From now on, September 23rd shall be solemnized as the Day of the Martyrs of Independence, in remembrance and homage to all the men and women sacrificed or persecuted for the cause of liberty. “Let the entire Portorrican Nation concur on that day, with due unction, in Lares, privileged land and consecrated in the Homeland’s history, to render the tribute of respect to the martyrs of the cause of National Redemption; before the tombs of the patricians, let us invoke the spirit of the liberating manes; let us forge the solemn oath to be worthy descendants of our forefathers, and that we shall fulfill the patriotic duty to immediately organize the government of the Republic. It is the August Day! The Day of Independence!”. “I certify that the present is a faithful and exact copy of the Proclamation approved by the National Board of the Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico in its session held on the afternoon of Sunday, the 14th day of the month in course.” “Given in San Juan de Puerto Rico, on the sixteenth day of the month of September, year of 1930 and sixty-second of the Proclamation of the Republic”. 170 Juan Antonio Corretjer, Secretary Administrator, Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico LETTER TO MR. LUIS VENEGAS CORTÉS ⁵⁶ San Juan, P.R., September 19, 1930 Mr. Luis Venegas Cortés, President of the University Committee Pro-Victims of Santo Domingo, Río Piedras, P.R. Friend of all my esteem: I acknowledge receipt of your moving communication accompanied by check number 7402, drawn by the University, charged to the “Banco Territorial y Agrícola” of Río Piedras and endorsed to me, for the sum of four hundred ninety-eight dollars and fifty cents, amount of the funds collected to date among university students to help the victims of Santo Domingo. You inform me that the University Committee Pro-Dominican Victims agreed to make the remittance through the mediation of the Partido Nacionalista. In the name of our Partido I accept the noble commission and will immediately send to His Excellency Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, President of the Dominican Republic, the funds placed at the disposal of his government for the charitable purpose you have arranged. No Portorrican act before the catastrophe that has filled us with pain has the transcendence of this yours. It indicates, first, the clear orientation of university students in national and international issues. In that heroic nation, noble and hospitable, even to exaggeration, if in that order it can be exaggerated, no memory of its immense sorrow will produce the emotion that is yours. Here is an absolute disinterest and a love of brothers to brothers. The ideal of the Antillean Confederation will be realized by the present Antillean youth because it is willing to create a power that is to be imposed on every invader. This hunch of yours is the message of solidarity that announces the era that is already looming. Our Partido, which in reality is not a Partido, but the Homeland organized to rescue its sovereignty, so that even those who today combat Independence can enjoy the dignity of being free, enjoys, because of the purpose it pursues, the respect and sympathy of all Dominicans. And it will be pleasing to them that this demonstration of your sensitivity arrives through our mediation. With my cordial congratulations for the work of nobles, I am yours affectionately, P. ALBIZU CAMPOS THE CIVIC ACT OF THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY IN LARES⁵⁷ REPRESENTATIONS FROM VARIOUS POINTS OF THE COUNTRY ATTENDED ALBIZU CAMPOS SPEAKS Since the crowd did not fit in the theater, the public asked that Mr. Albizu Campos speak on the platform in the plaza since the threats of rain had passed. When the President of the Partido Nacionalista climbed the platform, he was received with a prolonged salvo of applause. “Today a supreme longing of my life is fulfilled in finding myself in this city of Lares. I would have entered Lares on my knees: one enters holy land on one’s knees. The men and women of the current generation do not even know how to walk and get tired walking two kilometers even if it is to pay homage to the heroes of our freedom. Our grandparents did not know the automobile, nor the electric train and yet, they performed wonders. They did not know paved roads, nor modern means of communication, but they had a physical and moral strength superior to us, and they climbed those peaks with ease and risked their lives for an ideal. What was the superiority of those heroes? In that they were men of high principles in their conscience. Devotion to an idea is not enough, consecration to the idea is necessary and this implies sacrifice. “You are not like the hero Ramírez because you do not have the awareness of consecration to an ideal, nor the awareness of your own strength. The day that occurs, the independence of Puerto Rico will have been achieved as a fatality in history. “The force that weighs on our people is the sense of impotence. It is necessary to evoke, then, the contrary forces, the forces of wisdom and beauty immanent in the nature of man. “Science itself puts powerful weapons in our hands. With a microphone installed on this platform I can inform the world of what is happening in Puerto Rico. “The strength of nationalities and empires depends on the esteem that is had for them. If the concept that an empire deserves us is poor, the stronger it seems, the more fleeting it must be. All empires maintain propaganda in their colonies to maintain the myth of their superiority. The United States resorts to all means of propaganda to maintain a 172 moral ascendancy over our people and thus keep them subject to its power. “We do not have weapons to sink their naval forces, but we have the weapon to sink their prestige in the world.” The speaker then related how our parents had been mistaken in the concept they had of the United States