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Keeping power for a decade is quite a feat for a Latin American ruler. Paradoxically, Perón has been helped by some of his people's best qualities. Argentines are more industrious, more literate and more progress-conscious than most other Latin Americans. They are also far more disciplined. These characteristics make them susceptible to Perón's kind of highly organized and relatively subtle regime, which would be nearly impossible elsewhere in Latin America.
There is no well-organized opposition to Perón. But there is a desire for freedom which Perón cannot afford to ignore, and which so far has kept him from becoming a more openly ruthless dictator. Recently a 17-year-old student, ordered to produce an essay on the contributions of Peronismo to anatomy, summed up the feelings of thousands of his countrymen when he wrote: "The head is placed over the shoulders, to which it is attached by the neck. God put it there so that we would hold it high—which is certainly difficult to do nowadays."