BRAZIL: Hitching Post

At the junction of Rio de Janeiro’s Avenida Rio Branco and Avenida Beira-Mar stands an obelisk, pride of the city. Last week 16 slouch-hatted gauchos (cowboys) with ponchos over their shoulders and red handkerchiefs knotted about their necks rode up to it and solemnly hitched their ponies to its base while camera shutters clicked and black-coated pedestrians cheered themselves hoarse. This was the final act of Brazil’s revolution. The gauchos of Rio Grande do Sul (the southern state in which the revolt started), had vowed: “We’ll hitch our ponies to the obelisk in Rio!”—and they had. Rio de Janeiro went almost mad last week. From 10 o’clock in the morning until 6 o’clock at night—when Rio Grande do Sul’s victorious Dr. Getulio Vargas arrived to be proclaimed Provisional President of Brazil a million people milled through the streets, cheered the red-green-&yellow flags of Rio Grande do Sul everywhere displayed, cheered when the Federal sentries at Cattete Palace were replaced by khaki-clad revoluntionaries. From Cattete Palace he loftily announced that the new government would wreak no political vengeances, punish only the criminal misuse of public funds. His formal assumption of office was in minor key. In civilian afternoon dress he descended a flight from his apartment on the palace third floor to a reception room where General Tasso Fragaso, head of the military junta, pronounced him in authority. He named a provisional cabinet. Other palace rooms were filled with officials and their wives. The populace waited along the avenues for his parade by motor. Dr. Washington Luis, a prisoner mean while in Copacabana Fortress, stubbornly refused to resign as President of Brazil. Only a fortnight remained of his legal term of office, he was given books from the garrison library, meals from a neighboring restaurant. Only newspapers were refused him.