and gave as an example his father who received the invading army with a speech in English only to later realize his mistake. “We are today in a new stage of nationalism, we are acquiring the internal awareness of nationalism which is the very life of nationality. This nationalism has and wants no links with any political party whose ambiguous, contradictory and anti-scientific programs are lures to deceive the people and reach the power of the colony. Those are their only aspirations. Nationalism is a transcendental movement, it is the secular and millenary force of our redemption. To belong to this nationalism, consecration to the ideal is necessary and therefore sacrifice. “I do not come to tell you that you are beautiful and precious women and to you that you are patriots. I come to tell you that you are not fulfilling your duty. “I want to repeat here the question I asked in La Habana before the monument to José Martí. Do Lares and Puerto Rico deserve that monolith to the heroes of ‘68? To deserve it, one must be at least at the moral height of the base of that monument. And neither Lares nor Puerto Rico are currently at that moral height. That monolith must be covered with a shroud of mourning until the men and women of Puerto Rico know how to wield weapons for independence as our grandparents did. “I want this day to be like a dagger stuck in your hearts that indicates to you in moments of weakness what your duty is. Our homeland lived under the weight of a tragedy. Its redemption is urgent if we want to save ourselves from perishing as a people and be worthy of the sacrifice of those martyrs. Let each one fulfill their duty, then. His final words were followed by a prolonged ovation while the band cleaved the air with the chords of La Borinqueña. Manuel Rivera Matos Secretary of the Partido Nacionalista THE NATIONALIST ACT OF SUNDAY IN PONCE THE SPEECH PRONOUNCED BY LCDO. P. ALBIZU CAMPOS5 8 When Albizu Campos climbed the platform, the ponceño public received him with a prolonged ovation. The President of the Partido Nacionalista delivered an eloquent and substantial speech that lasted for two and a half hours. “My beloved people: I want to greet you after three years of absence through our América. A very deep emotion overwhelms my spirit as I appear before the people of Ponce that saw me born. To love the land that gave us life is the first duty of man. I want to send a collective greeting from this platform to my school classmates, to my physical and moral protectors, to my friends and fellow citizens. “Tonight we celebrate the great epic of the race that discovered and civilized this continent. To Mother Spain we owe the immense gratitude of this work without parallels in human history. With the feat of Colón, the spherical shape of the planet was definitively proven. With this discovery, man realized that he did not live on an isolated land but that he belonged to a celestial system of which he was his collaborator and interpreter. Man was then aware of the infinity of the universe and that within himself were enclosed the possibilities of infinite progress. His concept of the universe and its creator was amplified, and he understood that his mission was to interpret the laws that governed it and live the superior life of the spirit.” After a philosophical digression about the meaning of the discovery and its transcendence in the life of Western culture, he went on to analyze the transcendental orientation of nationalism “Nationalism is the force that stands up against any power that denies us personality. It is a movement that aspires to awaken the forces of wisdom in the people, to save nationality for culture and history. It wants this people, which is the first spiritual unit that crystallizes on the continent, which is the most culturally and racially integrated nationality in América, which is an improvable and sensitive mass, not to be annulled and to reintegrate into the life of culture through the full affirmation of its personality. Nationalism is not merely the reintegration of the lands into Portorrican hands, nor the salvation of its trade and its finances: it is the nationality on its feet to rescue its sovereignty and save this people for the superior values of life. Colonialism is the annulment and absorption of our moral forces; independence is spiritual fullness, it is enjoyment of all the physical and moral gifts that God deposited in our land. If a madman is denied personality by law, he is also denied his capacity to verify any legal transaction. If a people is denied its collective personality, it is denied the capacity to govern its own destiny and we are put on the level of an irresponsible madman. Nationalism is not a partido in the limiting sense of the word but a movement that tends to save all the constitutive values of nationality. That is why we will not rest until the flag of the United States has been lowered from Puerto Rico.” The speaker then analyzed the historical, sociological and cultural panorama of the Ibero-American nations and stressed the need to maintain intense links with the brother peoples “because the case of Puerto Rico is the evident example of the intentions that the United States has for Latin América” “América is the richest continent in the world for its territorial extension, its population and its immense natural resources. That is why it is the object of the world’s greed. She is becoming aware of this phenomenon and remains on guard against exotic aggressions. She knows the covetous intentions of the United States and that is why all the governments that the people suspect are subject to the Yankees are falling.” He then commented on the policy of the United States in the Caribbean. “The Caribbean Sea is the heart of the world. From here depart and converge the maritime currents of the tropics that carry heat and life to all the continents of the earth. This will be the theater of the great