Alarums & Excursions

Like swamp fire, revolutionary feeling snaked underground from Bolivia and Peru (see col. 3) last week, to break out in three different places in Latin America.

Brazil, already troubled with a minor insurrection in the state of Parahyba (TIME, Aug. 11, 18), rang with rumors last week of an impending revolution in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Details were not forthcoming. The Brazilian Embassy in Washington, the Brazilian foreign minister, President Washington Luis united in an almost hysterical desire to quash reports. Said the President's secretary, Senhor Mendes Goncalves: "His Excellency authorizes me to state that the situation of Brazil is at present as it has been in recent times, of the most perfect economical, political and financial order."

Cuba. Prolonged rioting between Liberals and Conservatives caused a threat of martial law in the town of Maximo Gomez, Matanzas Province. At Cruces, Santa Clara Province, horn-spectacled President Gerardo Machado neatly nipped another revolution in the bud by arresting 20 members of the Nationalist (anti-Machado) party, disclosed a plot to raid the Cruces army post, seize the arsenal stored there.

Argentina. Loudest alarums, most violent excursions came from Buenos Aires where a timorous cabinet suddenly decided that a military plot threatened the life of ancient, eccentric President Hippolito Irigoyen (nearly 80 years old, though he looks ten years younger). They persuaded him to mobilize the Army & Navy. Machine guns were mounted on the roof of the cigar store over which he prefers to live. Seven warships steamed into the harbor. From Campo Mayo, the 8th Cavalry clattered into town with full equipment to strengthen police reserves. President Hippolito, whose insistence on living in his little cigar store apartment is only one mark of his almost phobic dislike of ostentation, was made to drive to and from the Executive offices, the center of a convoy of eight hooting, speeding motor cars, bristling with riflemen. Second night of the scare, 5,000 Irigoyen followers, who love their elderly President so much that they have given up all party names, call themselves Personalistas Irigoyenistas, paraded through the streets. Just what they were parading for few seemed to know. Told to shout, they shouted Viva Irigoyen! Viva La Dictadura!* till they were hoarse, then varied the monotony by reviving century-old civil war tocsins: "Death to the Unitarian Savages! Long Live the Holy Federation!" A few wags cheered "El Torito de Matadoros," champion Argentine Boxer Justo Suarez, now attached to the Argentine consulate in Manhattan. Five anti-Irigoyenistas ploughed through the crowd, fired a score of shots which brought down Parader Manuel Varela. At week's end no other signs of revolution were evident. President Irigoyen was furious to learn that by order of the Minister of War General Luis J. Dellepiane, a number of officers had been arrested, confined to barracks for no other reason than that they were known to be friends of Sefior Justo, onetime Minister of War and opponent of Irigoyen. Instantly, President Irigoyen ordered their release, "thus creating an incident," wrote a Buenos Aires correspondent, "which makes Dellepiane's situation in the Cabinet impossible."

* Many Irigoyenistas refuse to admit that their elderly President is a dictator, point out that he not only allows political opposition in the country, but, unheard of in most Dictatorships, allows himself to be criticised in the public press and refuses to accept any salary. Actually. Hippolito Irigoyen not only dictates the policies of Argentina, but, distrusting most of his ministers, attempts to perform most of the routine work of the country himself.

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