José Néstor Lencinas

Lencinas became active politically at the latter school, and participated in an effort to force the Governor of Córdoba, Antonio del Viso, to resign (which the latter, a member of one of the province's leading families, did, in 1880).

He established a newspaper in the city of Mendoza, La Reforma, and was a founding member of what became the leading advocacy group for electoral reform and the secret ballot, the Radical Civic Union (UCR).

Vigorously opposed by the senior Senator from Mendoza, Emilio Civit, these moves led the closure of La Reforma in 1892, and to the province's renewed "intervention" by federal authorities.

Taking office on March 6, 1918, he pursued a progressive agenda for the standards of the day, enacting an ambitious program of labor and social legislation that included an 8-hour workday and a minimum wage (some of the nation's first reforms of their type).

Lencinas, instead, believed the latter group was co-opting the UCR by joining its ranks, and advocated for Yrigoyen's break with what he termed "Fair-weather Radicals" (particularly the most prominent of these at the time, the President of the Senate, Leopoldo Melo).