The transformations she underwent at this also manifested themselves in her physical appearance. Her hair was dyed blonde and pulled back tightly from her face. She was obsessed with self-presentation and daily went to work dressed in smart designer suits and elegant jewelry. Critics and the oligarchy, however, continually questioned Evita’s motives for lavish expenditures on her formal wardrobe. “The poor like to see me beautiful,” she reportedly argued. “They don’t want to be protected by a badly dressed old hag.” The aspiring radionovela actress had been left behind forever. For his part, Perón placed no obstacles in her way.
Her first center of operations was the fourth floor of the post office building, turned over to her by her friend Nicolini, then General Director of Radio Broadcasting. Here she began to receive delegations of workers requesting her intervention to obtain better conditions, or her assistance in organizing unions. This relationship with the labor movement would constitute her firmest power base. She also began to make frequent visits to factories and poor neighborhoods, and to meet with the needy, who were naturally drawn to her. On July 25, in a message to the women of the country, she announced new government measures to combat usury and speculation.
For five years, until she was too ill to do so, Evita came to the Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare (it was by then the Ministry of Labor, but she called it by the old name) every day, working longer and longer hours. It was a symbolic place since this was where Perón had created his power base. In her autobiography, “La Razon de mi Vida” (My Mission In Life), she wrote: “I went to the Secretariat of Labor and Social Welfare because there I could encounter the people and their problems more easily; because the Minister of Labor and Social Welfare is a worker, and with him Evita can speak frankly, without bureaucratic evasions; and because there I was given what I needed to begin my work.” Evita set a grueling pace for herself and demanded the same of her colleagues. She began in the morning, when she attended to the most urgent cases at the Presidential Residence; then she would go to the Secretariat, where she received petitioners and trade unionists, and did not leave until she had spoken to every person waiting to see her.
She met with delegations of workers and countless humble people from all over the country. All accounts agree concerning her fierce dedication and genuine interest in the problems they brought to her, the generous amount of time she spent with each person, and her unpatronizing courtesy and cordiality. Her informality was not affected, for she too was a woman of the people, and treated everyone—unionists, legislators, and ministers—the same, though she was more impatient with ministers than with her petitioners. In 1947, she would leave the Secretariat at ten at night; in subsequent years, she would work there until the small hours of the morning. When she fell ill, and was advised to slow down, her answer was a definitive no: “I can’t, I have too much to do.” Her physical presence was necessary, for she met with the poor face to face and resolved emergencies—great or small—on the spot: money for clothing, for example, a job, medicine, a place to live.