The next president, Campos Sales, undertook to straighten out the country’s chaotic financial situation. Under the first two presidents and during the civil war, the country had entered a period of great disorder. The people complained and made bitter jokes, but tightened their belts. They called President Sales “President Selos” (President Stamps) because of the high taxes (and all the stamps the taxes entailed). However, order was restored, money was stabilized, and a period of prosperity began. This period marked the beginning of the remarkable progress of São Paulo, helped by the wave of European immigration that it had encouraged since the beginning of the century.
But the young Republic had still to produce a body of states-men; and in the mixed group of men, idealistic or resentful, that had provoked Dom Pedro’s downfall, there were many quarrels and resignations. So it was natural that when order was restored and the country began to prosper, the men of the old Imperial regime, more gifted and better prepared for the task, came back into power. The newspapers ironically called this new ruling class “the government of the Counselors,” since many of them actually had been Counselors under the Empire. The first was the new president, another Paulista, former Counselor Rodrigues Alves, who did much to beautify the city of Rio and improve its sanitation.
Another Counselor, while a famous Republican, was a figure of great importance for half century: Rui Barbosa (1849–1923), one of the great figures in Brazilian history. He had many talents: a powerful orator, a jurist of the highest calibre, a writer of pure and classical Portuguese. He devoted all his talents to the service of democratic government, and he was famous for his refusal to admit anything approaching the dictatorial, and for his defense of the under-dog. Small and thin, with a weak, nasal voice, nevertheless, he was a formidable opponent, equally respected by popular leaders and famous generals. Too many politicians feared to compete with him, or perhaps they feared his intransigence. The whole nation mourned his death. And until today, in political arguments, the man who manages to quote Rui Barbosa to support his opinions is the one who has the last word.
Another figure who emerged during the Empire and then became a tutelary angel of the Repubic was José Maria da Silva Paranhos — Baron of Rio Branco. With the proclamation of the Republic, he went abroad in a minor diplomatic position. There he stayed, until the government called him back to lend his services as technician and scholar in order to settle the long-disputed question of the Argentine boundary. Rio Branco, a great student of history, argued the case so well that he convinced the arbiter (the American President Grover Cleveland) that Brazil was in the right, and the settlement was favorable to Brazil. In honor of President Cleveland, a vast tract of the recovered territory was named Clevelândia, the name it bears today.
Other questions of disputed boundaries were given to Rio Branco and also settled with profit and honor for Brazil. The Alves government made him Minister of Foreign Affairs, and succeeding presidents, of no matter what party, kept the irreplaceable Baron in Itamaraty (the Department of State). When he died, in 1912, his funeral was the greatest the country had ever seen. Every city in Brazil has one of its principal streets named for him (the Fifth Avenue of Rio is the “Avenida Barão do Rio Branco”); one of the “territories” (not yet a state) is named Rio Branco; and even a huge province of Uruguay is named Rio Branco, in honor of the man who settled its frontier.
Another great man of the Empire who also served the Republic, especially in diplomacy, was Joaquim Nabuco, famous as an Abolitionist, later Ambassador to the United States for many years.
With the return of the “Counselors” Brazil entered on a period of great progress; with the slogan of “Civilize Rio” the old city of Dom João VI began to open up avenues and install port facilities. With the help of a team of young technicians, especially the engineer Pereira Passos and the doctor Oswaldo Cruz, the city began to rid itself of its colonial atmosphere. Yellow fever, which had reached Brazil around 1850, had long been the scourge of the city; the Cariocas called it “the patriot” because it seemed to have a preference for foreigners. But it was now eliminated once and for all by a campaign for better sanitation. Compulsory vaccination against small-pox was introduced and even led to riots and bloodshed in the streets. The poor and ignorant were afraid of inoculation, and the remnants of the Positivist intellectuals sided with the masses, saying that compulsory vaccination was an “attack on the physical integrity of the citizen.”
This period was the golden age of republicanism in Brazil. The country prospered, the money was sound, and coffee held sway. The presidents abandoned all the parliamentary tradition of the Empire and relied on the so-called “policy of governors” that transformed the Congress into a subsidiary of the Executive power. Under this regime, the big states dominated the smaller states, and two states dominated all the rest: São Paulo and Minas Gerais. The presidency long alternated between men from these two states. Since São Paulo was famous for coffee and Minas Gerais for its dairy products, this political arrangement was popularly called “coffee and milk,” café com leite, the usual Brazilian breakfast.
It was not until the last period of the First World War, with the wave of social agitation it produced, that Brazil began to become “socially conscious.” Reforms were demanded, particularly election reforms, since universal suffrage and with it true democracy were in reality just words.
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The troubles began in the barracks; led by a few more ambitious or more politically advanced generals, the young officers became aroused. 1922 was the first centenary of Independence, celebrated with great public festivities, and on the 5th of July of that year the famous death march of the “18 of Copacabana” took place, the first serious episode in the rebellion. Two years later, also on the 5th of July, revolution broke out in São Paulo. The rebels’ chief complaints were that the Republic was becoming bureaucratic; that it still had not got rid of the corrupt politicians who had overthrown the Empire; and that political power was still in the hands of the old bosses in the interior, without taking into account the growing strength of the cities. This was the time of the first labor-agitations in Brazil and the formation of the first groups of the far left, the anarchists. The president was Artur Bernardes from Minas Gerais, rigid and narrow-minded; he demanded that Congress declare a state of siege for his entire term in office. And out of this “second 5th of July” of 1924 grew the movement of rebellion that in 1930 was to upset the “old Republic.” The rebellious troops, driven back to Rio Grande do Sul, began one of the most singular movements in the history of Brazilian revolutions: the march of the “Prestes Column.”