The Provincial Oligarchies had also other ways of jockeying National Government. They would ask for all sorts of things, and if refused would proceed to rant shamelessly in the Senate. This was blackmail, nothing more nor less; but frequently effective, since Provincial Governors are practically always members of the National Senate; in which the President must, obviously, have a majority if he is to carry on the Government. Such situations Dr. Figueroa Alcorta determined to take in hand; and the only way of doing this was to break up the offending Oligarchies. Much of the humour of his doing so lay in the fact that he owed his high post to an original miscalculation of his character as that of a pleasant enough figure-head certain to be docile in the hands of the wire-pullers. Therefore he was appointed Vice-President to be a negligible quantity under the Presidency of Dr. Manuel Quintana. On whose death he, _ipso facto_, under the Constitution, became acting President for the remainder of Dr. Quintana’s term of office. The developments of Dr. Figueroa Alcorta were as much a surprise to Argentine politicians as were those of Bret Harte’s “Heathen Chinee” to his associates in “the game he did not understand.” And realization came as late in the day in the one case as in the other. A veritable epidemic of local Revolutions sprang up in one after the other of the oligarchically ruled Provinces. On each occasion an “Interventor” was, as is provided by the Constitution for such cases, sent down by the National Government to enquire into the causes of the disturbance, and particularly to ascertain if the Province concerned were being ruled “in accordance with the Constitution and democratic principles.” If the answer to this last question were found to be in the affirmative, National troops could be sent down to support the existing Provincial Government; if in the negative, the ruling party, including, of course, the Governor, could be deposed and a successor appointed by the National Government in his stead. As a result it gradually (but not till it was very nearly all over) dawned on the general intelligence of the country that the Governors who had been found to have ruled their Provinces “in accordance with the constitution, etc.,” were faithful supporters of the Presidential policy; whilst those who had been deposed for misrule happened, strangely enough, to be those who had kicked over, or shown an overt disposition to kick over, the Presidential traces. This appealed to the public sense of humour and “Revolución de arriba” (Revolution from above, _i.e._ instigated in high quarters[13]) became a catch phrase. Thus were the Oligarchies brought to naught and the central power greatly strengthened thereby.