Beginnings in Politics
A member of the Radical Civic Union (Unión Cívica Radical, UCR) under the leadership of Leandro Alem, de la Torre abandoned the party in 1897 due to disagreement with the new leader, Hipólito Yrigoyen. Later, in 1908, he was part of the founding group of the Southern League (Liga del Sur), a local party. In 1911 he was elected for the provincial legislature representing the San Lorenzo Department; in 1912 he became a representative of Santa Fe (diputado) for the Southern League in the lower house of the National Congress.
On 14 December 1914 de la Torre took part of the constitutive assembly of the Democratic Progressive Party (Partido Demócrata Progresista, PDP) at the Hotel Savoy, Buenos Aires. The new party appointed him the presidential candidate for the 1916 elections, with Alejandro Carbó as the vice-president. The PDP was defeated by the UCR's candidate (H. Yrigoyen). De la Torre lost also the 1919 elections where he had presented as candidate for senator representing the city of Buenos Aires.
De la Torre's PDP participated in the shaping of a new provincial constitution for Santa Fe, in 1921, which was considered modern and progressive for the time, but ended up being vetoed by the Radical governor Enrique Mosca.
De la Torre was elected national representative for Santa Fe in 1922. In 1925, however, he announced his retirement from active politics. In 1928 the PDP was overwhelmingly defeated in the province, which moved the wannabe-governor Francisco Correa to exclaim, "We are too few to win, but too many to disappear". In 1931 the PDP entered the Democratic-Socialist Alliance, which appointed De la Torre and Nicolás Repetto for the presidential elections, but they were defeated by Agustín Pedro Justo and Julio Argentino Roca, Jr..
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