er, except for the
rigorous suppression of unitary movements and the muzzling of the press,
few signs appeared of the "black night of Argentine history" which was
soon to close down on the land. Realizing that the auspicious moment had
not yet arrived for him to exercise the limitless power that he
thought needful, he declined an offer of reelection from the provincial
legislature, in the hope that, through a policy of conciliation, his
successor might fall a prey to the designs of the Unitaries. When this
happened, he secretly stirred up the provinces into a renewal of the
earlier disturbances, until the evidence became overwhelming that Rosas
alone could bring peace and progress out of turmoil and backwardness.
Reluctantly the legislature yielded him the power it knew he wanted.
This he would not accept until a "popular" vote of some 9000 to 4
confirmed the choice. In 1835, accordingly, he became dictator for the
first of four successive terms of five years.

Then ensued, notably in Buenos Aires itself, a state of affairs at once
grotesque and frightful. Not content with hunting down and inflicting
every possible, outrage upon those suspected of sympathy with the
Unitaries, Rosas forbade them to display the light blue and white colors
of their party device and directed that red, the sign of Federalism,
should be displayed on all occasions. Pink he would not tolerate as
being too attenuated a shade and altogether too suggestive of political
trimming! A band of his followers, made up of ruffians, and called the
Mazorca, or "Ear of Corn," because of the resemblance of their close
fellowship to its adhering grains, broke into private houses, destroyed
everything light blue within reach, and maltreated the unfortunate
occupants at will. No man was safe also who did not give his face a
leonine aspect by wearing a mustache and sidewhiskers--emblems, the one
of "federalism," and the other of "independence." To possess a visage
bare of these hirsute adornments or a countenance too efflorescent
in that respect was, under a regime of tonsorial politics, to invite
personal disaster! Nothing apparently was too cringing or servile to
show how submissive the people were to the mastery of Rosas. Private
vengeance and defamation of the innocent did their sinister work
unchecked. Even when his arbitrary treatment of foreigners had compelled
France for a while to institute a blockade of Buenos Aires, the wily
dictator utilized the incid