Benjamín Cole Vázquez (October 8, 1919 – January 30, 1993) was a Puerto Rican politician and the second longest serving Mayor of the city of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico (1969–1993). He is regarded as one of the strongest leaders of the Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico (PDP). He was also a U.S. Postal Service regional administrator, legislator, and composer (Tito Puente recorded one of his songs, although, in that regard, Cole is much better known for being the brother of composer Roberto Cole).
Ancestry
Benjamin Cole's father Frank belonged to an English family that emigrated to the United States when he was just a child. As an adult, Frank traveled to Puerto Rico when the United States established a provisional government there following its invasion of the island during the Spanish–American War of 1898. Cole was employed in the Federal Courts in San Juan, where he served as translator and marshall. He married Isabel Maria Vazquez, daughter of a prominent attorney from the city of Ponce. The couple established their home in Mayaguez. Belisa, as she was known to her family and friends, was a music teacher who taught her children to play piano, guitar, and other instruments from an early age. She and Frank had three sons, Robert, Benjamin and Lester, divorcing after the birth of the third one. Several years after their divorce Frank retired to San Jose, California, where he lived until his death. His last name took on the Spanish pronunciation and "Cole" became .
Political beginnings
Benjamin Cole had an interest in politics from a very early age, starting with an inclination towards the liberal tendencies of the leaders that favored independence for the island. He was one of the youngest members of the original Partido Popular Democratico when it was founded in 1938, and since then followed the leadership of Luis Munoz Marin.
In his early career as a civil servant, Cole was a postmaster general for Mayaguez, for which he won the national award of Postmaster of the Year among all his cohorts in the United States. In 1960, Cole ran for office for the first time, to a position in the Puerto Rico House of Representatives. His use of clever slogans and phrases, early use of electronic media, as well as his strong political machinery and astute use of political tools, gave him a strong voice within the PDP and in the island's political environment, and he won handily. Cole was a very skilled and eloquent public speaker, as well as a talented, quick-thinking debater and interviewee.
Cole coined a phrase to depict the PDP's esprit de corps that is still used to this day: "¡Fuego Popular!" ("Popular Fire"), a play on words that capitalized on the PDP's traditional campaign color (red), and the fact that the strength of his political power was in fact the average citizen. Some political historians claim that Luis Negrón López's poor acceptance levels as PDP gubernatorial candidate in 1968 were a direct consequence of Cole's use of the phrase "¡Juégame el 315!" ("Play me 315") to depict him as a numbers game runner or "bolitero".
Cole won the election for mayor of Mayagüez in 1968, and was subsequently reelected in 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984 and 1988. He won these contests using the same political tactics that, in part, derailed Negrón's candidacy. Cole's strongest contender for the Mayagüez mayoralship, Jan García, was depicted by Cole as a "fake", since, in Cole's view, Dr. Garcia misrepresented himself to the citizens of Mayagüez by using the prefix "Dr." (most voters had assumed Dr. Garcia was a medical doctor, when in fact he had a Ph.D. in Chemistry and was also a Juris Doctor). In Cole's view, Dr. Garcia's unwillingness to clarify this misrepresented him to the general voter. In another mayoral contest, Cole is known for saying: "I'd say my opponent is a thief and a liar... but I don't use that kind of language!".
Benjamin Cole was a populist, often relating to the social needs of the poor and working classes of his city. This earned him many political enemies, from inside and outside his political party. His administration was repeatedly accused of corruption, and cleared of most charges. One accusation that was not cleared, involved a person on city payroll working at the local PDP party clubhouse, although the charges behind this were also politically skewed and only settled many years after Cole's death.