Puerto Rico: Divorce With Alimony?
Villard, Oswald Garrison
Puerto Rico: Divorce With Alimony? By Oswald Garrison Villard AWIT in high office ia the State Department baa declared that the only solution for the Puerto L Rican situstion is "divorce with...
...And the freight rates have been high...
...Although Puerto Ricana have had tariff protection, for better or worse, and have been admitted to the North American sugar market, they have paid a heavy price in other respects...
...The shame of these slums rests on Puerto Rim us as well as on Washington...
...PuERTO RICANS quote Governor Tugwell's statement to the Chaves sub-committee of the Senate that "2,000,000 persons cannot permanently bo kept in th* twilight zone of colonialism...
...Would it not be highly unpleasant to have Puerto Rico in a nasty row with us prior to the divorce court —just as we are busily engaged in conquering the dictators who have suppressed small nations, and just as we are wooing the affections of our Latin-American neighbors by large gifts, generous investments and much lend-lease...
...But should Puerto Rico be excluded from our tariff xone at all...
...Rexford G. Tugwell, the wife of the Governor, has led in the establishment of some 560 milk* stations at which these little victims of our misrule can get e gless of milk and perhaps a cereal and a piece of bread each day—for many their only meakX Americano do net need te go te India to let how famine u inl.i...
...Many who favor statehood for Puerto Rico admit that they have little hope of its ever being granted...
...To Puerto Rico thia would have meant about $150,000,000 in rum taxes in 1944—a sum that would have enabled the island to improve ita slums, deal with the unemployment that ranges from 100,000 to 240,000 persons, and build schools, hospitals and other needed establishments...
...If home rule is not granted this year in Congress, we may see the prophesied fireworks...
...They are not taken seriously enough by the municipal government ef San Juan, by the island legislature or the Insular Planning Board which is charged with providing for the future of the island in the next six years...
...they need only to fly to San Juan...
...a Were the problem not so gigantic, one might be more-encouraged by the fact that the touting authorities in Washington have authorised the expenditure of $45,000,000 over a period of aix yeara (the islands own annual appropriation for housing is only $600,000...
...Upon this crop 50 per cent of the population, directly or indirectly, depend for their support, at an average wage of $277 a year...
...Bad enough, this announcement was quickly followed Vf^^Wn^'Oy^m^ml^JhWoM^mVH^*^ Puerto Rice couM into anjtf ft fern eent aa ataay cartons as were used if peak mm...
...Its unemployed flocked to the colors in such numbers that it was hardly necessary to enforce the selective service law at all (a soldier gets $741 a year and a cane worker, with a big family, only $277...
...At any moment bureaucrats 1,600 miles away may reach a decision vitally important to the island without consulting a single Puerto Rican official or looking over the situation on the spot...
...What chance would there be of Congress voting Puerto Rico in^as the 49th state with a citizenry so dissimilar, so determined not to learn or use our language...
...During nearly all ef thia time the average anneal wage ef the men who cut the cane was only $119 a year...
...The whole island biased...
...the iiland ii one of th* moot over, crowded tpott on eartht with 2,000,000 persons living upon a rather mountainous area 100 milt* long by 36 mile* wide...
...Rafael Pico, head of the Planning Board, waa plainly amaxed that I should think that the first objective of the plan should be the ending of slum misery...
...The nearby Virgin Islands do not suffer this handicap...
...the AAA, social secui ity, public work*, ijaf »„d other Government payments to the island...
...It has oversubscribed every war loan and done more than its share to meet other financial appeals...
...It might with justice be made punitive in order to offset in some degree the abuse and wrongs of the past...
...I asked informed residents just what disturbances might be expected if conditions continue as they are...
...The bitter truth is known in the island: we shall send those Mexican and British subjects back when the war ia over, but the Puerto Ricana would have had the right to stay in the land which says they are its subjects...
...The mortality is almost twice as high as in the United States or Canada, despite the wonderful climate...
...The insular government in San Jaan confesses thai three-fourths'of the Puerto Ricana under its rare "do not have enough to eat, enough to wear, or a decent place to live...
...The Puerto Ricana declare that they are in the hands of a monopoly of four American Hues that have never given adequate service...
...According to the San Juan newspapers that decision took another ifl.Ms^bwcnt' *• pnaatils rum tag and left the producers ksJbsm^tsyL^Ut afee*t government by satraps...
...Shouh' the mere fact that it will hoist its own flag warrant its being treated thus t ruthlessly...
...lb So the grounds for divorce, I repeat, are undeniable...
...Diarrhea and enteritis take 415.5 persona per 100,000 in Puerto Rico and 14.2 in the United States...
...That is anything but self-rule...
...Governor Tugwell protested vainly...
...For Spain granted complete autonomy to the island and accepted two representatives with voting power in the Spanish Cortes...
