Rubber-Stamp Field Day

On the streets of Buenos Aires last week the talk was of football and horse races and cattle fairs. National pride had been hurt when a Uruguayan bull won the Hereford competition at the annual 50-ciedad Rural. But all the nation was boasting of the fireman named Delfo Cabrera who had won the marathon at the Olympics (in token of the nation's gratitude, Evita Peron gave him a furnished house).

To keep Argentines from noticing Peronista political shenanigans, the government had whooped up the annual celebration of the reconquest of Buenos Aires from the British in 1806. There were parades and solemn ceremonies in the Plaza de Mayo, and symbolic torches were rushed to every corner of the country. But there were no torches to light the last hours of the parliamentary system that generations of Argentines had struggled to maintain.

A Time to Fight. Following the expulsion of Radical Deputy Ernesto Sammartino from the Argentine Chamber, 42 anti-Peronista deputies had refused to sit with the Peronista majority (TIME, Aug. 16). That opened the way for a field day of rubber-stamping.

Without so much as looking at the Mimeographed budget report on their desks, Peronistas put through an 8.6 billion-peso ($1.8 billion) budget. In four hours they passed 28 bills, including one that would give the President a dictator's power: it authorized him to mobilize men and resources by decree whenever he thought the nation's welfare demanded it. Peronista deputies did not bother even to have the bill read aloud.

When Peronistas brought up a bill to call a convention for amending the Constitution of 1853, the opposition knew that it was time to fight or flee. They fought.

Returning to their seats in the Chamber, they attacked the government for railroading the reform bill through the Congress before the country had a chance to study it. "We are watching the destruction of Parliament," cried Radical Deputy Alfredo R. Vitolo. "Remember a whole generation was lost in order that we should have this Constitution," warned Raul Urgana. Another Radical shouted: "We want a reform for the people and not for the President." From 4 o'clock in the afternoon until 2:50 the next morning the opposition fought a futile delaying action. Then the bill was passed.

A Look Ahead. Though the Radical Party issued a warning to the nation that Peronistas were seeking to concentrate "all political, economic and cultural powers" under one "official party and its chief," the warning reached few Argentines. The government controlled press and radio saw to that.

From his hiding place, Deputy Sammartino sent his party a dire forecast. "The fact that I am going underground is only the beginning. Tomorrow all of you will have to join me."

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