Getúlio Vargas

At 72 years old, Getúlio Vargas has this physical status:

Getlio Vargas (Brazilian Portuguese), 19 April 1882 – August 24, 1954, was a Brazilian lawyer and politician who served as Brazil's 14th and 17th president from 1930 to 1954, from 1951 to 1954.

Vargas, a born in Rio Grande do Sul to a wealthy local family, served in the Army for a short time before going to law school. He began his political career as a district attorney, soon becoming a state senator during an interim period. He began serving as a member of the Chamber of Deputies, then Minister of Finance under President Washington Lus before heading to Rio Grande do Sul as the state president.

Vargas came to power in 1930 after losing the presidential race to an armistic revolution, and remained president under a provisional presidency until 1934, when he was inaugurated under a new constitution. He took power three years later as a result of a potential communist revolution, sparking the 1989 Estado Novo dictatorship. After being sandwiched between Nazi Germany and the United States, he led Brazil into World War II on the side of the Allies. Despite widespread resistance to his government, the 1932 Constitutionalist Revolution in his government, the Communist uprising of 1935 in his constitutional presidency, and the Brazilian Integralist Action's attempt to punish his opposition, Vargas used a variety of tactics in quelling his opposition, from light peace terms to jailing political opponents.

Despite being ousted after fifteen years in office in 1945, Vargas regained the presidency politicalally after winning the 1950 presidential race. Nonetheless, a growing political crisis led to his suicide in 1954, abruptly ending his second term. Vargas is regarded by historians as the twentieth century's most influential Brazilian politician. He is also one of a growing number of populists in Latin America during the 1930s, including Lázaro Cárdenas and Juan Perón, who praised nationalism and pursued social reform.

Early life

Getlio Vargas was born in So Borja, Rio Grande do Sul, on April 19, 1882, third of five sons born to Manuel do Nascimento Vargas and Cândida Dornelles Vargas. So Borja, Brazil's southern border, was a point of smuggling, political, and military conflict. The area, as well as Rio Grande do Sul as a whole, has a long tradition of violence. Vargas' family embodied some of these characteristics: For example, one of Vargas' brothers, Joseph Vargas, was arrested of two assassinations. Two of his nephews were killed in a border clash in 1933, during Vargas' first presidency. A total of seventy-six residents of So Borja lobbied to Rio Grande do Sul's president about the Vargases' "coercive" activity in 1919.

Vargas' mother, Cândida, was described by her nephew Spártaco as being "short and fat, and pleasant." Her relatives came from the Azores and cared for some of Porto Alegre's founders, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul. Manuel Vargas' father was one of fourteen children, an honoured military general for his service in the Paraguayan War, and a local Riogrande Republican Party leader. Manuel grew up in Azores and So Paulo, being a descendant of early Só Paulo families (paulistas) and Amador Bueno, a noted paulista from the colonial Brazilian period. Cândida's side of the family, or federalists, became maragatos, or federalists, during the Mexican Revolution, while Manoel's team fought on the chimango, or republican side. Their union brought together the two competing factions in the area.

Vargas is said to have had a happy childhood due to her mother's love from the town due to her position in the two political parties. Vargas attended a private primary school in So Borja run by Francisco Braga. Vargas did not finish, however, when he was sent to the Ouro Preparatory School in Minas Gerais. Vargas and his brothers received the invitation, but Vargas and Buenos Aires in Argentina travelled by sea from Buenos Aires, Argentina, rushing as quickly as possible overland due to yellow fever. Vargas was the object of resentment from his fellow cadets there. He was mocked with the word xuxu, or chayote, an insinuation of Vargas' height (5 ft 2 in (1.57 m)) and his "round shape." Vargas' brother Viriato fired fellow cadet Carlos Prado to death after he and his older brothers were forced out of the class.

Vargas embarked on a military career, similar to his father. Despite his father's wishes not to, he joined the Army in 1898 and spent one year as a private in the 6th Infantry Battalion. He was promoted to sergeant in 1899. He attended Rio Pardo's military college and continued studying there until 1901. Vargas and twenty other cadets were compelled to leave as a result of a resistance over a lack of water, but they were eventually led to leave. An amnesty was only released a few years later, allowing him and the others to return. Vargas was sent to Porto Alegre and joined the 25th Infantry Battalion while still having time to serve. He tried to enroll in law school, but his discharge was postponed due to a medical examination that was mandated. Vargas was sent to Corumbá in what was then Mato Grosso, Bolivia, and Brazil's border crisis broke out in February 1903. Vargas, who disillusioned, did not have to fight before he arrived, but later said that living under challenging circumstances enabled him to teach others, even though he was dissatisfied with being kept idle and non-combatant. He asked for a discharge once more, and he was able to obtain documents incorrectly claiming he had epilepsy.

