# Pío Romero Bosque

Pío Romero Bosque (1860 – 10 December 1935), contemporarily referred to as Don Pío, was a Salvadoran politician and lawyer who served as president of El Salvador from 1927 to 1931. He had previously served as Alfonso Quiñónez Molina's vice president from 1923 to 1927 and as El Salvador's minister of war, the navy, and aviation (defense minister) from 1919 to 1927. He also previously served as the minister of governance, development, and public instruction from 1903 to 1907 and as the president of the Supreme Court of Justice from 1914 to 1919.
Romero completed his doctorate of law in 1889 and was shortly afterwards appointed by the Supreme Court of Justice to serve as a judge. He served as a judge in San Salvador and Zacatecoluca during the 1890s and 1900s and also served as a magistrate on the Supreme Court of Justice itself from 1893 to 1895 and again from 1899 to 1903. He also briefly served as a deputy of the Legislative Assembly from 1892 to 1893 before resigning to serve on the Supreme Court of Justice.
During Romero's presidency, he distanced himself from the Meléndez–Quiñónez political dynasty that preceded him and implemented various democratic reforms. Romero's government survived an attempted coup plotted by supporters of the Meléndez–Quiñónez dynasty in December 1927, and the coup's supporters were imprisoned or exiled from the country. Romero did not hand-pick a presidential successor as his predecessors had done and was succeeded by Arturo Araujo who won the 1931 presidential election, considered by historians to be El Salvador's first free and fair democratic election. Romero fled El Salvador during the presidency of Brigadier General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, whose government reversed all of Romero's democratic reforms. Romero died in exile in Nicaragua in 1935.

## Early life

Pío Romero Bosque was born in 1860 in Suchitoto, El Salvador to Serapío Romero and Rosario Bosque. Romero was a landowner, owning a hacienda in San Salvador and Santiago Nonualco named "El Rosario" and "Nahualapa", respectively.

## Legal career

Romero completed his bachelor's degree at the Ciencias y Letras college of Santa Tecla and completed his doctorate of law at the University of El Salvador in 1889. Later that year, the Supreme Court of Justice appointed Romero to serve as the supplementary judge of the 1st circuit of the San Salvador Department. A few months after this appointment, he was named as the proprietary judge of the Zacatecoluca district; he served in this position for two years.
In 1892 and 1893, Romero was elected as a deputy of the Legislative Assembly. He resigned in 1893 after he was appointed as the fourth magistrate of the Supreme Court of Justice. His term ended in 1895 and he resumed his role as the proprietary judge of Zacatecoluca until 1899. Romero served a second term as a supreme court magistrate from 1899 until 14 April 1903. In 1914, Romero became the president of the Supreme Court of Justice [es]; he served in this position until 1919.

## Political career

On 12 March 1903, President Pedro José Escalón appointed Romero as El Salvador's vice secretary of governance and development. He was promoted to serve as minister of governance, development, and public instruction later that year, succeeding Doctor José Rosa Pacas.
During the 1919 presidential election, President Alfonso Quiñónez Molina (who was Romero's brother-in-law) and presidential front-runner Jorge Meléndez installed Romero as a presidential candidate in order to receive more votes than Arturo Araujo, another presidential candidate, in an effort to humiliate Araujo for attempting to challenge Jorge Meléndez's presidential bid. Quiñónez's government sent telegrams to polling stations across El Salvador instructing them to rig votes in favor of Meléndez first and Romero second. Romero came in second place, receiving 4,370 votes to Jorge Meléndez's 166,441 votes and Araujo's 1,022 votes. Upon assuming the presidency, Jorge Meléndez appointed Romero as the minister of war, the navy, and aviation (defense minister).

### Vice presidency

During the 1923 presidential election, Romero was elected to serve as Quiñónez's vice president. Upon assuming office on 1 March 1923, Quiñonez appointed Romero to continue serving as defense minister, an office he would hold until 1927. On 26 January 1927, Romero issued a decree that renamed the country's military academy to the Captain General Gerardo Barrios Military School.
In 1926, as the following year's presidential election approached, Quiñónez hand-picked Romero to succeed him as president. Romero ran for office unopposed and won the election unanimously on 13 January 1927 as a member of the ruling National Democratic Party. Gustavo Vides, an engineer, was elected as Romero's vice president; Quiñónez also hand-picked Vides, who served as Quiñónez's minister of finance.

