Domingo A. Mercante: A Democrat in the Shadow of Perón and Evita

By Carolyn A. Becker

The history of Argentina in the second half of the twentieth century was dominated by the charismatic figures of Juan Pern and his wife Evita. Both within Argentina and in the outside world, it has come to be accepted that the populist revolution which swept through Argentina in the 1940s and profoundly transformed the political, economic and social conditions in the country was spearheaded by and Pern and Evita with little help from anyone else. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. This biography of Domingo A. Mercante profiles not only Perns closest collaborator and a man whom Evita called the heart of Pern, but also an important leader in his own right who was genuinely committed to democratic government. This book documents Mercantes essential contributions to the Peronist movement and to the history of Argentina, accomplishments that have undeservedly been obscured by the shadow cast by Pern and Evita over all other figures with whom they shared the political stage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 19, 2005
• ISBN: 9781462837953

Carolyn A. Becker

Carolyn Becker was born and raised in Evansville, Indiana and attended Indiana University, where she received a B.A. in German. She continued her studies of German language and literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she received her M.A. and Ph D. Electing not to pursue an academic career, she entered the University of Wisconsin School of Business to obtain an MBA. Dr. Becker worked for three years at the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau before entering the private sector, eventually becoming Chief Financial Officer for an American division of an international agri-business concern. Upon her retirement in 1999, she decided to devote herself once again to scholarship. Her research for this biography of Domingo Mercante took her to Argentina five times as well as to various libraries and research facilities in the United States. Dr. Becker lives with her husband Donald, an emeritus professor of German and Linguistics, in De Forest, Wisconsin.

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Copyright © 2005 by Carolyn A. Becker.

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

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Selected Bibliography

Dedicated to the memory of my parents,

Earle M. and Mary Grace Oglesby

Acknowledgements

Although writing is a solitary and very personal enterprise, I would

like to take this opportunity to thank several individuals without whose assistance and advice this book could not have been written. First of all, I would like to express my profound gratitude to Dr. Domingo A. Mercante Jr. for his generosity in sharing with me extensive information about his father and the Mercante family, much of which has never appeared in print. I have also benefited enormously from his keen intelligence and understanding of political life during the Perón era. Dr. Rudolfo A. Decker, a close confidant of Colonel Mercante, graciously granted me two interviews that added substantially to my understanding of his friend’s character. I am also indebted to the journalist Ana Echenique, who conducted an extensive interview with Isabel Ernst on my behalf that brought to light much information never before published. I would like to thank Professor Robert J. Alexander for allowing me to review the transcripts of numerous interviews he had conducted with Argentine union leaders and politicians of the time. Special thanks are due to my Spanish-language tutor, Marie Llanos Flickinger, for her assistance and encouragement. Marie has become not only a valuable source of information about the cultures and peoples in the Southern Cone but also a valued friend.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the support and assistance of my husband Donald Becker, who has accompanied me on my travels to Argentina and to research sites in the United States to collect material for this book. His help in collecting material for this book and his critical review of the manuscript have been invaluable.

It goes without saying that I take full responsibility for all the judgments and opinions expressed in this book.

Carolyn A. Becker

De Forest, Wisconsin

Foreword

For the last sixty years, the figures of Juan Domingo Perón and his

wife Evita have dominated Argentine politics. To this day, the mass movement founded by Perón remains the largest and most powerful political party in the country. The labor unions that formed the backbone of the Peronist Party, though now considerably reduced in membership, still have the power to bring down any non-Peronist government and to seriously disrupt the nation’s economy.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, both Perón the man and the political program associated with his name were reviled by the vast majority of upper- and middle-class Argentines and revered by virtually the entire working class. Likewise, Evita was the object of profound loathing and impassioned devotion. Since then, much has been written both in Argentina and elsewhere about Perón’s authoritarian views and Evita’s fanatical hatred of the rich and powerful oligarchs who had ruled Argentina before her husband was elected president in 1946. Even today, Argentines are deeply divided over the question whether Peronism has, on balance, been good or bad for the country.

