Eva knew this, she felt it. The sense of abandon that she read on these faces was familiar to her. So, little by little, she came up with the idea to heal them, like a psychologist, by awakening their desire. Her foundation would rest solely on this principle: to give luxury to the poor so that they would learn to desire. “You must want!” she would say. “You have the right to ask!” That is the fundamental reason for the hatred she would arouse. Throwing meager things to the poor like the patron ladies did was fine, but filling them with desire was not.
One shack of Villa Soldati attracted her attention. Without knowing why, she moved the tattered jute bag that hid the entrance. In a corner, there was a mound of rags. Eva leaned over & discovered it was a small child, his thick hair falling over his face. As Eva approached, what she thought was hair flew into the air. Eva ran out, struggling to shoo the hundreds of flies that were chasing her & that she had confused for jet black hair.
She could not sleep, remembering the horrible burst that had hit her in the face. Three days later, she returned to the shantytown with the mayor of Buenos Aires & the Minster of Health. Before the residents, she announced that at least they would have decent lodging, starting now. But she insisted on one point: “Do not take anything with you, just what you need for the night, or a souvenir, nothing more.” They did not have anything anyway. No furniture, only crates that read “apples from Rio Negro,” “grapes from Mendoza.” Soon there would be nothing more than pieces of cardboard, & an immense solitude.
Eva had the whole place burned, but she did not leave. The fire was raging when the mayor came to tell her that she would catch a cold in the dampness (she had been there for eight hours). “No,” she said. “I want to see it through to the end. I need to know that it is gone. Did you know that these people were born in mud? Tonight, when they are under the clean sheets, they will miss the earth’s odor. I know them, they will want to come back. If they found a roof or anything still standing, I bet they would want to stay.”
Eva had the whole place burned, but she did not leave. The fire was raging when the mayor came to tell her that she would catch a cold in the dampness (she had been there for eight hours). “No,” she said. “I want to see it through to the end. I need to know that it is gone. Did you know that these people were born in mud? Tonight, when they are under the clean sheets, they will miss the earth’s odor. I know them, they will want to come back. If they found a roof or anything still standing, I bet they would want to stay.”
Evita had visited a number of welfare institutions in Europe, but they had mainly been religious organizations (she had not gone to Britain , where State institutions were at the time most advanced), run by the wealthy classes. These, as she later said, had only taught her what to avoid, since they had been created ‘according to the criteria of the rich…& when the rich think about the poor they have poor ideas.’ But it is hard to imagine which existing institutions could have provided Evita with any guidelines. By May 1948, according to Democracia, she was receiving 12,000 letters each day requesting help; she had the funds to assist some of the petitioners, because the Minister of Finance had now augmented the donations in kind by creating a special fund for her out of the accumulated surpluses of several ministries, but she had no means of distributing goods other than Renzi & his pick-up truck. On 8 July 1948 the Maria Eva Duarte de Peron Foundation was created & given legal rights by the signature of Peron & the Minister of Justice. It had a nominal sum of working capital in the form of a cheque for 10,000 pesos made out by Evita to her own Foundation. Two years later, when the ‘Foundation for Social Assistance’ was fully operative, its name was changed, because Evita herself had changed her name, to the ‘Eva Peron Foundation’ & so it was thereafter called, even after her death.
(a) to provide with monetary assistance, or in kind, furnish with working tools, give scholarships to any person who lacks resources & requests them, & who, in the founder’s judgment, deserves them;
(b) to build houses for indigent families;
(c) to create &/or build educational establishments, hospitals, homes &/or any other establishments that may best serve the goals of the Foundation;
(d) to construct welfare establishments of any kind which can then be given with or without charge to local, provincial or national authorities;
(e) to contribute or collaborate by any possible means to the creation of works tending to satisfy the basic needs for a better life of the less privileged classes.
As for how the Foundation should be organized, the statutes were worded simply & unequivocally: it should be & should remain ‘in the sole hands of its founder…who will exercise this responsibility for life & posses the widest powers afforded by the State & the Constitution.’
No figures exist to give an idea of its operations while Evita was alive, but its assets in cash & goods were probably over three billion pesos, over $200 million at the exchange rate at that time. It employed 14,000 workers on a permanent basis, including 6,000 construction workers & twenty-six priests & it purchased annually for distribution 400,000 pairs of shoes, 500,000 sewing machines & 200,000 cooking pots. These were stored in enormous warehouses in Buenos Aires, & as late as 1973, significant quantities of undistributed material, sealed & forgotten, were still being discovered. The Foundation had given scholarships, & had built homes, hospitals & other welfare establishments, & some of these accomplishments had, in their own way, satisfied the ‘basic needs for a better life’ referred to in its statues. And it was indeed in Evita’s sole hands, for everything that it accomplished had been planned, supervised & carried through by her.
Fraser, Nicholas; Navarro, Marysa. “Evita (The Real Life of Eva Peron)” W.W. Norton & Company, ©1980