## Presidency

Romero assumed the presidency on 1 March 1927 between 9 and 10 a.m. CST. He appointed the following individuals to his cabinet: Doctor José Gustavo Guerrero as minister of foreign relations; Doctor Manuel Vicente Mendoza as minister of governance, development, agriculture, and labor; and Doctor Alberto Gómez Zárate as minister of war, the navy, and aviation.

### Ending the Menéndez–Quiñónez dynasty

Quiñónez hand-picked Romero as his successor as he was a trusted collaborator who Quiñónez believed would continue the Menéndez–Quiñónez dynasty, a political dynasty which had ruled El Salvador since Carlos Meléndez became president in 1913. Romero was chosen to continue the dynasty as neither the Meléndez's nor the Quiñónez's had any family members who were eligible or willing to become the next president of El Salvador. Contemporary public opinion believed that Romero would continue the Menéndez–Quiñónez dynasty's politics and policies during his presidency.
Cornelius Van Hemert Engert, the United States chargé d'affaires to El Salvador, described Romero as "weak and irresolute". Jefferson Caffery, the United States ambassador to El Salvador, referred to Romero as a man "of no particular force, and with probably no superfluous amount of backbone". Engert believed that Quiñónez selected Romero to act as a puppet ruler due to his perceived weakness and that Quiñónez would continue to govern the country from behind the scenes as he had been appointed as the first presidential designate, making Quiñónez second in line to the presidency after Vides.
One month into Romero's presidency, he forced Marcos Letona and Salvador Rivas, the two vice secretaries of development and public instruction, to resign despite an agreement between Romero and Quiñónez to maintain certain political appointments in place; Quiñónez accused Romero of failing to uphold his political promises as a result of this relatively minor cabinet reshuffle. Engert believed that the forces resignations were part of Romero's "campaign to do away with the Quinonez [sic] influence". Romero also lifted a state of emergency which was in effect throughout Quiñónez's presidency, ended press censorship, allowed public demonstrations. These reforms led to public protests against Quiñónez's appointment as the first presidential designate, and students from the University of El Salvador called for his resignation. After pressure from Romero's supporters, protestors, and even some high-ranking military officers, Quiñónez resigned and left the country for exile in France.
In December 1927, Jorge Meléndez, Quiñónez, and their allies plotted a coup to overthrow Romero in an attempt to continue the political dynasty that their families had created. On 6 December 1927, Colonel Juan Aberle (chief of the army machine shop) and Major Manuel Noguera (deputy chief of police) presented an ultimatum to Romero demanding he resign and accept the formation of a military junta in exchange for safe passage out of El Salvador. Romero ordered both men to be arrested, and Aberle and Noguera were subsequently court martialed and executed by firing squad on 8 December 1927. A planned attack by 500 militants commanded by Jorge Meléndez failed to support Aberle and Noguera as was planned. Hundreds of conspirators were arrested after the failed coup attempt, and Jorge Meléndez fled the country to Honduras. The coup's failure ended what remaining influence the Menéndez–Quiñónez dynasty had in Salvadoran politics.

### Democratic reforms

Romero was a liberal.
Ahead of the 1931 presidential election, Romero did not select a presidential successor, and a result, several candidates participated in the election. During the election, Araujo was elected as the country's next president in what historians considered to be the most free and fair election in Salvadoran history up to that point. Romero left office on 1 March 1931.

## Personal life

Romero married Amparo Molina. The couple had a son, Pío Romero Bosque Molina, and a daughter.

## Later life and death

Romero fled El Salvador for exile in Costa Rica during the presidency of Brigadier General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez due to heavy police monitoring by Martínez's government, especially by the orejas informant network. Romero died in Nicaragua on 10 December 1935.
In 1971, conservative Salvadoran editorialist Juan Ulloa blamed Romero's democratic reforms as directly causing La Matanza and accused him of "knowing its [communist] leaders" ("conoció sus lideres [comunistas]").

## Electoral history

| Year | Office | Type | Party | Party | Main opponent | Party | Party | Votes for Romero | Votes for Romero | Votes for Romero | Votes for Romero | Result | Swing | Swing | Ref. |
| Year | Office | Type | Party | Party | Main opponent | Party | Party | Total | % | P. | ±% | Result | Swing | Swing | Ref. |
| 1919 | President of El Salvador | General | | PDN | Jorge Meléndez | | PDN | 4,370 | 2.54 | 2nd | N/A | Lost | | Hold | |
| 1927 | President of El Salvador | General | | PDN | Unopposed | Unopposed | Unopposed | ? | 100.00 | 1st | +97.46 | Won | | Hold | |