instruction (today Education Ministry) by Gómez's government.
Ministry of Public Education
The strategy developed during González Cárdenas stay as Minister represented a milestone in Venezuela's public education due to the great impact he had in this sector.
The problems in education during the Gomez regime were the same that were being dragged from past administrations: lack of adequate infrastructure and graduate schools; low supply of work utensils and furniture, to such extent that "each student in general would have to bring their own chair or stool to school". It is still a school house that "is limited in providing basic knowledge as a consequence of a routine teaching system boring and lacking interest to the students" (Mudarra, 1978, p. 97)
Rubén González Cárdenas understood that "something more than correcting vices in the application of the law and making compliance was needed in order to reach a true and complete organization of the system"(González, cit. por Fernández Heres, 1981, p. 943)
He reorganized the Ministry under that line of thinking and instilled a spirit of order lacking in all other official institutions. He dignified the work of the Teacher, providing security and stability. A small measure of this was that in six years of work (1922 – 1928) wages were increased 140% but demanding reciprocity he insisted professionalizing teaching activities that up till then were basic and rudimentary. This action was fundamental in pushing forward the Venezuelan magisterial.
A new and successful path was forged that would define the Venezuelan educational system after the plan proposed by Felipe Guevara Rojas. The legislation reform pushed forward by Rubén González was in force for sixteen years until 1940. This reform revolved around the separation of the teaching and evaluation functions implemented in 1914 but "...with a better perspective and judicial criteria, Rubén González makes the Organic Law of Public Instruction declare expressly that the evaluation function that grants official titles and certificates pertains only to the State"