WHITHER PUERTO RICO?
Villard, Oswald Garrison
Whither Puerto Rico? By OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD San Juan THERE ARE five political possibilities before Puerto Rico: (1) Continuance of its present unhappy Colonial status; (2) advancement to a...
...In a sense the island is today the special ward of"the United States...
...Again, while the United States would bestow $2,-500,000 more on it to increase certain per capita Federal expenditures to the level of the average Southeastern state, Puerto Rico would lose $14,000,000 in excise and customs taxes upon goods coming from or through Puerto Rico which the Federal Government now credits to the Insular Government...
...Thus, the Puerto Rican Planning Board points out that Puerto Rico would then be subject to Federal taxes on states which it now escapes...
...although it has been treated more often as a waif and an orphan than as the beneficiary of a trust, it has, at times, and still does have, special consideration which it would not receive were it a state...
...Our record here in Puerto Rico has been so black and is so far from doing justice to ourselves or our subjects, as to warrant no one's urging that we continue to govern these islanders without giving them complete freedom and self-government, or voices in Congress, or at least the right to elect their own Governor as is proposed in the bill now before Congress...
...Primarily statehood would give Puerto Rico two Senators and some Congressmen...
...these would amount to about $21,200,000...
...Every political party is on record against it and the Insular Legislature has unanimously voted that it end...
...The emergence of the United States as a vast military power, dominating the seven seas with the British fleet, and able to control all the rest of the hemisphere with its bombers, is not a picture to appeal to the "Good Neighbors" after the war is over...
...3) a dominion status after the British "model...
...Financially, there would be grave losses for the island through statehood...
...Plainly the loss of $14,000,000 in taxes, plus the addition of $21,000,000, plus the difference in the Federal income tax, would place extremely heavy burdens upon the island and make a marked difference in its development, in the ability of its government to advance the island's industries and institutions, and the material situation of each inhabitant...
...Sentiment Of Islanders Should they be permanently tied into our national life as a permanent state...
...But such a change, however desirable, can only be a stop-gap...
...There are a few on this island, those with special privileges and advantages connected with the present order, who favor its permanent continuance in its present status...
...No one can foresee what the aftermath of this war will be or where our wartime Pan-American policies will lead us...
...In many respects they feel a far greater kinship with Central and South America and the Caribbean region than with the "North Americans...
...The final decision as to whether Puerto Rico shall become the 49th or 50th state, or be granted complete independence, will continue to face us...
...There are disquieting symptoms enough and not only in the Argentine...
...A chief argument against statehood is the irrevocability of it...
...It is quite conceivable, therefore, that the cleft between the mental attitudes of Puerto Rico and Americans might steadily increase, that there might be a drifting apart which would make highly uncomfortable a closely-knit, unbreakable relationship like that of statehood...
...and (5) independence...
...4) statehood...
...Only a small fraction, 15 per cent, speak English" after 46 years of occupation...
...Yet if there were no other alternatives to our present colonial government of Puerto Rico than statehood, it would unquestionably be accepted by the islanders in preference to the existing regime...
...2) advancement to a territory like Alaska...
...The Financial Picture In a sense this proposed law would carry the island in some ways beyond the Alaskan and Hawaiian status...
...That would raise the island's political importance, and give it a trading basis in Congress, besides enabling its representatives to voice the island's wishes in national and international affairs—the Puerto Ricans were put into this war without consultation, or their being able to vote for or against it through any official spokesman...
...It has been said, sarcastically, that the only American trait they have acquired is a keen devotion to baseball...
...The Federal income tax, which the island now does not have to pay, would bear more heavily on the islanders than does the insular income tax...
...Americans were never intended by temperament, training, or their fundamental democratic principles to hold colonies and we have not done it well...
...This brings up the most fundamental question of all—whether Latin-Americans, so different from the Anglo-Saxon stock in their cultural and historical backgrounds, their temperament and intellectual and spiritual aims and using another language, can really fit in the American Union, especially as the nearest continental port is nearly 1,000 miles away...
...Their views on the race issue are utterly different from ours—certainly they are vastly more honest about the intermingling...
Vol. 8 • April 1944 • No. 16
