Civil Commotion

(See map p. 24)

In his white palace in Rio de Janeiro last week Getulio Vargas, sleek little President of the United States of Brazil, faced a situation which in the United States of America would have been diagnosed as the preliminary rumblings of a civil war. President Vargas is theoretically so afraid of armed rebellion that ever since a squib communist uprising in November 1935, he has been governing Brazil's 48,000,000 whites, blacks, Indians and mixed breeds under the terms of a proclamation that a "state of war" continually exists. To Getulio Vargas' dismay such a state suddenly threatened to materialize last week in his rich home State of Rio Grande do Sul.

From Porto Alegre, where the Legislature of Rio Grande do Sul has been split between the majority supporters of President Vargas and the minority party of ambitious swashbuckling Governor Francisco Flores da Cunha, ominous telegrams began flying up to Rio de Janeiro. Majority leaders accused Governor Flores da Cunha of mobilizing his crack State army of 30,000 men to gain control of the Legislature. He was, moreover, "liberating criminals who are infesting the capital and the interior," planning to seize the State's telegraph and telephone system.

Since it was Strong Man Flores da Cunha, a doughty soldier who can tie a steer singlehanded, who helped boost his friend into the Presidential Palace in 1930, Strong Man Vargas knew he had better act quickly. Back to Porto Alegre flashed a Presidential order relieving Governor Flores da Cunha of his responsibilities as executor of the "state of war" in Rio Grande do Sul, handing them over to General Emilio Lucio Esteves, the State's Federal military commandant. This order in effect gave General Esteves a free hand with 17,000 Federal troops against anything General Flores da Cunha might try with his 30,000 militiamen.

Roared Flores da Cunha: "I propose to remain within the Constitution and the law although I will do all to assure autonomy of Rio Grande and to preserve the dignity of its citizens."

In Rio de Janeiro, Presidential spokesmen fastened on the word law, assured all concerned that not a shot would be fired. In Buenos Aires, where Getulio Vargas is a despised Brazilian upstart, the press fastened on the word autonomy, shrieked that Brazil was on the verge of bloody civil war. Upon the commotion then descended the iron Brazilian press censorship which is as thoroughgoing as any in the world. European and U. S. correspondents cabled as little as possible to their editors, judiciously deciding that civil commotion would have to become civil war in fact before it would be worth while to risk their skins.

To hardheaded Brazilians the excitement was a perfectly understandable prelude to the Presidential election which Brazil is supposed to hold next January. Although Brazil is bigger than the U. S. in area (3,300,000 sq. mi. to 3,027,000) and larger than the United Kingdom in population, presidential politics are the private affair of three kingpin States: Sao Paulo (coffee & cotton), rich, populous Minas Geraes, whose plateaus sparkle with manganese and diamonds, and most of all, in recent years, of cattle-raising, tobacco-growing Rio Grande do Sul (see map). What made big Francisco Flores da Cunha pop so explosively in Rio Grande last week was his shrewd suspicion that Getulio Vargas is contemplating too bold a gambit in this intimate game of chess.

Coffee 6 Cattle. It was supposedly for the honor of Rio Grande do Sul that in 1930 General Flores da Cunha's Gauchos rode tumultuously into Rio de Janeiro, hitched their horses to the obelisk on bosky Avenida Rio Branco, bottled old President Washington Luis up in jail and helped Getulio Vargas become President of Brazil. Washington Luis and President-elect Julio Prestes were both from Sao Paulo which was then sorely handicapped by the collapse of the world coffee market and unable to fight back. Since most of Brazil's 20 States, which figure in the world market only with such specialties as cocoa, Brazil nuts or carnauba wax (phonograph records), are merely so many jungle-choked, politically impotent drains on the Federal Treasury, this shift provoked no outcry. Rebellious Paulistas were brought to terms when the Federal Navy tied up Sao Paulo's harbor city of Santos, kept their grey-green mountains of coffee impounded until they cried for mercy.

Rio Grande do Sul and cattle have been on top ever since, even though the Paulistas boycotted the election which President Vargas got around to holding in 1934. What Rio Grandenses have been wondering lately is whether this scramble has upped their State or merely shrewd Getulio Vargas. No sooner did the State's No. 2 politico, Dr. Oswaldo Aranha, cast an anxious eye toward the Presidency than he was shipped off to Washington as Ambassador. General Flores da Cunha thereupon encouraged a Paulista, Armando Salles de Oliveira, to resign his post as Governor of the State and thus qualify himself as a candidate for next year's election. Such treachery to Rio Grande and himself has provoked Getulio Vargas to set up a parliamentary bloc to undermine General Flores da Cunha in his own bailiwick, a process which continued steadily through last week's commotion.

If, as General Flores da Cunha is apparently convinced, Getulio Vargas means to succeed himself again next year, the General may be able to start his civil war near home. President Vargas is most unpopular in Sao Paulo, which last week saw the first real chance in seven years to squeeze back into power through a brawl in Rio Grande. Strongly nationalist President Vargas is unpopular also in such States as Para and Amazonas, whose ambitious plans to import cheap Japanese labor for their rubber plantations the President halted with his 1934 immigration law. Under its terms, immigration from any nation is restricted in any year to 2% of its total immigrants in the past 50 years.

Brazil's Vargas, who has the reputation of worrying less than any strong man previously at the controls of his sprawling, somnolent Republic, showed no signs of worry last week. It was the moment for him to deliver his annual message to Congress and he did so with the blandness of a mandarin: "With the hotbeds of the 1935 rebellion extinct . . . the situation appears peaceful and prosperous. However . . . the necessity of continued vigilance persists."

The day when far-flung railroads and communications will break the political stranglehold of Sao Paulo, Minas Geraes and Rio Grande do Sul and make the United States of Brazil as hard to manage as the United States of America is still remote, leaving Brazil's politicos free to wrestle with more immediate problems. Most immediate problem, whether General Flores da Cunha really could start a revolution, Getulio Vargas seemed to have for the moment well in hand. The next, whether he should succeed himself or put in a proxy president to warm his chair for him next year, Brazil was anxiously waiting for him to decide.

Perhaps in the hope of getting some Good Neighborly advice, dapper Getulio Vargas last week announced that he was soon going to return the visit his friend Franklin Roosevelt paid him in Rio de Janeiro last year.

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