After 17 Years

Great crowds of cariocas packed Rio's Avenida Rio Branco to cheer the return of an exile. After 17 years in foreign lands, white-goateed Washington Luiz Pereira de Souza was back in Brazil.* When Getulio Vargas drove him out of the presidency in 1930 and set up a dictatorship, Washington Luiz swore never to return until Brazil was securely and constitutionally democratic. He came back when he decided that his conditions had been met.

The Gifts. In the crush of the homecoming, spry Washington Luiz, 78, bore up sturdily. To well-wishers he launched into a spirited eulogy of the U.S.: "A country which has largely solved its principal problems." He wound up on the right patriotic note: "Here also, by the mercy of God, there are to be found gifts of heaven and earth which will always bear fruit if cultivated by friendship, by persevering initiative, by just enterprise and honesty--attributes which Brazilians do not lack."

Washington Luiz returned to a Brazil that could report progress under her year-old democratic Constitution. The fact of the Constitution itself was significant. "That," said a Brazilian, "gives us something to respect." President Eurico Caspar Dutra and Brazil's army had followed constitutional procedure when they suppressed the Communist party (TIME, May 19), and had acted only after obtaining the approval of the courts. The

Constitution had given Brazilian newspapers unaccustomed freedom, and had wiped out the hated, Vargas-style government-by-decree that hamstrung businessmen because they never knew when a law might change overnight.

The Fruit. There was still much planting and cultivation to be done before Brazil would enjoy all the fruits of perfect freedom. So far Congress had failed to make laws translating constitutional guarantees into reality. Said a carioca: "The Constitution promises us a lot of things but we haven't got them yet." Unions are still dominated by the Government under old, repressive Vargas decrees. Only half of Brazil's 5,500,000 school-age children can go to school.

For such inadequacies many a Brazilian answers: "We must be patient." As well as the next man, Washington Luiz knows that Brazil, despite her more than 400 years of history, still has a way to go on the road to democratic freedom. The important thing is that she is well on the road.

* He was first exiled in France, then Switzerland, where his wife died, later Portugal, and finally Manhattan.

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