When the polls opened at 7 a.m., no one in Cuba or outside believed that this would be more than a rubber-stamp election. The Government candidates had everything. They were backed by President Fulgencio Batista, Cuba's boss for more than a decade, by the Army, the public job holders and their families, by a juicy campaign fund. Wiseacres put their money (wagers ran as high as $100,000) on the Government ticket to win, one way or another.
But Fulgencio Batista, who had come up from rags to the riches of the Presidential Palace, astonished everybody, apparently including himself. The Army bully-boy whom most Americans still picture as a strong-arm dictator turned out to be too much of a democrat for his own side. He had set rules: compulsory, secret voting; hands off by the Army; no shooting or slugging at the polls. U.S. Ambassador Spruille Braden made history by forbidding U.S. business firms or individuals to contribute to the parties. Fulgencio Batista said he wanted democracy. He got it.
By noon of counting day, Batista knew that the opposition candidate, Dr. Ramón Grau San Martin, had defeated Batista's close friend and protégé, Dr. Carlos Saladrigas. Not since 1913 had Cuban Government candidates lost at the polls.
Day of Freedom. In Havana's streets the miracle dawned upon the people. By afternoon they were milling in the parks and plazas, blowing horns, waving flags, beating bongo drums, dancing the Conga down the magnificent Prado. Loudly they cheered for Grau San Martin. Even more loudly they cheered Fulgencio Batista, the strong man who had muscled democracy into Cuba.
They gathered that evening, an effervescent 25,000 of them, under the great golden lights of the Presidential Palace. A decade of rough memories of Batista dictatorship vanished in the soft subtropical air. Again & again the crowd called for Batista. At last he came out on the wide balcony, looked down, spoke slowly into the microphone: "Pueblo (people): Cuba has waited long for true democracy. At last we have come to see that day of freedom. . . ."
The pueblo applauded mightily. A wise oldster among them said: "I think that I have lived to see everything." Then the palace lights went out. The pueblo danced happily into the side streets. The President turned from the balcony. A Cuban era had ended.
Days of Dictatorship. A little more than ten years ago Fulgencio Batista had been one of the humblest of Cuba's humble pueblo. He began his education (including English) in a U.S.-Quaker missionary school. He made a hungry living as a laborer in the cane fields, on the docks and railroads. He was a jack-of-all-trades: tailor, mechanic, charcoal vender, fruit peddler, and finally an Army stenographer. In the Army he got around, became a staff sergeant with remarkably wide connections. When Gerardo Machado's hated dictatorship rotted away in 1933, Sergeant Batista, then 32, astounded the Western Hemisphere by taking over the Army and the Government.
At first the strong man made and broke Presidents: seven of them in seven years, including Grau San Martin, whom he propped up for a few months (September 1933-January 1934). He fattened the Army from 8,000 to 20,000 men, gave it one-fourth of Cuba's budget. He put down political unrest with a hard sergeant's hand.