Gabriel Over the Fire House

From 1910 until last week Uruguay acted like South America's model republic. Long trained to die in annual revolutions against dictators, Uruguayans had since 1910 had no revolution, no dictator. Their secret was a unique Constitution that split executive power between the President and an elected National Administrative

Council of nine. Proof against embryo dictators, this constitution leaked no power. Only leaks were heavy graft and heavy taxation of private business. The taxes hit Montevideo, Uruguay's only sizeable city and one-quarter of its population. The graft kept the Colorado Party fat. The Colorados pushed through graft-rich social reforms: old age pensions, universal suffrage, government monopolies of industry. Well satisfied were Uruguay's rural million and a half who raise sheep and cattle on its rolling pastures, doze under the trees in front of white plaster estancias.

In 1930 the Constitution's tax leaks widened as Depression rolled over South America. The Batllistas (majority wing of the Colorado Party) elected Gabriel Terra president. He felt cramped in his constitutional compartment of powers, looked for elbowroom. Last month he noted with interest Montevideo businessmen's protest meetings against heavy taxes. He called in toward Montevideo the regiments he most trusted in the volunteer Army, set them to guard all roads inland from Montevideo's peninsula. The Navy had already been reduced to one small cruiser. Looking for a safe spot to live he turned to the Fire Department which is organized on military lines. To the firehouse he went, ordered the hose laid out, set up his headquarters. Then he gave Uruguay's model Constitution three well-aimed kicks. Last week it had fallen apart like an old basket.

First kick was a declaration that revolt was smoldering. To dampen it President Terra laid down a strict censorship, sent troops to take over Montevideo waterworks, power houses and jails from officials appointed by the Administrative Council. He forbade a Batllista meeting, had its ward clubs occupied.

Second kick was announcement of an election next June of a Constituent Assembly to redraft the old constitution. Proud of the old constitution was the Administrative Council's idealistic member, onetime President Baltazar Brum, good friend of Woodrow Wilson for whom he named a Montevideo avenue. The Council put in a dignified, parliamentary protest. Meeting in an all-night session, Congress instructed President Terra to undo all he had done.

Third kick was a dictatorship. Dictator Terra appointed his own junta of eight, dissolved Congress and sent police to arrest the Administrative nine. Seven were caught. One, Alfredo Garcia Morales, hid in the Argentine Embassy. Baltazar Brum, facing the end of parliamentary order in Uruguay, met police with a revolver in each hand, wounded two detectives and took refuge in the Spanish Legation. Soon Idealist Brum came out of "dishonorable" hiding and died by his own hand on his own doorstep. His wife stoically carried his body inside. In Montevideo, Brum's death hurt Dictator Terra's prestige.

Last week the censored newspapers' only reproaches spoke from great white spaces. Accused of suppressing two, Terra replied that troops had merely shut off their electrical power, stopping the presses. Montevideo businessmen were satisfied. But inland the estancia owners and peons awoke from their doze, waited in vain for news from Montevideo. They picked up an occasional scanty radio report from the Argentine, spread rumor and uneasiness by word of mouth. Observers agreed that the Constitution from which all power had leaked last week was probably unrefillable. What the new Constitution would be depended on how well Dictator Terra put his case to rural Uruguayans who have almost forgotten how to die in civil war.

Meanwhile Uruguayans looked across the Brazilian border to Uruguay's oldtime revolutionary Saraiva brothers, sons of General Saraiva who died in action in 1904. To forestall the Brothers Saraiva, Dictator Terra from his firehouse outlawed all elected provincial governments and put in Federal "interventors" of his own. At the same time he issued eleven other decrees establishing reforms of economy and centralization.

Dr. Gabriel Terra, 60, heavy-set and heavy-jowled, looks not unlike President Harding. Uruguayans have never considered him the dictator type. A graduate of Montevideo University, he early gave up law practice to become a regular Colorado Party man. He won a name as a smart, respectable politician by vigorously backing public works: rural free schools, roads, harbors, airports, fertilizer factories, hydro-electric plants. He put through Uruguay's high tariff on agricultural products. His jobs: Minister of the Interior, Minister of Industries, Minister to Italy, Special Ambassador to Argentina, member of the National Administrative Council. A year after his 1930 election he toured inland Uruguay, speaking out for a change in the Constitution, offering to resign the Presidency to hasten reform. Then he favored Switzerland's commission form of government or a chief executive with a Cabinet elected by Parliament. He warned Uruguayans strongly against a strong executive head like the U. S. President.

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