The continuing preoccupation with the flamboyant personalities of Perón and Evita has obscured the important contributions to the Peronist movement made by Perón’s early allies and collaborators and by key figures in the labor movement. However, it is undeniable that but for the bold and decisive actions taken by Colonel Domingo A. Mercante and the union leader Cipriano Reyes in the period leading up to the dramatic events of October 17, 1945, the pivotal date in his quest for the presidency, Juan Perón would have ended his days as a forgotten army pensioner whose only claim to fame would have been the central role he had played in a failed military regime.

In presenting this biography of Colonel Domingo A. Mercante, I hope to contribute to a better understanding of the circumstances surrounding Perón’s rise to power and the essential role played by Mercante in the genesis and subsequent success of the Peronist movement. I will show that he was not simply an early convert to Perón’s vision of a socially just and economically independent Argentina but also an exemplary leader in his own right. As governor of Buenos Aires Province for six important years, Mercante implemented the most ambitious and comprehensive program of public works and economic development in the history of the province. His administration of Argentina’s largest, most populous state provided a model of what an honest, efficient, and forward-looking government can accomplish.

From the beginning of their collaboration in 1942, Mercante was Perón’s most loyal aide and the executor of his strategic plans. He enjoyed Perón’s absolute confidence and the personalities of the two men complemented each other to a remarkable degree. Perón had a charismatic public personality and oratorical skills that could electrify and energize a large audience. Mercante was at his persuasive best in one-on-one situations and had the patience and command of detail needed to negotiate complex agreements. Perón avoided whenever possible open confrontation with his adversaries. Mercante possessed the unflinching courage and mental toughness required to face down opponents who were often prepared to use violence to achieve their aims. Once he had decided on a course of action, nothing could deflect him from achieving his objective.

The resolution and discipline displayed by Mercante in consolidating labor support for Perón’s economic reforms and standing up to their enemies in the military government and the trade union establishment were not unexpected coming from a career army officer. What truly was surprising, however, was his ability to learn from experience and adapt himself to the new political career on which he decided to embark at the age of forty-seven. Following the triumph of October 17, 1945, he set his sights on becoming governor of Buenos Aires Province in the same February 1946 elections in which Perón was running for president of Argentina. In gaining the Labor Party’s (El Partido Laborista) nomination for governor of Buenos Aires Province, Mercante showed that he could, if the prize was great enough, successfully navigate the treacherous waters of political intrigue. Mercante easily won the election and assumed office in May 1946.

As governor, Mercante immediately set about the task of recruiting an outstanding group of young and highly competent associates to assist him in the task of transforming the corrupt and unresponsive provincial administration into a dynamic motor of economic development and social justice. In his six years in office, Mercante compiled a record of achievement unequaled by subsequent governors. From unprecedented investments in education, health, public utilities, and other infrastructure improvements to the creation of the park that has become Buenos Aires’ green lung and the construction of a Children’s Republic to provide youngsters with a hands-on introduction to the operation of democratic institutions, Mercante’s administration was a model of honest and effective government.

But it was not just his outstanding list of achievements that elevated his political leadership to a level rarely experienced in Argentina. Mercante demonstrated that a Peronist government could successfully function within a democratic framework in which freedom of the press was guaranteed and all political parties competed on an equal basis for the approval of the electorate. He considered himself to be the governor of all the people of the province, not just of those who had voted for him. His goal was not to eliminate his opponents but rather to gain the cooperation of moderate and progressive elements within the opposition parties in the implementation of his economic reforms and ambitious development plans.

Praised by Evita as the heart of Perón and universally recognized as the second man of the revolution, Mercante’s future as a popular leader and successful politician appeared to be assured. Nonetheless, only three years after serving as president of the Constituent Assembly that drafted the 1949 Constitution that sanctioned Perón’s reelection, Mercante’s political career came to an abrupt and unexpected end. Perón had quite unjustifiably come to see Mercante’s popularity as a potential threat to his own position as the undisputed leader of the Peronist Party.

