President of Cuba. 1921-1925. Born in Havana, he received his law degree from the University of Havana at age 22 and was also a writer and orator. Like most Cubans of his generation, he shared in the revolutionary activities of the time and was a member of the Partido Liberal Autonomista, contributed propaganda to various newspapers, edited a literary magazine, and was Havana representative of the Partido Revolucionario Cubano. He was arrested in1896 and exiled in1897. He had, nevertheless, become a public prosecutor in1889, and a municipal judge in 1891. Continuing his political career after his return from exile, he was elected a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1900, and in 1901 became acting alcalde of Havana. He endorsed Estrada Palma for President. In 1905 he was made senator for Havana province and speaker of the senate. During the Guerrita de Agosto he was president of the revolutionary committee and during the second United States Intervention was member of the Committee of Consultation. He was vice-president, 1909-1913 and was elected president in 1920. Zayas recognized the resurgence of the (largely anti-American) economic nationalism sweeping Cuba in the 1920s. He cooperated with US envoy Enoch Crowder, whom US President Harding had sent to institute fiscal and electoral reforms, but he later disbanded the “Honest Cabinet” that Crowder had insisted upon. Graft, corruption, and mismanagement overshadowed his achievements, but he succeeded in reestablishing Cuba’s credit, avoided a threat of another US intervention, and recovered Cuban sovereignty over the Isle of Pines with the ratification of the Hay-Caseate treaty. He faced opposition in 1923 from the Asociación de los Veteranos y Patriotas, which resulted in an open revolt led by Laredo Brú, and the following year from the demands for social reform of the Cuban Council of Civic Renovation. He was succeeded by Gerardo Machado and retired into private life with several million dollars.
He had many and varied literary interests, often contributing to the press on political and historical subjects. He was for six years librarian of the Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País and for many years its president. He owned a notable private library which he allowed the then unknown Fulgencio Batista to frequent. His publications include El Presbítero don Jose Agustín Caballero y su vida y sus obras (1891), Cuba autonómica and Lexicografía antillana (1914).
