Brazil After Vargas:
CARLOS, NEWTON
BRAZIL AFTER Struggle for economic recovery is intensified by next By Newton Carlos WITH Presidential elections a year away, Brazil is passing through an acute crisis. To be sure, the...
...Most disinterested non-business ob?servers consider Gudin's program honest and appropriate to Brazil's needs...
...Vargas's labor laws, still on the books, are an exact copy of Mussolini's Carta de Lavoro...
...The program approved by the Fourth Congress stressed activity among the peasants, who have been completely aban?doned by most political movements and lack any social legislation com?parable to that which protects urban workers...
...The easiest way for Americans to understand Brazil is this: Her land is a combination of our past and our present, her people a projection of our future...
...The popular feeling behind this new generation makes the elec?tion of Juscelino Kubistchek or any other conservative candidate most unlikely...
...Cities like Sao Paulo are as much a part of the twentieth century as Detroit and Chicago, while the vast unexplored reaches of the Amazon Valley are as defiantly promising as our West must have looked at the time of Lewis and Clark...
...Quadros has not declared himself yet, and it may very well be that he will wait until 1960 before seeking the Presidency...
...The PSD aims to regroup the forces of the Vargas regime...
...Agrarian reform actually is one of four urgent political necessities at this moment...
...Most of the latter are grouped in the National Democratic Union (UDN), the party of Brigadier General VARGAS year's elections Eduardo Gomes, who played a de?cisive role in the events leading up to Vargas's suicide...
...As for Brazilians, they are a new race...
...To be sure, the administration of Jose Cafe Filho is dealing energetically with current problems...
...This was highly inflationary...
...Vargas died con?demning every element of his primi?tive "Laborism," including the social-security system, the one thing in his social program which was not dema?gogic, having been set up by techni?cians...
...Quadros, who was supported by the young Brazilian Socialist party, opposed both the "Laborism" of Vargas and the false "Populism" of Ademar de Barros, former Sao Paulo Governor and perennial Presi?dential candidate...
...At the recently-held Fourth Congress, it reelected as Secretary General Luiz Carlos Prestes...
...European, Indian and African met and blended long ago...
...The Communist party, though now illegal, is still doing business...
...In sharp contrast to Vargas, who was constantly inflating the currency, Gudin, an old economics professor, has sought other means of increas?ing the national income...
...Ever since 1930, the skilful dema?gogy of Vargas and his associates, combined with seeming social re?forms, had worked to cover up the gradual deterioration of the Bra?zilian economy...
...The popularity of Quadros and of journalist Carlos Lacerda (these are the two men most prominently in the news at the mo?ment) marks the onset of a new political generation and the end of the rule of the politicians who have dominated Brazil since the over?throw of President Washington Luiz in 1930...
...Without these four planks, no political platform can long expect the support of the Bra?zilian masses...
...The Labor Ministry con?stantly intervenes in labor affairs...
...its president is Vargas's son-in-law, Amaral Peixoto...
...And these means have provoked a prompt reaction from Brazilian business leaders...
...Newton Carlos (see picture on next page), who surveys more recent events in the hemisphere's largest nation, writes on labor affairs for the independent Tribuna da Imprensa in Rio de Janeiro...
...But the country is just beginning to learn all the details of the national tragedy which marked the rule of the late Getulio Vargas...
...Previously, bank loans tended to match the level of the currency in circulation, since they were based on the rediscount facilities of the Banco do Brasil...
...Businessmen are already working toward next year's election, and their principal candidate for the Presidency is Juscelino Kubistchek of the Social Democratic party (PSD...
...The honeymoon between the new administration and the business com?munity seems to be about over, now that the new Finance Minister, Eugenio Gudin, has begun to attack speculation and artificial credit, the pillars of high corporate profits...
...Quadros's mass support is a symp?tom of the popular reaction against both Vargas and his traditional op?ponents, who were generally conser?vatives...
...There is also some sentiment for a military candidate and much activ?ity among the conservatives...
...The most popular man at the mo?ment seems to be Janio Quadros, Governor-elect of the State of Sao Paulo, the industrial center of the nation...
...This forces busi?nesses to forego issuing new stock and to concentrate on sales, which curbs the tendency to rising prices...
...The others are nor?malization of the coffee market (Bra?zil's principal means of obtaining foreign exchange), continuation of Government control over the oil in?dustry, and worker participation in industrial profits...
...With the limitation of the rediscount rate, banks now must lend in proportion to their reserves...
...But the measure which has provoked the greatest storm is the limitation of the interest rate...
...who has long been sought by the police...
...One of Gudin's steps has been to increase taxes on consumption, an?other to tax corporate stock...
...Brazil's trade-union movement is practically non-existent...
Vol. 37 • December 1954 • No. 52
