Francisco Arízaga Luque

• Name — Francisco Arízaga Luque • Office — Acting President of Ecuador • Term Start — July 14, 1925 • Term End — January 10, 1926 • Predecessor — Luis Telmo Paz y Miño • Successor — Humberto Albornoz • Born — 6 February 1900 • Birthplace — Lima, Peru • Died — 22 October 1964 • Place of death — Guayaquil, Ecuador • Spouse — Maria Lola Murillo Arzube

Francisco Arízaga Luque was born in Lima, Peru on February 6, 1900, while his father was exiled by the liberal regime of Eloy Alfaro. He was the son of Emilia Luque Márquez of Guayaquil, Ecuador and Dr. Manuel Nicholas Arízaga Machuca a lawyer, journalist, and progressive poet.

In 1918 he matriculated to the University of Guayaquil to follow in his father's footsteps to become a lawyer. Later that same year Arízaga was elected president of "la Asociación Escuela de Derecho" and through this position he was able to attend the Third International Congress of the Students.

In these years his personality was celebrated in the literary circles of the city and the country. His essay "Nocturno Trágico Sentimental" won first prize in the Juegos Florales Universitarios in 1919. It was a sonnet with a modernist slant. The poem, written to frighten the bourgeois, was modeled after the custom of the period. Francisco's articles were bold and deep, they showed an uncompromising character that refused to defect from morality. He was fluent in French and English. He translated Walt Whitman, was an excellent sportsman, and enjoyed playing soccer. In 1919 he began to write in El Guante (The Glove) and in "El Universal" in 1922 under the pseudonym Max Smeir. In 1919 he met a young María Lola Murillo Arzube and on August 22, 1922 they were married. Soon after Francisco began to work as the understudy of the prominent political scientist Dr. Rómulo Arzube (Febres) Cordero, María's uncle. Dr. Arzube gained the title Solicitor of Successions of the Guayas, from his doctoral thesis, entitled: "Succession because of the death of Ecuadorian civil rights" and "For the slaughter of workers of the 15th of November, the thirst for justice, these are the first men dreaming of a new Ecuador."

In 1924 he graduated as lawyer specializing in successions. Then on July 9, 1925 a military revolution exploded. President Gonzalo Córdova was deposed by 50 soldiers under the command of General Francisco Gomez de la Torre. Arízaga followed the news closely and fully supported his friends, the young officials of the Marañón Battalion. They assumed power and created in Quito a "plural government" that would rise "against the authoritarian pretensions of individual control."