Back Seat

At the wheel of vast Brazil for seven years has sat dressy little President Getulio Vargas, who elected himself the first time in 1930 by throwing President-elect Julio Prestes in jail and was legally "reelected" for his present term which expires next year. Last week even the remotest of Brazil's jungle towns heard the news they had long been awaiting: that Strong Man Vargas is content to abide by Brazil's Constitution which forbids him to succeed himself in January's presidential election. Chosen in Rio de Janeiro by an all-party conclave as the "official" (i. e., majority) candidate for the presidency last fortnight, President Vargas' onetime Minister of Communications Jose Americo de Almeida was scheduled to sit in front while his master Vargas climbs peaceably in back.

A harmless bureaucrat chiefly remembered for reducing electric rates in the Rio de Janeiro Federal District, President-designate Americo will be amenable to back-seat suggestion. His sole January opposition, outside of noisy but insignificant Fascist and Communist candidates, will consist of onetime Governor Armando Salles de Oliveira of the State of Sao Paulo, which is still bitterly unreconstructed by the Vargas Revolution.

Brazil's Vargas had more to comfort him last week than the prospect of a rest. Big, swashbuckling Governor Flores da Cunha of his home state of Rio Grande do Sul, who rebelliously threw his support to Candidate Salles de Oliveira to keep his onetime friend Vargas from succeeding himself, was left stranded absurdly without an issue. Hemmed in by a solid wall of Federal troops suspiciously watching for any trouble he might start with his 30,000 militiamen, Governor Flores da Cunha received without enthusiasm the news that Candidate Salles de Oliveira was about to charter a steamship for a barnstorming campaign along the coast.

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