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¶ EDUCATION. Reverse the Kubitschek practice of emphasizing universities and ignoring grammar schools. Goal: to increase literacy from 48% to 70% in five years. ¶ HEALTH. Eliminate the corruption that swallowed Kubitschek's ealth plan to iodize salt (to prevent goiter), use preventive measures to control malaria, trachoma, yaws, filariasis.
¶ NORTHEAST REFORM. Combat the spreading influence of Communist-infiltrated Peasant Leagues with intensive land reform, major development under a Cabinet-rank administrator. Amount allocated to date: $160 million.
¶ INDUSTRY. Provide all government help necessary to double steel production to 6,000,000 tons yearly by 1965, set up task forces to help develop specific industries: fertilizers, petrochemicals, tractors, machine tools, heavy equipment. Says Quadros, in a policy statement worthy of Dwight Eisenhower: "Industry is primarily the task of private enterprise, but government must provide the necessary conditions for growth."
Thin-Skinned Threat. Elected virtually without party affiliation, and lacking the usual bloc support of nationalists, leftists, rightists, military or labor, Quadros has earned many enemies with his foot-trampling ways. To criticism, he answers only that "the people are with me" and makes it clear that he considers his landslide vote a mandate to exercise the powerful executive authority vested in Brazil's U.S.-style constitution. "Democracy's enemies believe that democratic authority is loose, insecure and timid, accommodating and yielding," says Quadros. "They are mistaken. Democratic authority based on the majority's will must be just but firm, bold and decisive, always ready to correct its own mistakes but always sworn to discipline, morality and the general welfare."
One danger is that Quadros may mistake his own iron will for that of Brazil and turn from democrat to dictator. For all his reforms, there are warning signals in his thin-skinned threat to arrest opponent Lott for a post-election article critical of his regime, in his dismissal of a top foreign-office official for disagreeing with him, in his three-day shutdown of a radio station belonging to an opposition newspaper.