...Then, out of a clear sky, Washington announced that on account of conditions in Cuba, a foreign country, the American citizens who live in Puerto Rico could not export more than 7,200,000 gallons of rum in 1944 (Washington later made a welcome revision upward...
...omyp% Vtedavees* laaaaayg •*• of th* -J*•'liimrTi'*¦ *"' «f • MB for Puerto ^KBsnWaWaVeaW*, liptii that the period oi eee...
...Sometimes new factories started by Puerto Ricana have been ruined by wholesale deliberate "dumping" en the part of firms of the continental United States...
...The islands has seen the gradual decrease of four of its greatest industries: tobacco, coffee, citrus fruits and needlework...
...mmJm ^jjMp^#»»1i1'1 mt« M yean and that tariffs ihould be pat into affect tt the rate ef fire per cent each year, thus giving the bland time to find new markets, new customers, and to build up its own economic life...
...The pneumonia victims in Puerto Rico are 176.3 to our 1.8...
...And, above everything else, they are governed from another capital...
...It would prove to the world that we mesa what we say when wo tolk of freedom from fear and freedom from wantt The time has now come for a showdown...
...anavr-takings ia which we have been engaged since Pearl Harbor...
...Former Under-Secretsry of State Sumner Welles has warned us that our prestige in Latin America is slipping fast...
...Is it any wonder that the Puerto Ricani said: Te be a Good Neighbor is obviously better than to b* a good child...
...I waa told that building materials were almost impossible to...
...Mere than 2M,tee persons live in constantly growing alums...
...Why should not the American sugar consumer continue to get his Puerto Rican sugar tax free...
...Of course we can overawe the people...
...In the present war period, Puerto Rico has, indeed, been a good child...
...Shall we be true to ourselves, shall we do the simplest justice to our wards, or shall we wear (he brand ef hypocrisy aa we stand in the divorce court...
...Eten if it is not withheld, hew can we hope te bey the $119,*00,0*e in goods we need every year, and see-"* ply the 66S.500.«0» now given to us in the form of gratuities...
...Cuba must be placated because of the Good Neighbor policy and war conditions...
...Even if we spent $300,000,000 on the bland before turning it adrift in order to give it a fair chance, that would not be a staggering figure in theae days of astronomical budgets...
...Puerto Rieo'a dreadful slums turn eat potentially . insane, physically feeble adults to become criminals, beggars, prostitutes, human wrecks who are permanent charges upon the community...
...They are, in fart, human cesspools under the Amer-ieaa Isg...
...the alimony must be full...
...Again the island asked: "Are we or are we r>ot American citizens 7 What right has the government to demand loyalty of ua when it actually discriminates against ua in favor of foreign labor T" Washington's excuse that there were no ships available to move Puerto Riean labor broke down, since the Jamaican and Bahaman Negroes were brought here by sea...
...The iiland lack* doetort, dentists and mffide, nt hot pita li...
...that many slum, dwellers .were opposed to moving] that "reliance ia now being placed upon" Puerto Rico's getting a share of a great Washington housing plan when the war is over...
...AlS further evidence of our misrule, the island is throttled by the application of our coastwise shipping laws which forbid any foreign ship to atop at the island if it is en route to another American port...
...Where shall we §m§\titfm,m.t** the experts any are needed at once to tear dewa ear horrible alums, erect email but decent and sanitary hemes for oar 250,009 slam dwellers, and build all the schools sad hospitals, community centers, town halls, Are stations, health departments, and above all the sewers so urgently demanded...
...it is Latin American to the core and proud of the fact...
...To save some of their pitiful, starving, stunted children, Mrs...
...The sudden demand for Puerto Rican rum in the United States, because of the falling imports of foreign winea and whiskies, presaged for Puerto Rico the greatest bonanza in ita history...
...Many of theae slums are built over marshes, two-thirds of them are without decent drinking water, and all of them are without sewerage, sanitation, or garbage disposal of any kind...
...Not more than 37 per cent of the population can speak English and by no means sll of those speak it well...
...the right ef any free man to hold up his head and say that he ia his own ruler...
...In other words, we have made a complete mesa of the way we've handled Puerto Rico...
...Tuberculosis takes a toll of 260.5 persons out of every 100,000 of population, as against 44.7 in the United States...
...By Oswald Garrison Villard AWIT in high office ia the State Department baa declared that the only solution for the Puerto L Rican situstion is "divorce with full alimony.'' the original wedding was of the shotgun variety, with Uncle Sam holding the gun...
...the right of men everywhere to their owa government, whether good, bad or indifferent...
...After 46 years the mstch ia unhappy, growing worse and threatening to end in an embarrassing family imbroglio...
...The island's most pressing immediate problems are the dominance of the sugar industry, the alarming increase in population—40,000 per year—and the utter inability of the government or of private capital to create new industries and new businesses to take up the slack of unemployment...
