Word: montevideo
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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...
...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...
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...
...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...