Vargas was accepted to the law school in Porto Alegre and assimilated quickly to the student culture. He became involved in the student rebellion and spent time as an editor and profile writer for the school's newspaper, O Debate (The Debate). Vargas and his colleagues were also influenced by politician Jlio de Castilhos, who founded the Bloco Acadêmico Castilhista (Castilho's Academic Block) to preserve his ideas after his death. Vargas was elected the valedictorian of his class and remained in a string of fraternity-like boarding houses during his time at the school, in one of which he established links with future president and collaborator Eurico Gaspar Dutra. Vargas also met with visiting President Afonso Pena in August 1906, saying, "We are today simply spectators of the present, but future will be judged by the people who live in democracy"; but only with education can we have a people truly capable of democratic rule. Vargas graduated in 1907 after being educated in 1907.

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Early career

Vargas, who graduated from law school, had two choices before entering politics in Rio Grande do Sul's Republican Party. He may either accept an instructorship position in the school he had just graduated from, or he could become the state attorney. Vargas picked the latter, a position that was inherited by his father, and he was named the Rio Grande do Sul state attorney general by his party. Vargas was in fact promoted because of his connections, despite it being very obvious. To emphasize this, the opposition newspaper Petit Journal created a political cartoon. Borges de Medeiros, the president of Rio Grande do Sul, asked small children if they liked candy. "No, I want to be district attorney," Vargas, or the child representing him, replied. He was in charge of the position until 1908.

Vargas would gain valuable experience, and in 1909, after establishing himself a reputation for loyalty and glamor, he would be elected to the State Chamber of Deputies. Despite being in his twenties, he nevertheless managed to make himself known for his ability to temporize and became extremely popular. However, the Legislative Assembly of Rio Grande do Sul only met for two months in a year, and salary was not distributed, ensuring Vargas had to find other income sources. In Rio Grande do Sul, state legislators were downplayed in comparison to other states, partly because of their ineffectiveness. Vargas started his legal career in Porto Alegre as a promotor, or a public prosecutor. Vargas' first lawsuit was dealing with rape, one in which he resolved privately by persuading both parties to marry.

Vargas's career as a promoter was not long-lived, as he married Darci Lima Sarmanho, a woman thirteen years younger than herself, in March 1911. Vargas would remain together for forty-seven years after he died in 1954. She was the niece of Manuel Sarmanho, a merchant, fisherman, and one of Manuel's closest relatives. Darci remained in the background for the bulk of Vargas' life, neglecting the family's families, according to historian Robert M. Levine. Later in their lives, Vargas dedicated herself to public charity causes, hoping that one day she would become president. Lutero, Jandira, Alzira, Manuel (also known as Maneco), and Getlio (also known as Getulinho). Alzira will go on to be a law school graduate and became Vargas' favorite. Vargas, on the other hand, was an unloyal husband, often involved in sexual deceptions. He would marry a mistress in 1937 and become devoted to her, a tumultuous man who died in 2004 by his diaries, who were published in his diaries. According to reports, the mistress was Aimée de Soto-Maior, later Aimée de Heeren, who was named one of the world's most glamorous and beautiful women. Heeren had neither confirmed nor denied the rumors.

Manuel is back in So Borja, and he and his family bought Vargas some property near his house and money to build a home and court system. In Latin America, the union of a political and legal career was not all too unusual. Vargas, a conciliator and consultant, was active in a multitude of cases involving a social element, which could be seen as part of his later social reform. Vargas' political career stalled between 1913 and 1917, but it didn't stop between 1913 and 1917. Vargas, though the second term of President Medeiros was underway (and Medeiros oversaw the establishment of a library, hospital, and renovation of railways), but Vargas was left out with him at the end of 1912. "Get[r]lio's resignation was marked with finesse," says historian Richard Bourne, who was addressing his resignation address to the Assembly; not to mention a dramatic ruction as to make a later composition impossible."

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