...Puerto Rican labor, now feeling ita power, is no longer willing to endure life upon the ragged edge of famine without protest, tabor production has decreased all along the line...
...The Popular Party obtained its narrow margin of power (one vote in the Senate) through its slogan, "Bread, Land and Liberty...
...Only 45 out of 77 towns in Puerto Rico have sewerage systems, end no rural areas have developed or protected water sepplies...
...That leaves alimony as the only ajimtsori at issue...
...The dividends of the Fajardo Company daring 4$ years equalled 12 times the amount ef ita capital stock...
...Puerto Rico, which then had only half as large a population as it has today, ruled Itself and was relatively happy...
...The United States has had a wonderful opportunity to help Puerto Rico during the wartime labor shortage...
...Instead, the Government imported Mexican peons, Jamaican and Bahamian Negroes, and called in no Puerto Rican labor at all...
...But if divorce, what then ? There may be complete separation from bed, but not from board...
...if necessary we can re-establish military rale and deb out food te them.' But thia will do violence to everything for which we have stood ia all ear history— the rights of small nationa te their own way of life...
...On an estimated 1944 production of 20,000,000 gallons of rum (the distillers set too high a figure) the internal revenue tax would have been $6 a gallon until April 1, and $9 from that date, payable to the insular territory and not to the United States Treasury...
...Their harbors are not open...
...The WPB finally decided to supply the needed cartons—but Puerto Rican temper had been running high in the meantime...
...Every political party in Puerto Rico has unanimously voted that our present colonial policy must cease...
...Iti situation i* politically wort* than it wa* under the Spaniard...
...Their legislature can make laws only with the concurrence of the Governor (appointed by the President) and of the Congress of the United States...
...Still it went along with us- from bad to worse...
...From 1*17 to 1935 the net earnings ef the three largest abaentee-ewnedl companies were $79,275,0*t...
...On the city streets girls from 13 years np offer themselves to eur soldiers to get money for food for themselves and their parents...
...It has watched the rise of a huge American sugar industry ma for the benefit of absentee ownin in the United States, with 251,000 acres devoted to sugar cane...
...even trade with neighboring islands ia restricted...
...One of them said: "Not revolution, of course, but unrest, disorder, malingering, sabotage, all the other methods to which a sullen population can resort in order to express ita discontent and anger...
...They welcomed the introduction last year of the bill presented to the United States Congress for the popular election of the Governor with full power to rule Puerto Rico with the island Legislature...
...The birth rate hai now risen to 40.1 per thousand of population...
...Puerto Rico ia 950 miles away from the nearest .American port...
...awpaug the small production year of 1942...
...Since the Latin-American republics often know more than we do about what is going on in Puerto Rico, that island is their main index of the real attitude of the United States toward Ijitiu America...
...Multitudes of Paerte Ricana who want independence, aak themselves: "How could we live if the United Stales protection were withdrawn...
...To his stressing of many other desperate needs I answered that in none ere human lives and human valuea so directly involved, nor does any entail so great and lasting a burden upon the treasury...
...At leait 200,000 children never tet foot in a ichool...
...At laat the Government m moving slowly to buy the sugar companies' land aad put the workers m farms...
...But with 75 per cent of the existing 355,000 houses unfit for use, these provisions are entirely inadequate...
...If given independence the island would Vie glad to grant any military and naval bases the United States desires .The limited means and small population of the island, and the fact that our bombers and aircraft carriers can easily resch it, insure that It could never be a menace to the United States, Therefore national security considerations may be ruled out ia the divorce •eart ' ^ « " ~ ."p...
...Five recent weeks ia Puerto Rico have convinced me that its inhabitsnts have grounds for divorce, and are prepared to seek relief very soon...
...31.2 per tent of all the people can neither read nor write...
...Unlike Cuba, which was Aghting against Spanish rule when we took it over in 1898, Puerto Rico did not want to be governed by Anglo-Saxons, and did not ask for the blessings of American liberty which General Miles promised it...
...Naturally there have been many atrikes or threats of strikes, since the cost of living has gone up 50 per rent and wagea but 26 per cent since 1941...
...What a ttoy preWlcea compared te Ok* tlgaall...
...Our sincerity, oar honesty, our good faith are at stake...
...But our Senate altered the lull until in the best judgment of Governor Tugwell and other informed observers it is now a booby trap...
...Those who would worry over the cost of alimony should remember that today the federal treasury is aMp4tM| »" *»i»,n»l*a 1*8,600,000 * year for roads, oeMasts, laweiiig...
...where eeule we mud ¦oaewsf eetr -ttejhfc* eaujMe aw te live while we h«y ahine, establish new markets and begin oar trade with any easaafry teat needs ear products...
...The island cannot compete tn$t{ the United States to the detriment of a single in< dustry, unless it be sugar producing, for there are no factories there...
Vol. 27 • July 1944 • No. 31