It is not unreasonable to hypothesize that if the constitutional ban on presidential succession had remained in force and Mercante had been elected president of Argentina in 1952, in place of Perón, who had already served one six-year term, the country’s history over the next half-century would have taken a more benign course. Mercante believed in the nation’s democratic institutions and had little interest in perpetuating his own power. Under a Mercante presidency, the political opposition perhaps would not have been marginalized and persecuted to the point of seeking the help of the armed forces to rid the country of what they considered to be a dictatorial regime. In short, a Mercante presidency would have consolidated the economic and social reforms promoted by the Peronist movement while preserving the country’s democratic system of government.

Unfortunately for the country, Perón concluded that Mercante had to be permanently banished from the political scene. Likewise, the memory of his key role in the events of October 17, 1945, and the record of his six successful years as governor of Buenos Aires Province had to be erased from the public consciousness. Mercante’s successor as governor immediately orchestrated a systematic campaign to eliminate all references to the accomplishments of his administration as well as to him personally. Many of his ministers and key collaborators were persecuted and detained without charges by the police. Others were able to avoid imprisonment only by fleeing the country.

Over the years, the campaign launched by Perón to write Mercante out of the history of the Peronist movement has very nearly succeeded. Mercante has received little recognition from later Peronist writers and politicians who have exalted the figures of Perón and Evita while consciously downplaying the contributions to the movement made by Mercante and others. Mercante was a democratic leader who viewed the opposition Radical Party (Unión Cívica Radical) politicians as potential partners in his program of economic development and social justice rather than enemies to be destroyed. This was a philosophy shared neither by Perón nor by the majority of the Peronist leaders who have followed him. It is also hardly surprising that the anti-Peronist scholars who have long dominated the fields of history, economics, and political science in Argentina have shown little interest in extolling Mercante or his accomplishments as an enlightened Peronist governor of Buenos Aires Province. Consequently, writing Mercante’s biography has been in a real sense an exercise in historical archaeology.

Unlike so many of the major and minor figures who participated in the events surrounding October 17, 1945, or who played a role in the Peronist movement during Perón’s first two terms, Mercante never felt compelled to boast about his role in implementing the positive portions of Perón’s program. While Mercante’s reticence has made the biographer’s task more difficult, it has also served to confirm his image as a man of integrity and principle. Mercante broke his silence in 1965 and agreed to speak to the journalist Hugo Gambini, who was writing a series of articles on the history of Peronism in the weekly magazine Primera Plana. He did so, he said, to contribute to the search for objective truth1 regarding the events and figures that shaped the Peronist movement. In 1971 the noted historian Félix Luna published his groundbreaking book El 45 (The Year 1945), which included extensive information about Mercante that was based on interviews with his son, Domingo A. Mercante Jr. Finally, in 1995, the latter published a book entitled, Mercante: El corazón de Perón (Mercante: The Heart of Perón) with the stated goal of describing the events that led to his father’s unexpected disappearance from the national political scene in 1952.

The present work is an attempt to contribute to the reassessment of Mercante’s place in Argentine history initiated by these authors while introducing the English-speaking world to a central player in a political drama known to them only in the over-simplified, distorted versions presented by numerous popular works, including films and the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical about Perón’s wife Evita. Mercante’s biography can also serve as an instructive case study of one man’s realization of the Argentine version of the American dream, the idea that through a combination of hard work and perseverance a person of humble origins can achieve economic security and social prominence. However, while Mercante’s dramatic rise from his fairly modest beginnings to the governorship of Buenos Aires Province, the second most important political office in the land, is as remarkable now as it was then, the social transformation of Argentine society initiated by him and other early supporters of the Peronist revolution greatly increased the odds that other sons and daughters of working-class parents would one day be able to follow in his footsteps.

NOTES TO FOREWORD

1      See La historia del peronismo-XI, Primera Plana, August 24, 1965, p. 42.

1   

Early Life

Domingo Alfredo Mercante was born on June 11, 1898, in the

Flores neighborhood of Buenos Aires, the first child of José Domingo Mercante and his wife Flora Cardone. Both José Domingo and Flora were native-born Argentines, children of Italian immigrants who had arrived in Argentina in the 1850s, to escape the hard rural life and constant threat of war in the northern Italian region of Liguria.

