The first civic action led by Rubén Martínez Villena is historically known as the Protest of the Thirteen and marks the rebirth of national consciousness by linking a generation of intellectuals with the popular struggles against the rampant corruption in the Cuban Republic.
It occurred on March 18, 1923, during the government of President Alfredo Zayas y Alfonso, a ruler characterized by fraud and corruption. He decided to purchase the nearly ruined Convent of Santa Clara de Asís at an exorbitant price, using state funds, at a time when the Cuban economy was in crisis.
According to various sources from the time, the Cuban state acquired it for approximately three million pesos. The public purchase recorded from private businessmen who had acquired the property was for half a million pesos, at the height of the so-called "dance of the millions."
The Secretary of the Treasury, like other ministers, opposed the negotiation because they belonged to the followers of the interventionist American General Enoch H. Crowder, and Zayas could not legally approve the transaction. However, determined not to let such a lucrative deal for his personal gain slip through his fingers, he secured the signature of Erasmo Regüeiferos, the Secretary of Justice.
This action provoked public outrage, as it concealed one of the many corrupt dealings common in Zayas's government, and a youth group, still lacking political definition or ideological direction, decided to protest publicly.
That day in March, a tribute was to be held for the Uruguayan educator Paulina Luissi, and the Secretary of Justice, Regüeiferos, who had countersigned the presidential decree acquiring the convent, was to attend and deliver the keynote address.
In the mid-afternoon, the young people entered the auditorium of the Academy of Sciences, where the event was taking place, and when it was announced that Regüeiferos would speak, Rubén Martínez Villena stood up, followed by his group of friends, and delivered a scathing speech denouncing the shady dealings in which this government official was involved.
The newspaper “Heraldo de Cuba” reproduced Martínez Villena’s words as follows: “The presiding officers and the distinguished guests present here will forgive us, but a group of young Cubans, lovers of this noble celebration of intellectual life, who have come here drawn by the prestige of the noble writer to whom this event is dedicated, will excuse our withdrawal. Dr. Erasmo Regüeiferos, who, forgetting his past and actions, and without considering the grave harm his gesture would cause, has signed an illicit decree that conceals a repulsive and clumsy scheme, is participating in this event.”
“Please forgive us, Minister of Uruguay, and his wife. Please forgive us, illustrious writer, to whom this tribute is so justly paid. We protest against the official condemned by public opinion, who has chosen to demonstrate his loyalty to a friend rather than defend national interests. We deeply regret that Mr. Regüeiferos is here. Therefore, we are compelled to protest and withdraw,” Villena added after leaving the room accompanied by 12 other young intellectuals.
The tribute failed in the face of these accusatory words. After the Protest of the Thirteen, as it later became known, the young people went to the offices of the newspaper “Heraldo de Cuba,” where Villena drafted the Protest Manifesto, in which he asserted: “We feel honored and satisfied to have been chosen to initiate a movement that demonstrates a reaction against those oppressive, exploitative, and immoral rulers who, through their actions, tend to debase the nation.”
The Manifesto was signed by Rubén Martínez Villena, José Antonio Fernández de Castro y Abeillé, Calixto Masó y Vázquez, Félix Lizaso González, Alberto Lamar Schweyer, Francisco Ichaso y Macías, Luis Gómez Wangüemert, Juan Marinello Vidaurreta, José Zacarías Tallet, José Manuel Acosta y Bello, Primitivo Cordero y Leyva, Jorge Mañach y Robato, and José Ramón García Pedrosa. Ángel Lázaro did not sign, as he was a Spanish citizen and feared deportation. Emilio Teuma also did not sign, stating that as a Freemason and Grand Master of the Regüeiferos association, he could not sign because it would violate one of the principles of that fraternal institution.
The bond forged from the Protest gave rise to a short-lived but nonetheless significant entity, the Cuban Action Phalanx, which proclaimed Martí's invocation: "To unite: this is the watchword," and to which other prominent intellectuals of the time joined. From then on, and led by Villena, they dedicated themselves to denouncing the administrative and political corruption of the Zayas government and seeking new paths for civic struggle.
A poet of fiery oratory, Villena transformed his denunciation into poetry, publishing his “Civil Lyric Message” in the Diario de la Marina: “A charge is needed to kill scoundrels, to finish the work of revolutions; to avenge the dead, who suffer outrage, to cleanse the tenacious crust of colonialism; to be able one day, with prestige and reason, to extirpate the Appendix of the Constitution; to not render useless, in humiliating fate, the effort and the hunger and the wound and the death; so that the Republic may sustain itself, to fulfill Martí's marble dream; to guard the land, glorious from spoils, to save the temple of Love and Faith, so that our children do not beg on their knees for the Fatherland that our fathers won for us standing tall.”