The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 76, July 1972 - April, 1973 Page: 497

Book Reviews

Jesls Gonzdlez Ortega and Mexican National Politics. By Ivie E. Caden-
head, Jr. (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1972.
Pp. i61. Index, bibliography. $3.50.)
Jes6s Gonzalez Ortega was one of the principal champions of the
liberal reform movement in mid-nineteenth century Mexico. A native
of the state of Zacatecas, he served la reforma as chief justice of the
Mexican Supreme Court. In the latter capacity, from 1861 until 1868,
Gonzalez Ortega was in line to succeed the great Indian statesman,
Benito Jurez, as president of Mexico. Professor Cadenhead has proper-
ly devoted most of this short political biography to the conflict between
the two liberal leaders which arose when Juirez insisted on succeeding
himself in 1865, at the height of the French intervention. Gonzalez
Ortega's objections to an unconstitutional second presidential term led
to his arrest, imprisonment, and eventual retirement from public life.
Standard textbook treatments of the reform era either ignore Jesus
Gonzalez Ortega or relegate his career to an offhand reference or two.
Biographical accounts, such as Ralph Roeder's Judrez and His Mexico,
generally portray the Zacatecan as an opportunist and his opposition to
Juarez's re-election as a petty, legalistic attack upon the man who was
the very soul of resistance to foreign domination. While Professor Ca-
denhead does not deny the indispensable value of the president's lead-
ership to the Mexican cause, he clearly shows that the constitutional
issues raised by Gonzalez Ortega were genuine, and that the man who
raised them was motivated by something more than squalid personal
ambition. This volume is a welcome addition to English-language
studies of the reform era, which have long been dominated by the
titanic personality of Benito Juirez.
Southwest Missouri State College DAVID B. ADAMS
The Houston Symphony Orchestra, 1913-1971. By Hubert Roussel.
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972. Pp. x+247. Illustrations,
appendix, index. $7.50.)
A fitting climax to Hubert Roussel's lifetime cultivation of the arts
in Houston, this book offers a perceptive account of the founding and
growth of the city's symphony. Although founded in 1913, the orches-
tra became a significant part of Houston's cultural life only with its

497