Orfila, Alejandro (1894–1958)

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Orfila, Alejandro (1894–1958)

Argentine politician Alejandro Orfila, born February 27, 1894, was elected governor of the province of Mendoza in 1926. A member of the Unión Cívica Radical, Orfila held to the party's dissident reformist current, led by José Néstor Lencinas and his son Carlos Washington Lencinas. During Orfila's brief term in office, the province enacted one of the country's first minimum-wage laws and began the construction of public housing for workers. The last of the "lencinista" governors, Orfila was removed from office in 1928 by the federal government. Following the military coup of September 1930, he largely withdrew from politics to practice law. He died on December 11, 1958. Orfila's only son, (Washington) Alejandro Orfila, served as secretary general of the Organization of American States from 1975 to 1984.

See alsoArgentina, Political Parties: Radical Party (UCR); Lencinas, Carlos Washington; Orfila, Washington Alejandro José Luis; Organization of American States (OAS); Panama Canal; United States-Latin American Relations.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Rodríguez, Celso. Lencinas y Cantoni: El populismo cuyano en tiempos de Yrigoyen. Buenos Aires: Editorial de Belgrano, 1979.

                                               James Cane

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