'Nightmare Republic' - Portugal 1910-1926
During the sixteen years of Portugal's first Republic there were forty-five governments. Douglas Wheeler shows how this turbulent period of parliamentary rule gave birth to the Estado Novo (the New State), Europe's longest surviving authoritarian system of the twentieth century.
They make 'em or break 'em quick over here. You don't get four years' trial like you-all do over home, and then we have to put up with the regardless. A Premier never unpacks his grip over here. He just engages his room by the day. Portugal, the week I was in Madrid, had three Revolutions and four changes of Government in one day, and they haven't got daylight saving either, or else they could have squeezed in another Revolution.'
(Will Rogers, 1935)
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