Silvia Fesquet
01/10/2021 18:06
Clarín.com
Opinion
Updated 01/10/2021 18:52
"Having promulgated a law that grants a lifetime assignment to the Former Presidents and Vice Presidents of the Nation, it behooves me to place a record before the President, in his capacity as' Supreme Chief of the Nation who is in charge of the General Administration of the Country ', of
my irrevocable decision not to avail myself of the benefits of said law
(...) I trust that, God willing,
I will be able to endure life with my work, without availing myself of the help of the Republic for whose greatness I have fought
, and that if I have ever picked up bitterness and disappointments, I feel more than rewarded by the fortune of having given everything for the happiness of my country ”.
Neither Cristina Kirchner nor Amado Boudou.
Also the work of a vice president,
the letter bears the signature of Elpidio González, running mate of Marcelo T. de Alvear
in his mandate (1922-1928), is dated October 6, 1938 and was addressed to the then President of the Nation Roberto M. Ortiz.
The pension he was rejecting was two thousand pesos a month at that time.
Twice national deputy, Minister of War in the first term of Hipólito Yrigoyen and of the Interior in the second, abruptly interrupted by the military coup of 1930 that imprisoned him for two years, Elpidio González is one of the most unique cases of Argentine politics .
Rosarino by birth and radical militancy,
made austerity more than a cult, an insubordinate line of conduct
, in the antipodes of
Boudou
, determined to obtain his pardon for the Ciccone cause,
which declared domicile in a dune and carried out papers of the selling a car so as not to give the corresponding part to his ex-wife
, for citing his minor crimes.
Or of Cristina who, beyond her prosecutions, has just been benefited with
two honorary pensions, -that are added to her salary as vice president-, plus a retroactive 100 million pesos and the Earnings exemption
, without which so far has made the slightest gesture of resignation or solidarity contribution to any just cause.
In his political creed,
all solidarity is exercised with someone else's money
.
Don Elpidio would roll in his grave in the Pantheon of the Fallen of the 90 Revolution.
They say that once he was away from the post and once he left jail after the coup by José Félix Uriburu, it
was common to see González queue to take the tram
, dressed in a neat but worn suit from so much bustle.
To survive
, briefcase in hand, he
sold Colibri anilines
.
Ramón Columba, congressional stenographer, cartoonist and editor, writes in his book "The Congress that I have seen": "I heard Don Elpidio say, on one occasion, that when radicalism came to power in 1916, he was around 350,000 pesos, capital that was put entirely at the service of politics and electoral campaigns.
And that on September 6, 1930, when the Uriburu revolution seized the government, it surprised it with 65,000 pesos of debt. "
So consistent was he with his ideas that he
went to the extreme of being homeless rather than receiving a benefit from the state
for which he had worked.
They had foreclosed on his house on Gorostiaga Street and, they say, he lived in a seedy boarding house on Diagonal Sur.
One day the demolition order arrives and the former vice president goes to speak with the foreman and asks him for a few days so that the tenants can relocate.
They report that, knowing who the man was making the request,
the president himself, Agustín P. Justo, is in charge of sending an envelope with money to González, who rejected it
saying: “I was not going to allow the president to offend me nor anyone, no matter how good will there is ”.
He died on October 18, 1951.
Sick since the beginning of the year, he was operated on at the Italian Hospital.
And he was interned there for six months: he had no other place to go.
Any resemblance to today is a mere coincidence.
