l gamecocks might try out
their spurs. Happily, the opposing parties spent their energies in high
words and vehement gestures rather than in blows and bloodshed. The
credit of the country sank lower and lower until its paper money stood
at a discount of several hundred per cent compared with gold.

European bankers had begun to view the financial future of Argentina
also with great alarm. In 1890 the mad careering of private speculation
and public expenditure along the roseate pathway of limitless credit
reached a veritable "crisis of progress." A frightful panic ensued.
Paper money fell to less than a quarter of its former value in gold.
Many a firm became bankrupt, and many a fortune shriveled. As is usual
in such cases, the Government had to shoulder the blame. A four-day
revolution broke out in Buenos Aires, and the President became the
scapegoat; but the panic went on, nevertheless, until gold stood at
nearly five to one. Most of the banks suspended payment; the national
debt underwent a huge increase; and immigration practically ceased.

By 1895, however, the country had more or less resumed its normal
condition. A new census showed that the population had risen to four
million, about a sixth of whom resided in the capital. The importance
which agriculture had attained was attested by the establishment of a
separate ministry in the presidential cabinet. Industry, too, made such
rapid strides at this time that organized labor began to take a hand
in politics. The short-lived "revolution" of 1905, for example, was
not primarily the work of politicians but of strikers organized into
a workingmen's federation. For three months civil guarantees were
suspended, and by a so-called "law of residence," enacted some years
before and now put into effect, the Government was authorized to expel
summarily any foreigner guilty of fomenting strikes or of disturbing
public order in any other fashion.

Political agitation soon assumed a new form. Since the
Autonomist-National party had been in control for thirty years or more,
it seemed to the Civic-Nationalists, now known as Republicans, to the
Autonomists proper, and to various other factions, that they ought to do
something to break the hold of that powerful organization. Accordingly
in 1906 the President, supported by a coalition of these factions,
started what was termed an "upward-downward revolution"--in other
words, a series of interventions by which local governors and m