Puerto Rico Wants No Doles -Only a Chance
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
Puerto Rico Wants No Doles —Only a Chance By William E. Bohn Short, stocky, calm but sharp-eyed Rivera Mar-times has a double right to apeak for Puerto Rican labor; Officially ha is President of...
...war has added tragically to the basic difficulties...
...Today there i* Set a government opera ting an the continent, outside the Nazis and the so called neu «raU, without Communist memkora . . . except that ef Greece which remains for the moment purely a Brltieh construction...
...The fset that Churchill and Eden went from Yalta te Athens, must be expected to bring the situation in Greece Into line with the policy publicly enaa-ciated for Poland and Yugoslavia...
...Here are these 2,000,000 people on the narrow rim of land between the sea and the mountains...
...The European market was entirely cut off...
...We can, at least, manufacture our own clothes and ahoes...
...But they have now, •sew the Partido Popular Democratico, a new deal rvwrnment, and the Parliament can protect the people •tainst land monopolists...
...In Belgium and Greece (and...
...The principal thing that grows is the birth-rate...
...Things »r» bitter now than they used to be...
...We are asking for no doles from Congress or anyone else...
...Puerto kiee is not even a territory...
...Earl Browder comments en the decisions of the Yalta conference...
...The sugar mills, aweenr, have been declared public utilities...
...For years I have thought of Puerto Rico as a deadend place...
...Earl Browder, Editor...
...So he—if .h»ni.( be able to give a reliable account of tUggi in our most populous colonial possession...
...In his own craft, that of cigar-making, Martinez reports that the results were set entirely happy...
...In January, • "new" review was born, entitled "Political Affairs" — surely an innocuous name...
...We have our government lottery, and there is, of course, some cock-fighting, and we race the horses on Sundays...
...In Yalta th* "Teheran line" was leaffirmed in con nection with the problem* of Poland and Yago-slavia...
...V. J. Jerome, ^fan-aging Editor...
...The effort to raise tag** was conspiracy against th* government...
...eat in all this preamble because this man sounded flat U to me a new note in news from Puerto Rico...
...Unofficially he is the heir of Santiago Iglesias, who waa the father of the labor jumv> down there...
...Bat about 60,000 workers are organized in the various sal— of the A. F. of U In all of the crafts the wages am been gradually raised...
...V. J. Jerome, Managing Editor...
...Why not give us a break • when you yearn for tropical relaxation...
...Wages were pushed up to $35 soaktj sad then the industry retreated to Pennsylvania aad New Jersey where cigars could be rolled by machinery...
...Martinez acknowledges that ygurf told the truth...
...When Arfterican gunfire crashed into Saa Joan in 1808 Santiago Iglesias was Iviag in jail because he had tried to organize workers eh* were earning two cents a day...
...There is nothing aew in principle in the decisions of Crimea," Browder declares...
...For 10 years he was a member ^tfca cabinet as Commissioner of Labor...
...But in other industries, clothing and embroidery, for example, the results have been important...
...Eugene Dennis, Associate Editor...
...As he went out of the door he gave me, with a grin, a parting shot...
...Laws have been passed which Baft each sugar concern to 500 acres...
...The natives were poetically driven from they- own soil...
...Figure that •at It is the most thickly populated part of the globe, fast many people can't live in that space without high ¦ tasastrialisation...
...But we don't go in for gambling and racketeering in a big way as they do in Havana...
...Mass migration is no good...
...The people are Catholic, and the church hierarchy frowns upon birth-control...
...In th* March issue ef r.Mticml Affair...
...Earl Browder, Editor...
...Alaska and Hawaii, being territories, have every prospect of becoming states, fserlo Rice is a mere possession...
...Up to recently practically no workers have had land on which W grow their own food...
...Look,"|he said, "why do all of you moral Americans go to Cuba to have a good time...
...It is publicly owned...
...There are 2,000,000 inhabitants tad only 8,800 square miles of arable land...
...WMHHMMKnai:»:-------- ----A •NEW POLITICAL MAGAZINE APPIAXS T HE transformation of tht American Com munist Party into the Communist Political Association waa not immediately followed by any changes in the official Communist press...
