On July 4, 1928, President Augusto B. Leguía will have served thirteen years as chief executive of Peru—the last nine of them consecutively—and will still have one year of his present five-year term ahead of him. This is a remarkable record not only in Peru but in all South America. In fact, in Peru only two other presidents have served two complete terms, and those not consecutive; while Señor Leguía has the honor of being the only man who has been elected three times to the first office in the land. However, the moment one commences to take note of the various accomplishments of this diminutive dynamo of Peruvian politics, the smashing of precedents appears to be a routine matter, of administrative efficiency.

Leguía was elected president in 1919, but apparently fearing that his political enemies might try to prevent him from taking office, he forstalled them by a coup d'état of his own. Less than a month after his installation, a presidential decree placed before the people a project for such a drastic reform of the constitution that it was apparent that what was really contemplated was a new constitution.

James W. Prothro's hypothesis is that, while there has been a resurgence of “conservatism” in American political theory and practice, the actual intervention of the New Deal between the conservative government of Hoover and the conservative government of Eisenhower makes the complete rejection of New Deal appeals by a conservative administration difficult, if not impossible. There can be little quarrel with that thesis itself. Once given the assumptions that “conservatism” is an adequate frame of reference, that Hoover and Eisenhower may in some understandable way be classed as “conservatives,” and that, since the administration did in fact reluctantly accept certain New Deal symbols, they were necessarily obliged to do so, there is some question as to whether the thesis is not obvious. Prothro, however, gives serious reasons for buttressing “impressions” with precision, and presents a careful content analysis which strengthens his argument and should serve to enhance our understanding of current political trends.

Tocqueville observed, “I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.” Moreover, he continued, “Freedom of opinion does not exist in America.” With the United States committed to a war (not to be called a crusade) against terrorism, these words from Tocqueville seem apt. If indeed the world changed on 11 September 2001, perhaps it became Manichean. Good versus evil, civilization versus barbarism, modernity versus medievalism, freedom versus fundamentalism, us versus them: These are the terms of political discourse. In the new order, you are either with the United States and the World or you are against it. Time to decide. War abhors ambiguity.

In the period following World War II before the declaration of martial law in the Philippines, politics and heavy demands for patronage affected the allocation of resources, the administrative process, and personnel policies in ways inimical to the interests of businessmen and technocrats. When faced with intense competition, politicians pressed to employ growing numbers of clients and protégés in local administration. Strong political machines were better able than weak machines to ignore pressures for social services benefitting largely the lower class. The level of political mobilization and size of the lower class increased expenditures on primary education, and expenditures on intermediate and secondary education grew as the percentage of the electorate that was lower class increased. To the dismay of business interests and technocrats, “wasteful” expenditures on local administration and social services were most institutionalized and difficult to cut, while expenditures on economic improvements proved more elastic.