José Domingo’s parents, José and Teresa Mercante, left their small farming village of Zebbedazzi to seek a better life in Argentina. The young couple traveled together with José’s brother Antonio and his wife Filomena Lombardi as well as Teresa’s brother, Silvestre Cardone, and his wife, Catalina Tegalde. Like the vast majority of immigrants to Argentina, the three couples arrived via ship at the bustling port city of Buenos Aires, located on the southern bank of the Río de la Plata. Founded by the Spanish in 1536, what was once a small outpost at the edge of the Spanish empire in the Americas had, by 1850, grown into a city of almost ninety thousand inhabitants and the unrivaled center of commerce in the Río de la Plata basin. The young couples would not have felt out of place in the city in which foreign-born inhabitants made up almost fifty percent of the total population and dominated the commercial life of the city as merchants, skilled artisans, and bankers.

Since the beginning of the decade, the city of Buenos Aires and Argentina as a whole had been undergoing significant political and economic changes.1 In 1852 the dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas, who had ruled the city and province of Buenos Aires with an iron fist since 1835, had been forced from power. The Constitution of 1853 established a tripartite federal system of government modeled on that of the United States and that included a president, a bicameral legislature, and an independent judiciary. It encouraged immigration by giving foreigners virtually all the rights of citizenship except the vote. The constitution also exempted noncitizens from military service, which was an important incentive for young men wishing to escape forced conscription in their countries of origin. A bill of rights guaranteed the basic freedoms of all residents of the country, regardless of their citizenship status. The president was granted broad powers but barred from serving more that six years in succession. Reelection was possible but only after an intervening six-year period. Although Catholicism was the official religion, freedom of conscience was guaranteed for all individuals, a provision that served to attract a large number of non-Catholic immigrants to Argentina.

In the 1850s, Buenos Aires was both a city and a province in the newly created Argentine Republic. The city was designated as the federal capital and also served as the capital of the province of the same name. It was not until 1880 that boundaries were drawn to establish a separate federal district of about seventy-seven square miles, which included the downtown area and forty-seven distinct neighborhoods. Having lost its capital city to federalization, the province of Buenos Aires, in 1882, founded the city of La Plata to serve as its capital.

Immigration to Argentina was steady but not extensive. Unlike the United States, which attracted immigrants wishing to establish new lives for themselves and their families in their adopted country, many single men from Italy and Spain came to Argentina intending to work for several years in order to accumulate a nest egg with which to establish themselves as farmers or tradesmen in their native countries. For most of the decade of the 1850s, annual net immigration remained around ten thousand and came primarily from Italy and Spain.

José Mercante was attracted to the rural life on the pampas, which reminded him of his native Liguria. He and his wife Teresa settled in the small agricultural town of Dolores, about two hundred miles southeast of the city of Buenos Aires. Sheep raising had become the principle economic activity in the flat coastal plain to the south and east of the city and work was both plentiful and sufficient to support a family. Their son José Domingo was born here on March 29, 1872.

Growing up on the pampas, Domingo Mercante started his working life as a mule driver.2 Soon realizing that this was a job without a future, he obtained work cleaning locomotives on the British-owned Western Railroad. This was especially desirable employment since the English were known to be good and punctual paymasters. It was not long before he was promoted to stoker on the coal-fired locomotives and then to engineer, the highest and best-paid position for a working man on the railroads. The railroad was not only his work but had become his lifelong passion.

With his steady job and attractive appearance, young Domingo was a highly eligible bachelor and welcome wherever he went. For Gringo Mercante, as his friends called him because of his Italian heritage and blond hair and blue eyes, life on the railroad was very good. In 1894, during one of his periodic trips through the city of Marcos Paz, a major station on the Western Railroad, the 22-year-old railroader took advantage of some free time to visit his mother’s brother Silvestre Cardone. His uncle lived in the nearby town of Merlo, where he and his wife, Catalina Tegalde, had raised a large family of seven children.

