Lencinas, Carlos Wáshington (1889–1929)

Carlos Wáshington Lencinas (b. 13 November 1889; d. 10 November 1929), Argentine caudillo. Born in Rivadavia in the province of Mendoza, Argentina, Lencinas studied law at the University of Córdoba. Upon returning to Mendoza, he followed in the political footsteps of his father, José Néstor Lencinas, who in 1918 became the first governor from the Radical Civic Union (UCR) to rule the province. When his father died in office in 1920, Lencinas, who that year had been elected a representative to Congress, took the reins of the party and eventually formed a new one, the Lencinista UCR. In 1922 he was elected governor of Mendoza and ruled in a populist fashion. He was popularly called "el gauchito Lencinas." In 1924 his government was "intervened," an Argentine constitutional device that under specific conditions allows Congress or the central government to assume administrative control of a province; thus ended Lencinas's short-lived governorship. Two years later Lencinas was elected national senator by Mendoza's legislature, but his credentials were rejected by Congress. On 10 November 1929, Lencinas was assassinated while addressing a crowd in Mendoza. As his assailant was also shot and killed, the motivation for the crime was never clearly determined. A popular and charismatic leader, Lencinas established pioneer social reforms such as the minimum-wage salary, the eight-hour workday, and an employee pension system. These provincial measures were the harbinger of national social reforms instituted a generation later by Juan Domingo Perón.

See alsoArgentina, Political Parties: Radical Party (UCR) .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Pablo Lacoste, "Carlos Wáshington Lencinas: Su vigencia póstuma," in Todo es historia 23, no. 270 (1989): 82-97.

Dardo Olguín, "… Y en el medio de mi pecho Carlos Wáshington Lencinas …!" in Todo es historia, no. 24 (1969): 8-35.

Celso Rodríguez, Lencinas y Cantoni, el populismo cuyano en tiempos de Yrigoyen (1979).

Additional Bibliography

Brennan, James P., and Ofelia Pianetto. Region and Nation: Politics, Economics, and Society in Twentieth-century Argentina. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000.

Persello, Ana Virginia. El partido radical: Gobierno y oposición, 1916–1943. Buenos Aires: Siglo veintiuno editores Argentina, 2004.

                                        Celso RodrÍguez