war that is eight or ten years away to overthrow the imperialist power of the United States. We must prepare for that hour which will be that of our political salvation.” He then made an analysis of the problems of the United States, of North American social life, of its attitude towards the black race, etc. He announced that one of the bloodiest social revolutions in history awaited him, since there “the exploitation exercised against the people had made the communist seed prosper in a way that was dangerous for the stability of its plutocratic institutions.” He commented on the recent speeches of President Hoover in which he recognizes the importance that these movements have taken when he takes the trouble to comment on them. He also censured the society of Ponce for the reception it gave to the North American sailors. “The slave can never pay homage to the master,” he said. At the end of his speech Albizu Campos, the public burst into a delirious applause carrying him on their shoulders throughout the plaza while the band intoned the melodious chords of La Borinqueña. 175 By Manuel Rivera Matos A NATIONALIST ASSEMBLY WAS HELD IN SALINAS AMONG OTHER SPEAKERS SPOKE THE PRESIDENT OF THE PARTIDO, MR. ALBIZU CAMPOS59 Mr. Albizu Campos was announced. A long ovation kept the speaker silent. Afterwards, the speaker excused himself before the public for not being able to make a speech, since having spoken for two and a half hours, the night before in Ponce, he was completely hoarse. Nevertheless, he began by making a brilliant exposition of the economic problems of colonial Puerto Rico. He evoked days of his near jy so far! youth, when his adolescence ran through the fertile plains of Salinas. Remember “the traditional joy, the daily revelry, the festivity that was done, daily, bell in the spirit.” And today, gentlemen, all faces are sad. The elders of that time, also had vigor for the youthful feat, strong, vigorous, they had physical and spiritual energies. Today the middle-aged men look with sad, tragic, desolate eyes. (The speaker looks towards the gallery. The gallery is full of children. The children are quiet, silent). I am alarmed when childhood is in stillness. I am alarmed when the children of my homeland attend an act like this, and are quiet, judicious, when they have not knocked down all the chairs in the gallery and the belts of the gentlemen parents have not had to come to light. Because I know that that stillness is symptomatic. I know that when the child does not play, when the child is not a phosphorus lighter of mischief, it is that he has over his head the cold hand of the epidemic -advanced of death.” “And why are the men sad, why are the women sad, why are the children of Salinas sad? Ah, gentlemen, can the men of Salinas, the men of Puerto Rico, be happy, can they be content, when misery pursues them like an implacable greyhound? Can the women of Puerto Rico, those who are aware of the true situation, be happy when they see their husband, their brother, their father, within the fatal circle of reigning despair? And can our children be happy, when they do not have the illusion of the toy, and not even the security of breakfast? To that state, gentlemen, the system of exploitation to which the yanqui has subjected us has brought us, and, to remedy that evil, what is done? Well, the inhabitant of Fortaleza advises new loans. Why does the Governor, instead, not force the Fajardo Sugar Co., the Guánica Central, Aguirre to pay the millions they owe to the treasury? Ah, no gentlemen! They, the corporations, are sacred, untouchable. The ghost of the Constitution of the United States is invoked, which enters Puerto Rico whenever it is to protect yanqui interests, but which always escapes in time to avoid protecting the interests of the natives.” “Where does this system of exploitation lead? To ruin, only to ruin. Every minute that passes a new Portorrican landowner falls and a yanqui exploiter rises. And the few boricuas that remain are fatally condemned to disappear.” By these times the speaker was already in full command of his voice. It seems that for him combat is a remedy, and that his natural environment is struggle. Already in a tribune tone he shook the public with his wide, excessive, vehement verb. The theater was shaking with applause, ovations. HOMAGE TO MR. ALBIZU CAMPOS AND SELLES SOLA60 SPEECH BY ALBIZU CAMPOS When Mr. Albizu Campos was about to speak, the audience, standing, paid him a thunderous ovation that lasted for several minutes. “In answering the letter-invitation addressed to me by the President of the Cultural Society, I put in my words what I understood was the meaning of this act. I interpret this act and repeat here those words as an oath that patriots demand from each other. It seems a lie that patriots should ever have to demand from each other the fulfillment of an oath, but there are moments in Homeland’s history in which the constructive elements are postponed because high treason to the most vital interests of the country dominates. Such is, my friends, the historical moment through which our Homeland is passing. High treason predominates among us, I repeat; they are the men and women who, alongside the dominator, are demolishing the most sacred of the Homeland, from its material interests to its most dear spiritual interests. They are the ones who unfortunately dominate in our country. And we patriots are the ones who are in frank adversity in this moment of collective work. That is why I interpret the invitation of the Cultural Society as the peremptory demand, as the imperative mandate that we all here demand from each other the fulfillment of patriotic duty. “Everyone is surprised that it is the youth that comes to consecrate adult men. It is true that we are not as old as we seem, but we are already adults. Men who have suffered much in our few years. I understand that my companion was born in ‘86. I was born