Of Silvestre’s four daughters, the seventeen-year-old Flora was the most energetic and assertive. Once she had set her sights on something, she spared no effort to achieve her goal. Upon meeting her young cousin, she immediately resolved not to let him get away. Successful as usual, she married him on February 22, 1896, in the church at Marcos Paz.

Flora took the lead in finding the newlyweds a place to live. The headquarters for the Western Railroad was the station Once, located a few miles west of downtown Buenos Aires. A home located in the city and close to a Western Railroad station was deemed essential, but Flora was also determined to find a pleasant area in which to establish her family. Soon she secured a rented house on Morelos Street in the neighborhood of Flores, which was located six miles west of the center of Buenos Aires and between the train stations of Flores and Caballito. Flores was an ideal location. The Western Railroad ran right through the heart of the district and it contained beautiful gardens and attractive vacation homes built by the wealthy porteños, as the inhabitants of Buenos Aires are called, who were lured there by its country breezes but especially by its elevation one hundred feet above sea level, an important consideration since the yellow fever epidemic of 1871, which had devastated the low-lying areas of the city.

The house rented by the young couple offered many advantages. Its proximity to the Western Railroad line made it convenient for Domingo’s work and it was also less than two blocks from Rivadavia Avenue, a major east-west thoroughfare since the 1870s, which was undergoing considerable commercial and residential expansion. By 1898 streetcar lines had connected Flores with other areas of the city and municipal sewer and water services had been installed. Additional amenities such as sidewalks, paved streets, and electric streetlights made Flores a comfortable and pleasant neighborhood in which to live.

The couple’s first child, Domingo Alfredo, was born in the rented house on Morelos Street on June 11, 1898. Flora’s energy and drive, which had first attracted and then won over Gringo Mercante, guided the family. Her husband’s tastes were simple and Flora was exceedingly frugal in monetary matters. She was determined to see the family progress both economically and socially. To this end, she decided to acquire rental properties. Real estate was secure and rental units produced immediate income with which to pay down the mortgage and apply toward the next acquisition.

Her first purchase, in 1901, was a house at 2033/35 Avellaneda Avenue, which was located near the young family’s rented home and was also close to the Western Railroad tracks. The family moved to the new house and occupied the residence in the front while renting out the two rear apartments. The Mercantes’ second child, Alberto Paulino, was born there on June 22, 1903.

This two-story residence was typical of the properties Flora was to acquire. In keeping with a design popular at the time, the front half of the dwelling contained a comfortable two-level residence with an iron entrance door and a balcony off the second story. A separate entry gave access to two apartments at the back of the house. The front half of the building could also be used as a shop with an upstairs apartment, as was the case with the second property Flora acquired, in 1904. That house, at 519 Boyacá, was located just a few blocks west of the house on Avellaneda. Here Alberto the Turk presided over his shop, which was known as Crazy Alberto’s.3 (In Argentina, immigrants from all of the countries of the Middle East are known collectively as turks.) But Flora was not yet satisfied. In 1911 she was ready to take on a third rental property, and this time she paid cash for a house on Gavilán Street that was within walking distance of her other properties.

These houses were not the conventillos, or tenements, that disfigured many Buenos Aires districts. Flora did not want to become one of the absentee landlords who exploited the poorest and weakest residents of the city, even if it would have been more profitable to do so. By acquiring properties in her own neighborhood, Flora could manage her own home, tend to the children, and at the same time keep a close eye on her investments. Added to her husband’s salary, the rental income provided a solid economic base for the family.

In 1912 Flora decided that the time had come to move the family into more spacious quarters and to this end she secured another nearby property on 2279 Avellaneda Avenue, which lay two blocks west of the residence then occupied by the couple and their two boys. And it was this large house that became home for the entire Mercante clan for the next eighteen years. Over the next two decades, Flora acquired a total of eighteen properties, a remarkable feat in itself but an especially noteworthy achievement for a working-class family.

