CHILE: Don Tinto’s Dilemma

Chile’s homely little President Pedro Aguirre Cerda is popularly known as Don Tinto because of the excellent red wine of the vineyards that made him rich.

Rich President Aguirre’s Popular Front Government reduced the price of bread from 2. 20 pesos (11¢) to 1.70 (9¢) and the price of some meats by 40%, made available to workers who had never tasted milk 12,000 litres a day at 80 centavos a litre, returned from Government-owned pawnshops some 9,000,000 pesos worth of hocked tools and clothing. “Don Tinto,” says the poor man of Chile, “es un muy buen hombre.”

Backbone of Don Tinto’s Popular Front is the Radical Party of conservative-minded Senator Florencio Duran. No more radical than Daladier’s Radical Socialists in France, Duran’s Party is a conglomeration of big & little businessmen, professionals and skilled workmen. They represent the aspirations of the Chilean bourgeoisie to develop their own industry and commerce, to get a share of the business now in the hands of foreign capital, to break up the semi-feudalism of agriculture. Their struggle against reaction led to their alliance with Chile’s Socialists and Communists to elect Don Tinto President in 1938, but many now think that the aims of their fellow travelers are bad for business, and one who so thinks is Leader Florencio Durán.

In its 14 months of power, Don Tinto’s Popular Front has coped with three Cabinet crises, one revolution and an earthquake. The revolution and at least one of the Cabinet crises were precipitated by the Rightist opposition. Last week Don Tinto had to cope with another Cabinet crisis. This time it was precipitated by the conservative wing of his own Party and Leader Florencio Duran, whom many not so conservative Chileans suspect of being on more than speaking terms with Rightist ex-President Arturo Alessandri.

Three of Don Tinto’s Cabinet Ministers who are loyal to the Popular Front have been involved in recent scandals. An investigating committee found fraud in the entry of Jewish refugees and held Abraham Ortega’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs responsible. Arturo Olavarria’s Ministry of Agriculture let an Agricultural Export Board buy race-track stock for the purpose of improving animal husbandry. And Minister of Education Rudecindo Ortega got himself mixed up in a row between Radicals and Socialists at a professors-&-teachers convention last month. These scandals gave Radical Leader Durán his opportunity to order all Radicals to resign from the Cabinet, to give Don Tinto “freedom of action.”

The six Radicals resigned in a body last week. The supposition was that the three Socialist and two Democratic members of the Cabinet would also resign, giving Don Tinto a chance to name a brand-new Ministry. The plan failed to click. The Socialists promptly announced that their Ministers would stay and the Communists demanded from Don Tinto an assurance of loyalty to the Popular Front. Don Tinto, honest friend of the working man, gave it. Pinched between his conservative and radical supporters, he reappointed two of the three untainted Radical members of his Cabinet, replaced the three scandal-smeared members with conservative Radicals of Duran’s way of thinking, considered that he had found the best way out of his dilemma. Although South America’s only Popular Front Government continued to exist, it had veered decidedly to the Right, and the Confederation of Chilean Workers issued a manifesto declaring that in the situation they saw the “thumbprints of Alessandri.” The “Lion of Tarapacá” is living quietly in Santiago, at 71 still hale for a comeback, crisis or coup.