The real Argentine: Notes and Impressions of a Year in the Argentine and Uruguay

by J. A. Hammerton

It would be an easy matter to give numerous examples of the abuses that exist, but one will suffice. A burning question for many years in Montevideo had been the paving of the principal streets with asphalt in place of the stone sets, or adoquines, with which they had been laid for generations, and which, as I have already mentioned, made traffic over them extremely noisy and unpleasant. The contract for this work attracted much competition from abroad, and one European firm was even encouraged to bring over workmen, material, and machinery for the treatment of one short street as a sample of their work. The said work appeared to me in every sense satisfactory, and as the firm is a large international organisation, capable of handling a contract of any dimension, having paved the streets of many a city, it was natural to suppose that it would be chosen to carry out the street improvements of the Uruguayan capital. But no, a local ex-hotel-keeper was favoured with this important contract! The manner in which he organised it was a splendid lesson in the art of how not to do it. The principal avenida was torn up, traffic dislocated for weeks, yet no asphalt was laid, because the enterprising contractor had omitted to secure the asphalt before removing the cobbles. Certain streets were barred to traffic for months on end, mountains of dug-out earth were beaten hard under the feet of pedestrians, who had to climb over them on their way to and from their houses, so that when eventually they were removed, they were so solid that the workmen had to break them up with pick-axes. Everywhere one was met with barricades of stones and earth; confusion reigned supreme.

The greatest scandal of all is that laid at the door of President Batlle y Ordoñez, and may yet assume the importance of an international dispute. During the presidency of his predecessor, an international syndicate, in which I believe both French and English shareholders invested several millions of money, was granted a concession to carry out a huge enterprise, which would so vastly enhance the appearance of the town and add to its wealth that, once effected, not even Rio de Janeiro could be cited as a finer example of a modernised city. At the present time, the poorest part of Montevideo is that lying along the southern margin of the promontory, eastward towards the suburb of Ramírez. It has a rocky fore-shore, and the water there is comparatively shallow, so that it would be possible to reclaim a considerable amount of land along this side of the town, and build a magnificent marine drive, extending all the way from the oldest part of the city to the suburb mentioned, and thence linking up with the fine promenade at Pocitos. Many maps of the city are now in circulation with this improvement shown as though it actually existed, the great highway by the waterside being marked as “Rambla Sud América.”

All the preliminary work of surveying and getting ready for the actual construction of the sea wall, and the reclamation from the water of an immense new area for the extension of the city, was carried out by the foreign company, under its duly authorised concession, its recompense being determined by the lease for a certain number of years of the land reclaimed. Then President Batlle came into power and calmly “squashed” the whole affair. This high-handed action of his was based upon the belief that it would be possible for the government to carry out the improvement and enjoy to the full the increased revenue which would immediately result from the new land made available for building, as well as the enhanced value of all the property along the southern shore. The undertaking is, of course, hopelessly beyond the compass of native enterprise, and the action of the President may be ascribed to that vivid imagination of which we have already heard as part of the mental make-up of the Uruguayan. He by no means carried with him the sympathies of his party in this matter, and many of the newspapers of Montevideo would grow as indignant over the scandal of the Rambla Sud as the enterprising European promoters of the scheme themselves.

Mention of this subject serves to raise the question of a very grave defect in the constitution of the Republic. It is a strange anomaly that in a country which prides itself upon its democratic spirit, its President should be endowed with powers that are little short of dictatorial. This is its legacy from the old days of military predominance, when the Presidency went to the military officer who could secure command of the army, just as surely as the Praetorian Guard used to make and unmake the Cæsars of Rome. As a party, the Colorados are in favour of reform, and would like to see a diminution of the power which the constitution places in the hands of the President, but Señor Batlle y Ordoñez, who not so many years ago was a struggling journalist, and still as editor of El Dia combines journalism with the business of President, took the initiative in a new constitutional “reform” in 1912, which speedily resulted in his becoming the most unpopular man in the country. His earlier career had been that of a loud and strenuous Democrat and his first presidency gave fairly general satisfaction, but when he returned for a second time to the seat of power, his actions soon ceased to be those of an essential Democrat.