Although the Mercantes would have deserved the designation working-class on the basis of Domingo’s job, they did not fit the description in terms of their economic resources or their outlook on life. Like so many people whose parents had come to the New World to find a better life, Domingo and Flora Mercante were well on their way to achieving the American Dream of economic independence for themselves and the successful integration of their children into the middle class. At the same time, however, the Mercantes could not escape the problems faced by all working-class families in Argentina at the beginning of the twentieth century. There was an enormous economic, social, and political gulf separating the managers of the railroad companies and other industries from the men who worked for them. Argentine workers possessed few rights in the workplace, where they were subject to the whims of their employers and at the mercy of rapid changes in the marketplace.

Railroaders were the first group of workers in Argentina to organize a trade union to fight for better working conditions and higher salaries. Inspired by representatives of the U.S. railroad brotherhoods who visited Buenos Aires in 1873, a group of employees on the Western and Southern Railroads, in 1887, founded La Fraternidad to represent the railroad engineers and stokers. By 1897 union membership surpassed the one thousand mark. Mindful of the absence of labor laws and other legal protections, the fledgling union was reluctant to initiate strikes and other work actions. Nevertheless, union members did go out on strike in 1907, in 1912, and again in 1918 in order to force the companies to recognize the union and improve wages and working conditions.

Gringo Mercante joined La Fraternidad and actively supported its goals. Although the union leadership generally espoused a socialist political ideology and the leaders often belonged to the Socialist Party of Argentina, he did not support their political platform. For him, supporting the union was simply a natural expression his feeling of solidarity with his fellow workers. Many years later, Colonel Mercante would give testimony to the difficulties faced by his parents:

The pain of unsatisfied demands and of failed strikes touched me from the time I was a boy. Together with my father I learned to hate the scabs and the despotism of the bosses. My father was a member of La Fraternidad, although he was never a socialist. He never wavered in his sense of solidarity with his comrades.4

Colonel Mercante attributed his father’s failure to be promoted beyond engineer second class to his support of fellow railroaders, since the masters of the railroads didn’t forgive the fighters.

*

The railroads were the most visible symbol of Argentina’s growing economy and had become essential to the country’s continued economic expansion, which was based on increased shipments of agricultural products to Europe and the United States. Wool and sheep skins continued to be important exports, but the introduction of British Shorthorn and Angus cattle in the 1870s as well as the development of technology to ship refrigerated meat to world markets provided the keys to expanded meat exports after 1880. By 1900 Argentina had replaced the United States as Great Britain’s main supplier of beef. In addition, huge areas of the pampas had been dedicated to the cultivation of wheat and corn for the export market.

Railroads had become the lifelines that brought the agricultural goods from the interior to the port of Buenos Aires, from where beef, mutton, wheat, corn, and wool were shipped throughout the world. The same trains that moved the products of Argentina’s farms and ranches to Buenos Aires carried manufactured and consumer goods back to the interior. Like the spokes of a wheel, the rail lines radiated out from Buenos Aires, making the city quite literally the focal point of economic activity in the country. The fact that very few connecting lines between the cities of the interior existed hindered the development of commercial and political ties between the different provinces and reinforced the dominance of Buenos Aires as the center of economic and political power in Argentina.

The economic and political elites that governed the country following the election of Julio A. Roca in 1880 made economic development their first priority. These men were outward-looking and progressive in their economic and cultural views. Like other nineteenth-century rationalists in western Europe and the United States, they believed in the inevitability of material progress and modernization. As a consequence of their liberal economic philosophy of free trade and minimal government direction of the economy, the building of the railroads, the construction of the new port of Buenos Aires, and many other major projects were financed by foreign capital and managed by foreign technical advisors.

