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The Chargé in Argentina (White) to the Secretary of State

No. 899

Sir: I have the honor to report that the cumulative results of hard times and the partial paralysis of the normal functions of government are stimulating the feeling that before many months elapse a change will come about.

The peso continues to depreciate daily as compared with foreign currencies. In the face of this phenomenon one possibility mentioned is to print more paper money, which would make the situation far worse. The other is to resort to a foreign loan. But the administration continues to delay and the terms of the financiers presumably grow stiffer as conditions get worse.… Labor is in an exceptionally refractory temper.

Any administration would be in a serious predicament in the face of such conditions. The present regime is held to be exceptionally dictatorial and extraordinarily inactive. The opposition within the Government party is growing.

Rumors are consequently current that the President may soon resign. If he did so his natural successor would be the Vice-President who is reported to be a good man. The latter, however, owes his selection to and is identified closely with the Minister of the Interior, who is considered the leader of one faction of the Radical Party, even as the Oyhanartes are prominent in the other wing, which represents the younger element; hence there is a rumor that both President and Vice-President might resign and that Congress would elect Dr. Alcorta, a former President of the Republic and a member of the Supreme Court.

While I do not at the moment of writing take much stock in reports of presidential or vice-presidential resignations, it is the general opinion that conditions are exceptionally bad and that the President’s age, mentality and the state of his health render his continuation in office, if not problematical, at any rate a serious problem.

I have [etc.]

J. C. White