in ‘93. Since childhood I fixed in my spirit an idea that every man and woman who was born in a slave country should have: to sacrifice his life to free it from all exotic power that tries to subjugate it. And faithful to that norm, faithful to that promise before my own conscience, I have always been humble, and as a humble man eager to acquire all possible knowledge to prepare myself physically and mentally with the purpose of carrying out a work of patriotism and dignity. To be a patriot it is not enough to carry the words on the lips and the feeling in the heart. It is required to have a physical strength, it is required an intellectual strength, it is required a moral strength, and it also requires a vision of the transcendental ends for which man is placed in creation. That is why I say to you youth that you cannot waste your energies, that the Homeland needs your bodies, that your physical organisms must be strong and healthy. The life of the colony has always tended to the physical degeneration of the dominated people because it is a regime of exploitation. It conspires against the work of true patriotism, it denies to men and women of superior mentality the exercise of superior faculties. In the colony the elements without character that are often of great intelligence are brought to flotation: they are the high traitors of the Homeland. Thus in the colony all superior activities are restricted from the exercise of public law to the exercise of power in the government; the only activity that is not restricted is that of servility, that of acting as instruments of the dominator in his work of demolition of the dominated country. When that state is reached, the people are even denied the right to educate themselves according to their own criteria. This is the only people, on earth, gentlemen, where by express provision of the law, or rather of the empire of the United States, a man is appointed who has the absolute power to determine what is to be taught to the children of Puerto Rico. Neither Tsarist Russia nor Imperial Germany dared to impose such tyranny on Poland. “I have said, gentlemen, that the most serious aggression that has been perpetrated against Portorrican nationality has been the creation of this systematic tyranny over the native intellect. I repeat that in no people of the world has a man erected himself as an arbiter of the wisdom and culture of a people as in Puerto Rico. I say this before the university youth so that they are aware of the true situation in which the Portorrican youth finds itself. “In other countries the study programs and texts are established in the schools by agreements of boards and commissions and after a comparative analysis of the educational systems of various nationalities.” The speaker then attacked the intervention of the United States in the education of the country. “The educational system must be asked a few vital questions: “Of what are we citizens? For what do we educate the Portorrican childhood? So that they are men of free consciences or colonial henchmen? It is not enough to sow the schools everywhere. The school can serve both to build and to destroy. It is necessary to seek the purpose that is pursued with teaching. Education cannot be an instrument of domination; education must form men informed of a patriotic criterion and not servants of the prevailing regime.” The speaker then related his experiences in the United States and said that there “education is a system that creates the predominance of a privileged class 179 over the great mass of the people.” He strongly combated Americanization. “The Americans themselves do not know what Americanization is. Americanization is a collective aspiration of the United States that will take a long time to crystallize because that is a people without racial unity or cultural unity. There live great nuclei of various countries of the world divided by a countless number of interests and barriers; there are deep religious divisions, not counting the large African population that lives isolated from the rest of the republic. The educational system aspires then to consolidate all that conglomerate of races, languages and cultures, and to form a compact national integration. Well, what in the United States is an aspiration has been wanted to be implanted in Puerto Rico which is a people that enjoys a perfect racial and cultural integration.” He combated the system of optional subjects in the higher schools. “What selective criterion does a boy have to choose the subject that suits him? Latin is not required, however, this is the matrix language of our civilization. It is a barbarity to teach Latin and French through English; students are being subjected to unnecessary mental torture.” He also formulated a bitter censure against bilingualism which “mutilates the mentality of the student. An absurd system that we are tolerating despite having been discarded by pedagogical science.” He disapproved of the bisexual school. He said that this system had arisen in the west of the United States for economic and not pedagogical reasons. He said that women and men possessed a distinct psychology and therefore a specific methodology was required for each, although both could reach the understanding of the same truths. He also lashed out against the tendency to bring to the mind of the Portorrican child the idea that our civilization began in 1898. “In the official history texts our history before 1898 was a chain of hurricanes and piracies. We are a civilized nationality, a vanguard nationality in the New World. Here was founded the first Bishopric of América, from here the Christian work in the New World was directed. It has been more
“…of a century in which the Baron von Humboldt found here the most intelligent disciples of the entire continent. But these things are concealed in the textbooks in order to narrate the fallacious grandeurs of the dominating nation.” 180