From Beneficence to Social Justice
 In
order to understand the social action undertaken by Evita within the framework
of Perón's first presidential term and especially with reference to the
Fundación Eva Perón, it is necessary to understand the meaning of the
revolution in social policy inserted "into the tendency of the governments
which sprang from the June 4, 1943 Revolution to modernize, restructure
and amplify the state apparatus, establishing a greater control over some
institutions and putting into practice a social policy essentially opposed
to that which had existed until that moment." (1)
The era of Argentine social policy which Perón
initiated from the Secretaría de Trabajo y Previsión and which later marked
his Presidency remained forever linked to Evita.
The fact that the First Lady made an incursion
into the realm of "social welfare" should not surprise anyone. All first
ladies had done so.
Men considered this a privileged way in which
women could manifest "the lovely qualities which the beautiful sex [women]
possess to a high degree" ; the institutions within this orbit were entrusted
from the beginning to the high society ladies of Buenos Aires.
The primordial objective which guided the government
at that time - "moral perfection and the cultivation of the spirit in
the beautiful sex and the dedication of that same sex to what is called
industry" (2)
The trajectory of this institution, which was
funded by donations, state subsidies (3) (*1),
collections and social events, was not exempt from social conflicts with
its employees who received very small wages and whose right to days off
was not respected. (4)
This matter was taken under consideration just
after Peronismo came into power. On June 14, 1946, 200 employees of the
Society of Beneficence signed a petition in which they made their situation
known. A few days later, the matter was brought up in the Senate, where
Senator Diego Luis Molinari introduced a request for intervention, transmitted
to the Executive Branch on July 25.
As Marysa Navarro has stated very well, "all of these
institutions were adequate for prePeronista Argentina, but were an anachronism,
a profound contradiction to the society being gestated after Perón assumed
the presidency." (5)
 Therefore,
Degree 9414/46 declared that the Society of Beneficence of the Capital
was to be intervened "so as to restructure its organization and adjust
its function towards the technical norms and principles of assistance
and social welfare inspired by government policy" ; Dr. Armando Méndez
San Martín was designated auditor.
The opposition connected the intervention to Eva
Perón, whom they believed to be angry because the Society ladies had rejected
her; she was seen as the deciding factor in the executive decision. Mary
Main's story,(*2) which
has been profusely repeated and is the basis of much literature, is an
example of this version:
"It was customary for the wife of the President to become
the honorary president of the Benevolent Society.
"When Perón was inaugurated the good ladies were in
a dilemma. They could not possibly invite "that woman" to be president
of their society. It would mean establishing some sort of social contact
with her and, really, she was the sort of person who should have been
at the receiving end of charity! It was unthinkable, so they made no move.
"But Eva was not the one to allow herself to be
passed over so easily. She sent to inquire why they had not come to offer
her the presidency of their society. With their unfailing urbanity they
replied that she was, alas! too young, that their organization was one
which must be headed by a woman of maturity.
"Eva at once proposed that they should make her mother,
Doña Juana, president - a suggestion that almost makes one credit her
with a sense of humor.
.....
"This rebuff had consequences which these ladies, who had for so long
occupied an impregnable position, could not possibly have foreseen. Eva
set out to destroy both them and their Society, and out of this fury of
destruction there rose the plan for her own charitable organization...
." (6)
Argentine historian Fermín Chávez relates the
following anecdote told by Dr. Esteban Rey: "As is known, there was a
conflict which became public and which culminated with the intervention
of the Society by the Peronista government. Dr. Leloir, who was a relative
of the last president of the Society, echoed the worry the ladies had
in the sense of not having their reputations besmirched in the eyes of
posterity by what was  being
said about them. Therefore, he was the bearer of an invitation to Evita
(and was invited to accompany her) to visit his relative. At first the
meeting was very tense, but as tea was being served, Evita's joviality
and charm won over the ladies... . The president, after having expressed
her satisfaction at the way the meeting was going, said to her, "Señora,
we have decided that from now on we will support your work, and to start
off, we have just programmed a bridge party at the Plaza [Hotel] ... ."
She could not finish her sentence. Evita stood up and said brusquely,
"Absolutely not! You must realize that in this country the sorrows of
the poor will never again serve as entertainment for the rich. Good day,
ladies!" (7)
To
be strictly truthful, the fate of this traditional institution had been
conceptually sealed since 1943, that is to say much before Evita could
have had any influence. Beneficence, as it was understood and practiced
until then in our country, was over; it would give way to social justice.
"...Perón has taught me," Eva would say in My
Mission in Life, "that what I do for the humble of my country is nothing
more than justice.
"...It is not philanthropy, nor is it charity,
nor is it alms, nor is it social solidarity, nor is it benevolence. It
is not even social welfare, although, to give it a more nearly appropriate
name I have called it so.
