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The Railroad and Argentine National Development, 1852–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Raymond H. Pulley
Raymond H. Pulley*
Affiliation:
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia
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Extract

Juan Bautista Alberdi belonged to a generation of Argentines fervently dedicated to the ideal of lifting the Río de la Plata out of the internal chaos which had delayed national consolidation and economic growth since the time of independence. In his Bases y puntos de partida para la organización política de la república argentina, published in 1852, Alberdi asserted that only the railroad could effect the long awaited unification of the Argentine people. He stated: “Without the railroad political unity cannot be had in a country where distance makes central political power impossible.” “Political unity,” Alberdi added, “can only be begun through territorial unity, and only the railroad can make places separated by five hundred leagues a unified country.”

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , July 1966 , pp. 63 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1966

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References

1 Obras completas de J. B. Alberdi (Buenos Aires, 1886), III, 432.

2 Ibid., III, 434.

3 This figure is compiled from statistics which appear in Brady, George S., “Railways of South America, Part I: Argentina” (hereafter cited as Brady, “Railways of Argentina ”) in U. S. Department of Commerce, Trade Promotion Series, No. 32 (Wash ington, D. C., 1926).Google Scholar

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18 Ibid., pp. 57-61.

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21 U. S. Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1885 (Washington, D. C, 1886), p. 2.

22 Brady, “Railways of Argentina,” pp. 104-105. The Transandine line was opened in 1910.

23 Brady, “Railways of Argentina,” p. 106; G., Michael and Mulhall, Edward T. (comp.), Handbook of the River Plate (Buenos Aires, 1885), p. 52.Google Scholar

24 Brady, “Railways of Argentina,” pp. 164 ff.

25 Ibid.

26 Bunge, Ferrocarriles argentinos, pp. 119-121; Mulhall, Handbook of the River Plate, p. 52.

27 Tornquist & Co., The Economic Development of the Argentine Republic in the Last Fifty Years, p. 122.

28 Ibid., p. 26.

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37 The full text of Law 531 is given in Bunge, Ferrocarriles argentinos, pp. 36-55.

38 The full text of Law 2873 is given in ibid., pp. 56-77.

39 U. S. Senate, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Documents, doc. no. 206, “Pan-American Railway” (Washington, 1904), p. 30.

40 Named for the author of the law, Emilio Mitre.

41 The full text of the Mitre Law is given in Bunge, Ferrocarriles argentinos, pp. 78-81. Also see Posse, Justiniano A., “Economía y ferrocarriles,” Revista de economía argentina, XLIV (February, 1945), 42–43.Google Scholar

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43 Quoted in Shepherd, “Default and Adjustment,” p. 7.

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46 Shepherd, “Default and Adjustment,” p. 7.

47 Quoted in Pendle, “Railways in Argentina,” pp. 123-124.

48 Quoted in Romero, A History of Argentine Political Thought, p. 193.

49 Llorens, Emilio, “La nacionalización de los ferrocarriles,” Revista de economía argentina, XLV (July, 1946), 224–230.Google Scholar

50 Quoted in Romero, A History of Argentine Political Thought, p. 193.