Buenos Aires’ Calle Florida was no longer the avenue of the gay, the chic and the gallant. It had become the battle place of the republic.
For several weeks the Peronistas had had the run of the street. Three or four of their newsboys, accompanied by armed bodyguards, would parade the sidewalks, hawking the Nationalist Alianza, while their escorts ripped democratic emblems off the lapels of passersby. Last week the democrats were striking back. In brief, quick-breaking scrimmages they gave at least as good as they got, bloodied many a bully-boy’s nose before the ubiquitous Perón police closed in.
Over most of the Florida’s smart shop and confiteria windows, heavy iron shutters were closed down. In front of the great department stores, Harrod’s and
Gath & Chaves, crowds scattered, weeping and choking, as police tossed tear-gas bombs. “This can’t go on much longer,” groaned Juan Pueblo, the man in the street—and then remembered he had been saying the same things since the 1943 revolution.
Most business houses shut down in a three-day protest against Perón’s 30% wage-increase decrees. They promised to pay their staffs; meantime, had already paid the government-dictated wage increases and bonuses. The real issue: dictatorial government.
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