"To me it is strict justice. What made me
most indignant when I commenced it was having it classified as "alms"
or "benevolence."
"For alms, as far as I am concerned, was always
a pleasure of the rich: the soulless pleasure of exciting the desires
of the poor without ever satisfying them. And so that alms should be even
meaner and crueler, they invented "benevolence" and so added to the perverse
pleasure of giving alms the pleasure of enjoying themselves happily with
the pretext of the hunger of the poor. Alms and benevolence, to me, are
an ostentation of riches and power to humiliate the humble.
I think that God must often be ashamed of what
the poor receive in His name!" (8)
The Task
Begins
"Before
starting on the subject," Eva Peron would say in My Mission in Life,
"it is well to remember that Perón is not only President of the Republic;
he is also the Leader of his people.
"This is a fundamental condition, and is directly
related to my decision to handle the role of wife of the President of
the Republic in a manner different from any President's wife who had preceded
me.
...
 "I
had to have a double personality to correspond with Perón's double
personality. One, Eva Perón, wife of the President of the Republic,
whose work is simple and agreeable, a holiday job of receiving honors,
of gala performances; the other, "Evita," wife of the Leader
of a people who have placed all their faith in him, all their hope and
all their love." (9)
With this conviction, Evita began to develop her
activity as a bridge between Perón and his people immediately after Perón's
inauguration on June 4, 1946. She interceded in favor of the workers,
visited marginalized neighborhoods, distributed clothes and food to needy
families, solved problems which people told her about in letters which
they sent to the Presidential Residence and attended to people who came
to the door.
Even though she had some idea of the difficulty
of the endeavor even before she began to undertake it, it was only after
she had begun that she realized the magnitude of her task.But by then
she had deleted from her dictionary the word "impossible." (10)
"At first I attended to everything personally.
Then I had to ask for help. Finally I was obligated to organize the work
which in just a few weeks had become extraordinary." (11)
From the beginning Evita counted on the help of
the Residence employees. Atilio Renzi, in charge of Residence personnel,
would become her right hand.
One of the garages was converted into a storehouse.
"When Eva Perón returned from a trip to the Province of Santa Fe," he
remembered, "she became enthused with the idea of creating a great social
help organization. And when the labor unions began to send her donations
(sugar from the people of Tucumán; clothes and material from the textile
unions; leather and shoes from the leather workers union), we had to find
a place to store everything: an old unused garage. The cook, Bartolo,
the waiters, Sánchez and Fernández, the maid Irma and I baptized the place
"The Delightful Store, La Tienda de las Delicias." (*3)
After Perón had gone to bed, we would stay up
with Eva until dawn to package the merchandise. The sugar was our biggest
problem: in her enthusiasm, la Señora [Evita] spilled more on the floor
than she packaged into paper bags." (12)
In September, Evita began work in what had been
the Secretaría de Trabajo y Previsón, in the same office where Perón had
worked from 1943 to 1945, a highly symbolic act as she herself manifests
in her autobiography.
The multiplicity, diversity and urgency of the
matters brought before her caused her working day to lengthen each day
more.
.....
A little later, the until then titled "Social
Help Crusade" or "María Eva Duarte de Perón Social Work" would give way
to the "María Eva Duarte de Perón Social Work Foundation" as a consequence
of the amplitude with which Evita's activities in society had increased
and of the necessity of establishing a legally constituted organism which
could centralize and control these activities. (13)
La Fundación Eva Perón
The
María Eva Duarte Social Help Foundation was established on June 19, 1948.
Degree number 220.564 on July 8, 1948, gave it legal jurisdiction and
approved its Statutes. |
(*1) Translator's note: In 1939 the Congressional Representative Juan Antonio
Solari told about Society employees who routinely worked 12 to 14 hur
days with a day off only every 10 to 15 days and were paid from 45 to
90 pesos when a fair minimum wage was considered to be 120 pesos. See
Diario de Sesiones, 1939, vol. 7.
(*2) Translator's note: Mary Main's biography of Evita has no footnotes, no
bibliography, no documentation of any sources or references; however,
it is often cited and is the basis of the opera Evita.
(*3) For another version of how "Las Delicias" got its name, see the Mundo
Peronista article. Click here
Bibliography
Borroni, Otelo, and
Roberto Vacca. La Vida de Eva Perón. Buenos Aires: Galerna, 1971.
Chávez, Fermín. Eva Perón Sin Mitos. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Theoría,
1996.
Ferioli, Néstor. La Fundación Eva Perón. Buenos Aires: Centro Editor
de América Latina, 1990.
Main, Mary. The Woman With the Whip. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company,
1980.
Navarro, Marysa. Evita. Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1994.
Perón, Eva. My Mission in Life. Translated by Ethel Cherry, New
York: Vantage Press, 1953.
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