Madrid had a bullfighter mayor

Now that the political-media left is scandalized because a bullfighter becomes vice president of the Generalitat, it makes sense to evoke the libertarian figure of Melchor Rodríguez, mayor of Madrid in a period as brief as it was convulsed (1939) and… lucky bullfighter unequal.

His bullfighting —and biographical— performance can be identified in the third volume of Cossío. And on page 810, where both the place of birth (Seville, 1893) and his professional adventures are evoked, including moonlighting as an altar boy at the Seville Hospice, tinker, bodybuilder… and bullfighter..

He presented himself as a novillero in 1915. And things went well for him in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, but the ups and downs and goring discouraged his future. Especially after the horrifying fuck he suffered in Madrid the afternoon of his presentation (1918) in the extinct arena of Tetuán de las Victorias.

There were others —from Seville to Algeciras— that exhausted the value of the bullfighter. And that predisposed his interest towards politics. Melchor Rodríguez defined himself as a unionist and anarchist, although he also agreed to exercise institutional responsibilities. He arrived in time to become mayor, but his reputation as the “red angel” stems from his humanitarian work as a prison officer.. He saved many lives in the death throes of the Civil War, he intervened in as many executions. And he had at his disposal the opportunity to join the Francoist nomenclature, but he declined the proposals in favor of clandestine union activity that the regime observed rigorously… and indulgently.

The personality and courage of Melchor Rodríguez prevailed over the frontism, to the point that the life sentence that occurred in the summary trials of 1939 was “dissolved”, first with a punishment of 20 years and later with the mediation of a “pardon” in which General Agustín Muñoz Grandes intervened. The allegation of the Francoist officer recalled the determination with which El ángel rojo had been involved in the salvation of Spaniards involved in both sides. Including personalities of the reputation of the goalkeeper Ricardo Zamora and the journalist Bobby Deglané.

The official communism of exile considered him a collaborationist, but Melchor Rodríguez was never aware of Franco's gifts. He ended up on the prison walls up to thirty times, not for joining the anarcho-syndicalism movement, but because he was belligerent in defending the rights of prisoners convicted during Francoism..

Melchor Rodríguez had become a stubborn and tolerated nuisance. And in a bohemian character who both wrote lyrics for cuplés and pasodobles as he gracefully frequented the Plaza de Las Ventas.

The red angel would have been a good bullfighting nickname. The young teacher maintained that one can die for ideas but not kill for them. And he was close to losing his life in the bullrings and outside the arenas. He bragged about his scars. And he would have done it even more if he had known that he was granted state funerals when he died in 1972.

It was the way to recognize the human and humanitarian category of the last republican mayor of the town and court. And to justify the posthumous Medal of Honor that was awarded to him by the Madrid City Council last January at the initiative of Ciudadanos. The past of Melchor Rodríguez is being “reviewed” in a well-deserved canonization process. And it will be impossible to remove from the story the pride and enthusiasm with which the angel of fire boasted of having dressed… in lights.