...Sugar is the main source of income...
...We have everything that Cuba has except the vices...
...Shipping for trade with the United States has been drastically cut...
...Eugene Dennis, Associate Editor...
...You saw the dark picture that was plated bege in Tht Veto Leader some weeks ago by Qjyeld Garrison Villard...
...But," he said in an interview Ign in The N»u> Loader office, "men who write like that ha™ no idea of our conditions 40 years ago...
...According te Browder, the "democratic" character ef any government in a liberated country depends on the participation ef Communists, and Browder is not accustomed te write anything not in accord with the ideas emanating from the Kremlin...
...The poverty, the disease, the bad laojlag- it is all there...
...But "on the political and diplomatic field, the line of Teheran had been applied with leaa consistency" than on the military field Of course, it was net Russie.'but the other allies, which were inconsistent...
...Since 1917 the people have elected bath houses of their legislature, but the Governor is appointed by the President...
...That will be a start...
...Crimen sees the logical cimtinuation of Teheran...
...So I put the enigma up to Martinez, What can be done to raise the level of living down there and keep it up to something like the standards of this country ? "Well," said the labor leader from the Caribbean, ( "first of all, we want no favors...
...So the war which has brought prosperity to the mainland has brought nothing but woe to the great population of this island...
...My unbelief must have iteck out of my eyes...
...Illiteracy has been reduced to some 80 percent—and there is practically aene among the younger generation...
...Browder is confident that the same pattern will be applied te all liberated countries...
...We have plenty of waterpower...
...A comparison of the mastheads of the two periodicals shows what a revolutionary change has taken place: "The Communist (December, 1944)—A Marxist magazine devoted to the advancement of democratic thought and action...
...the pattern for all liberated Europe" wa* given In the case of Poland "the mischief-making government in exile in London is finally consigned to the sc rap pile ef history" The attitude toward Yugoslavia Is "the Bam* in substance...
...NG the early days of U. S. possession the great •arar companies monopolized the land...
...It was *•**» for granted that the local government could do "•thing about land-possession...
...Panning them up in some continental Harlem Is no solution...
...The governmental status is unsatisfactory...
...From Ku—lmn Ami...
...They are still bad...
...So the poverty is still terrible...
...Bat with its December, 1944, issue, the "Marxist-Leninist" theoretical organ, "The Communist," ceased to exist...
...There has been notable improvement in sanitation, education and highway construction...
...Pierlot resigned, and a coalition cabinet moving in the direction of the people came into being...
...And we are your fellow citizens...
...This, coming from S genuine islander, a dark-skinned, gyMush^speakmg Puerto Rican, was enough to bring mVf straight in my chair...
...Political Affairs" (January, 1945)—A Marxist magazine devoted to the advancement of democratic thought and action...
...Officially ha is President of the Free Feder-5j af Labor on the island...
...TV sugar-workers make about $600 a year, and a attest life would require twice that income...
...la Belgium the situstion did net wsit on the Crimean meeting...
...Without large imports of food, the Puerto Ricans ~ simply cannot live...
...In a different form, in Italy) the power of British and American armed forces were thrown into the scales against the native liberation forces, for the preservation and utilixatioa ef collaborationist circles...
...Though their political statu* offers no hope for the future and is, therefore, distinctly anaatisfactory, the people of the island have been, from a purely financial point of view, fairly well treated by Congress., All the tax money originating from their activities is returned to them...
...Since the ¦eafsration of these changes any little farmer can W» his eane to the mill to be ground, and strict laws mi*d the price which he will receive for his product...
...We can furnish cheap power and skilled labor to any industry that will come down there...
...That is vast things were like then...
...But our beaches are just as glorious, our skies as blue, our winds as soft and ell nature just as heavenly rich and tropical...
...ft it optimistic...
...Quietly and patiently Martinez task bm In tow to fire me a view of the history and pegraphy of hia island home...
...All that we want is a chance to develop industries.- That many people cannot be supported without factories...
Vol. 28 • April 1945 • No. 14
