Máximo Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear y Pacheco (4 October 1868 – 23 March 1942) served as president of Argentina from 1922 to 1928.
His period of government coincided precisely with the end of the postwar world crisis, which allowed him to improve the economy and finances of the country without major setbacks. He also stood out in the development of the automotive industry and the successful oil exploitation, with which he achieved an economic prosperity unknown until then for Argentina, and that was demonstrated with the great increase achieved in the GDP per inhabitant. In 1928, it had reached the sixth position among the highest in the world. In the labor and social sphere, this period was characterized by a process of urban concentration in the Litoral and Greater Buenos Aires, in addition to the establishment of half a million immigrants; there was an increase in the middle class, a rise in real wages, and a decrease in strikes and similar conflicts.
When he left the presidency he settled in France. He returned to the country a few years later to reunify his party and try to become president for the second time in 1931, but his candidacy was prohibited by the military regime of José Félix Uriburu. Alvear, along with other radical coreligionists, was persecuted, imprisoned or had to go into exile on repeated occasions by the repressive regime of the infamous decade, for which he experienced the Martín García prison on the island.
On 23 March 1942 struck down by a heart attack, Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear died next to his wife Regina Pacini at their home in Don Torcuato.
Máximo Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear was born on 4 October 1868 in the city of Buenos Aires. son of Torcuato de Alvear and Elvira Pacheco y Reinoso, descended from the wealthy Alvear family, a patrician family of Basque origin.
His great-grandfather Diego de Alvear y Ponce de León participated in the setting of boundaries with Brazil and became Brigadier General of the Royal Spanish Armada in 1770. His grandfather Carlos María de Alvear became supreme director of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata and commander of the national Army in the war in Brazil. His father Torcuato de Alvear was mayor of the city of Buenos Aires.
Alvear's youth was typical of that of a young man of the aristocracy. He frequented the different circuits of the Buenos Aires night, which ranged from the respectable theaters in the centre of the city of Buenos Aires to meeting places of dubious reputation.
He entered the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires in 1879. His studies were very irregular: he finished second and third years only in 1881; two years later, the fourth and fifth, concluding his studies in 1885; however, he had finished high school at the National School of Rosario. In February 1886, he asked Dr. Manuel Obarrio, dean of the Law School of the University of Buenos Aires, to enroll him as a regular student to study Law. In that same year he failed in Introduction to Law, but approved Public International Law. He was taking subjects regularly, without delays and with high marks, especially in the courses on civil law. Finally in 1891, just a year after the death of his father, he obtained his law degree.
The young Alvear, along with his fellow students and friends José Luis Cantilo, Fernando Saguier and Tomás Le Breton, formed a group with a certain reputation as public troublemakers. Some of those altercations even ended with some of the gang members in jail.
A man of fortune, he traveled widely in Europe and in 1906 he married the lyrical artist Regina Paccini in Lisbon; but his estrangement did not prevent him from following closely the events of the country and maintaining his interest in the efforts of radicalism in favor of the purity of suffrage and free vote.
Alvear had an outstanding performance by successfully organizing the meeting in the Florida Garden on 1 September 1889, a meeting that helped popularize Leandro N. Alem among the youth of Buenos Aires, who had been retired from political life since the 1880s. In this meeting the Revolution of the Park was also devised. Alvear was in charge of organizing the event, which was well attended. Immediately after the meeting at the Florida Garden, he began to work as Alem's secretary, and also accompanied him after the founding in 1890 of the Unión Cívica. In turn, he was a member and later president of the Socorro Club, member of the Directive Commission of the Civic Union and secretary of its National Committee. There are not many records of Alvear's performance in the Park Revolution, since he acted anonymously.
In the middle of the year 1891 the division of the Civic Union took place, between the supporters of Leandro N. Alem and those of Bartolomé Mitre; Alvear – whose father had been an autonomist – chose to stay on Alem's side, and was one of the signatories of the manifesto of 2 July of that year, the founding act of the Unión Cívica Radical. That same year, Alvear accompanied the radical caudillo on a tour of the interior of the country to launch the Bernardo de Irigoyen-Juan M. Garro formula.
During the afternoon of 30 July 1893, an emissary informed the young Alvear, who was in the box of the Lyric Theater, that in half an hour he had to leave to participate in the radical revolution. He withdrew at night and, with the help of Aurelio Bagú as a guide along with other young people, they took over the Temperley police station. Three days later, Hipólito Yrigoyen arrived with 1500 men, after revolting the entire centre of the province of Buenos Aires. Yrigoyen, along with four thousand men, entered the city, where they were applauded by its inhabitants. On 4 August the head of the rebellion created several battalions to defend his settlement at Temperley.
With the Sáenz Peña law of 1912, which established the secret and compulsory vote, the radicals abandoned the electoral abstention and Alvear was elected national deputy for the capital. Shortly afterwards he was taken to the presidency of the Jockey Club.
Regina and his years in France
In 1898, Alvear met the Portuguese soprano Regina Pacini, his future wife, when she was giving a season in Buenos Aires, at the General San Martín Municipal Theater. However, a first attempt to woo her was unsuccessful. Thus, Alvear left for Europe on the longest of the many trips he had made, determined to go after the Portuguese soprano, even going so far as to follow her throughout Europe, since the "persecution" would last eight years. At that time it was not well seen for an aristocrat to marry an artist.
They finally got married at seven in the morning on Saturday, 29 April 1907, in the Lisbon church of Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación. After getting married, Alvear lived in Paris for several years.
When the Chamber of Deputies was renewed, he was elected deputy for the province of Buenos Aires; He was a hardworking parliamentarian and presented to Congress a bill related to civil servants of the State, which tended to base promotions in the hierarchical ladder by competition and antecedents.