The country’s leaders championed universal, secular, and free public education; enacted civil marriage legislation; and encouraged other measures that promoted the secularization of cultural life. The generation of the 80s, as they were called, was certain that Argentina, like the United States, was destined for greatness. At the same time, they realized that only a dramatic increase in the population would enable the country to achieve these ambitious goals and that accelerated immigration was accordingly the key to rapid economic development. Just as British capital was the financial motor of growth, immigration from Italy, Spain, and other European countries provided the labor force needed to construct the infrastructure for the expanding economy. While little had been done to actively encourage immigration in the 1860s and early 1870s, between 1875 and 1914 Argentina opened its doors to more than 3 million new permanent residents. Immigration, together with accelerated rates of internal growth resulting from improvements in health and nutrition, caused the population of Argentina to double between 1895 and 1914, from 4 million to 8 million. The city of Buenos Aires grew even more rapidly, increasing from 660,000 in 1895 to more 1.5 million inhabitants in 1914. Buenos Aires had become the largest city in South America and, after New York, the second largest city on the western edge of the Atlantic. It also compared favorably with New York with regards to modern improvements. The first line of the Buenos Aires subte, or underground, opened in 1914, only ten years after New York had constructed the first subway in the American hemisphere.

Although the economic and political elites were willing to share some of the economic benefits of a growing economy with immigrants and middle-class Argentines, they were loath to share political power with either segment of the population. Bound together by family ties and a shared belief in their right and superior ability to govern the country, this oligarchy maintained a tight grip on political power. While the president, vice president, and national deputies were chosen via elections, these elections were little more than a sham. Through bribery and outright intimidation, political bosses and large landowners managed the electoral process. Candidates were carefully selected to represent the interests of the dominant class and few of these candidates had to fear a defeat at the ballot box.

Colonel Mercante’s son Tito recalled his grandmother’s account of an incident that took place several days before the April 10, 1898, election, which resulted in a second six-year term for Julio A. Roca:

One afternoon she heard the gallop of a horse in the distance. When the rider reached the house, he asked my grandfather to hand over his identity papers. The following Monday, the messenger reappeared to return the document saying: "Thank you very much, Doña Flora, tell Don Domingo that he voted.5

This type of assisted voting was very common at the time because the oligarchs felt so confident of their own power and their right to govern the country that they made little effort to conceal their manipulation of the elections.

The depression of 1890 led to increased demands for a change in the political and economic status quo. In April a broad coalition of opponents of the conservative government calling themselves the Civic Union attracted thirty thousand demonstrators to a rally in downtown Buenos Aires. In July 1890 the coalition launched an armed revolt against the government that forced President Juárez Celman to resign in favor of his vice president. While the revolt itself was ultimately unsuccessful in achieving its broader goals, it was not without importance, for its leaders founded a new organization, the Radical Civic Union (UCR), which would later evolve into a political party representing the interests of the middle class.

Dramatic economic growth after 1895 blunted for several years the demand for broader political representation. However, improved economic opportunities also fostered the development of a prosperous and increasingly self-confident middle class that was not satisfied with material success alone but began demanding a voice in the political life of the country. Bowing to growing public pressure, the government enacted the Sáenz Peña Law of 1912. This law established universal male suffrage for citizens over eighteen years of age. Voting became compulsory and the secret ballot was introduced. The intent of this law was to maintain the oligarchy’s political, economic, and social preeminence by giving limited political representation to the growing middle class and thereby forestalling even more far-reaching reforms. President Roque Sáenz Peña, after whom the law was named, believed that the ruling conservatives would be able to establish a unified political coalition that could continue to rule the country for many years to come.

*

The Mercantes were also among the beneficiaries of rapid economic growth of the country in the years after 1895. Once the economic foundation of the family had been secured, their main concern became the education of their sons Alfredo and Alberto. The decisions that had to be made with regard to their futures were strongly influenced by the very different personalities of the two boys.

The younger Alberto was a carefree individual, indifferent to school and work. He was subject to sudden bursts of enthusiasm that tended to dissipate before he had accomplished anything. Although he later held a good position in the customs office, he continued to be dependent on the emotional and financial support of his parents and his older brother Alfredo.

Alfredo, by contrast, had always been a serious boy. He was studious, perceptive, intelligent, and dependable. Normally even-tempered, he could also be very tenacious in defending his convictions when he felt they were being challenged. Flora knew that her hopes of a better future for the family rested upon Alfredo’s shoulders. His father imagined that his elder son would follow in his own footsteps as a railroader. As the son of a Western Railroad employee, Alfredo would receive preferential treatment and was almost guaranteed employment. He would have to start at the bottom cleaning locomotives just as his father had done, but Domingo had no doubt that Alfredo’s intelligence and hard work would in due time lead to his promotion to engineer.

