The Birth of a Crisis: the Aggression of 1925

During his election campaign, President Calles had not had any opponent, apart from the rebels, except General Angel Flores, a dissident member of the revolutionary family, supported by the National Republican party, which was the remains of the Catholic party but lacked both its audience and its aggressiveness. The Church never gave it the slightest support. The beginning of 1925 was not marked by any new event; Garrido Canabal, the Governor of Tabasco, continued to harass Bishop Díaz, and in Jalisco Zuno continued the persecution that he had initiated in late 1924. This was intensified in January 1925, and the contagion spread to the neighbouring state of Colima. Zuno, a young, well-educated and respected man, had opposed the candidature of Calles, and it was thought, rightly or wrongly, that he had sympathised with the rebels supporting De la Huerta in 1924. It seemed logical to interpret the fierce attack which he mounted against the Church as a desperate attempt to bring to a halt the political machine that had been mobilised against him. It would not be long before the Senate would sit as a Federal grand jury and depose him.