Still he maintained a measure of public sympathy for the able manner in which he handled national affairs—as the constitution, with all its faults, works well, provided the President uses it only for the good of the country—but the imperious spirit which he developed, and his harsh treatment of political opponents, speedily changed the attitude of the people, and when he launched his extraordinary scheme for reforming the constitution, he found himself almost alone, with the overwhelming majority of senators and deputies opposed to him. Being a man of virility, he refused to trim his sails, and went straight ahead with the reckless campaign, denouncing old colleagues who had fallen away from him in terms of unmeasured abuse in his daily paper, and refusing to give any of them the personal satisfaction of a duel, that being incompatible with his office of President. A sort of comic opera situation thus developed, the President as journalist lashing about him at his own sweet will in his editorial columns, but refusing to meet the victims of his wrath at the point of the sword or pistol in hand, as many of them invited him to do!

The reading of some of Señor Batlle’s articles in favour of his proposed reform might have left any one unfamiliar with the real import of the movement with the impression that he was that rarest of mortals among statesmen ancient or modern: the man who finds himself endowed with powers so dangerous, if exercised without discretion, that he wishes to curtail these for the protection of his fellow countrymen and to free himself from the temptation of abusing them. Day after day he used to hold forth in the editorial column of El Dia, on the dire possibilities that might succeed to a country that placed itself under the almost autocratic control of one man, on “the instability of unipersonal power,” and “the anti-democratic character of absolutism.” To the onlooker all this was vastly amusing, and to the intelligent mass of Uruguayans the intention of the proposed reform was as transparent as glass. Señor Batlle urged that an ejecutivo colegiado, to consist, I think, of seven members, like the Swiss Federal Council, should be elected to co-operate with the President in the government of the country, and that from this executive body each new President might be chosen. In this way, he contended, it would be possible to limit the authority of any President by placing the executive power in the hands of a group. Of course, it was obvious to all thinking people that what he was after was merely to secure, before the end of his four years of office, the election of seven of his personal friends to form this new executive, so that when he had to withdraw from the Presidency he could still, from his home in Piedras Blancas, work the puppets, and the chief of the puppets would be his successor. He laid much stress in his newspaper advocacy of the ejecutive colegiado on example of Switzerland, which he was fond of quoting as the ideal of a democratic state, but in no respect was there the slightest resemblance between the Swiss method of government and that proposed by him. The Swiss Federal Council is elected by the Federal Assembly, and consists of citizens who hold no other public offices and are engaged in no business or profession. But the seven (or it may have been nine) who were to share the responsibility of the Uruguayan President and thus intensify by seven or nine times the dangerous character of the presidential power, were to be neither representative of the people nor of the Colorado Party, but merely representative of President Batlle.

A more preposterous suggestion could not have been made by the temporary ruler of a sane people, and the surprise was that the President could even muster his stage army of standard bearers and demonstrationists who used to parade the town in favour of the “reform,” while he himself was afraid to venture from his suburban retreat to the Government House,—where he ought to have been in residence,—more than once every two or three months and at unlikely hours. They used to have a healthy habit in Montevideo of shooting a President who abused his power, and Señor Batlle was so familiar with the past history of his interesting little country that among the numerous articles published by him in El Dia to illustrate the instability of the present constitution was one giving a list of all the Presidents from Rivera onward, with notes of the disturbances which occurred during their terms of office, how so many of them had to fly for their lives, how some were killed, and few indeed completed their term without witnessing insurrection and sanguinary disturbances. During his own previous term of office, the revolution of 1904 occurred, and he had a narrow escape from death by the explosion of a mine. In the succeeding four years of Señor Claudio Williman’s presidency, two revolutions occurred, one of these assuming serious proportions. Hence President Batlle did not unduly flaunt his personality in public places during our summer in Montevideo, in marked contrast, I was told, to the manner of his previous presidency, when he went about freely everywhere and was probably the most popular man in the Republic.

The most interesting episode in his strange campaign against popular sentiment was the publication in his own journal of several paragraphs in black type headed Permanente, which roused the ire of every person of good taste throughout the Republic, and welded for once the whole press, Blanco and Colorado, into one. As this incident throws a vivid little sidelight on the politics of the country, I venture to translate the paragraphs in question, which were reprinted daily in the Presidential journal, and have probably only ceased to appear since the death of the aged politician at whom they were aimed:

PERMANENT.