This choice did not suit Alfredo’s mother at all. She would accept nothing less than a professional career for her talented older son. Initially, she considered the teaching profession. However, by the middle of 1914, as the time approached to enroll Alfredo in the National Teachers’ College, chance intervened to direct her thoughts and plans in a completely different direction.

Early every morning, an army officer passed by the house on Avellaneda Avenue as he made his way to the nearby streetcar stop. Attracted by the officer’s olive-green uniform and shiny saber, Flora followed him one day to his house and asked him what was required for a career in the military. Her visit and questions surprised the officer but he willingly gave her the information she sought. She would have to go to the Military Academy, the Colegio Militar, which was located in the town of San Martín, just north of the city limits. The staff at the Colegio Militar could answer any additional questions and give her the forms needed to apply for admission. Flora was not given to procrastination. The very next day, she rose very early in order to avoid attracting her husband’s attention and made her way to the town of San Martín. She returned home with the list of entry requirements and the official application for admission to the Colegio Militar.

Alfredo was as excited as his mother was about the possibilities offered by a military career and he studied diligently all that summer in order to master the required material. He successfully passed the entrance examination in early 1915 and was admitted to the Colegio Militar on March 1, 1915.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 1

1      See J. R. Scobie, Argentina: A City and a Nation, for a discussion of the dominant role played by the city of Buenos Aires in the country’s history. See also D. Rock, Argentina, 1516-1987, for a general history of Argentina.

2      The use of Christian names in Argentina can be confusing for English speakers. As in many Hispanic countries, Christian names in Argentina are often handed down from parent to child to grandchild. Generally, everyone receives two Christian names in order to be able to identify each individual unambiguously. Thus José Mercante’s son José Domingo was always referred to in later years as Domingo. Likewise, José Domingo’s son Domingo Alfredo was known as Alfredo. Moreover, almost everyone in Argentina has a nickname, which is usually short and descriptive of the individual.

3     D. A. Mercante, Mercante: El Corazón de Perón, pp. 19-20.

4     Quoted in La historia del peronismo-XI, Primera Plana, August 24, 1965, p. 42. (Unless otherwise noted, all translations are by the author.)

5     D. A. Mercante, supra, p. 24.

2   

The Army Cadet

Like all aspiring cadets, Alfredo Mercante entered the Colegio Miliar

as a plebe or preparatory cadet. All first-year students took the same academic courses and received infantry training. Following this initial year of preparation, each cadet was required to select the specific branch of the service to which he would dedicate his professional career: the infantry, the cavalry, or the artillery, which in Mercante’s day also included engineering. The normal course of studies lasted four years and upon successful completion of the academic program and military training, the graduate entered the army as a second lieutenant in his chosen specialty. Almost all aspiring officers received a full scholarship at the college and paid for their education by serving for at least eight years in the army.

At the time of Mercante’s matriculation there were close to four hundred cadets enrolled at the Colegio Militar. The military academy had been founded in 1869 during the presidential term of Domingo F. Sarmiento, who was often called the education president for his commitment to free and universal public education. Its mission was to recruit and train officers for a national army based on European models, especially those of Germany and France. Originally located in the Palermo district of Buenos Aires, in 1892 the college moved from its cramped facilities in the city to larger quarters in the small community of San Martín, located just to the north of the Federal Capital. The cadets lived, trained, and studied at the college but were granted periodic leaves to visit their families.

Earning a place in the Colegio Militar represented an enormous opportunity for Alfredo Mercante and his family. If successful, he would obtain a professional education leading to a career that brought with it middle-class social status and a secure income. The scholarship he received also freed his family from almost all of the costs of providing their son with a first-class education.

The scholarship program was an important part of the government’s effort to modernize the army by raising the qualifications of its officers while contributing to the unity the country by