Last week death came to the best loved man in Brazil: Pedro Ernesto Baptista. Years ago, when Getulio Vargas began his revolution, Pedro Ernesto, a surgeon, used his own hospital's ambulance to run machine guns to the Vargas contingents massing at Minas Geraes. When Vargas became President, Pedro Ernesto became prefect of the Federal District (Brazilian equivalent of mayor of the District of Columbia). This was a job which gave Pedro Ernesto the chance he had wanted: he labored to improve conditions in Rio's slums; he built schools, free clinics, city hospitals.
A people's man, Pedro Ernesto watched fearfully while the...
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