We have been reduced to a proletarian country, with an indirect contributory system gravitating upon the consumer. Since we could not be displaced ethnically or culturally, an onerous economic oppression has been established to keep us in a colonial condition conducive to the exploitation of the invader. They do not have time to receive the commissions that come from Puerto Rico, but they do have months and years to think about how to dominate the riches of the country. Within the North American Constitution there is no room for an autonomous form of government; either we are out or we are in.” He then explained that the Autonomy in force in Puerto Rico when the Hispano-American war broke out represented a condition of privilege within the Spanish flag, a condition that the peninsular provinces did not enjoy. “We had tariff freedom, we could celebrate commercial treaties, and we had our own mail and currency. These liberal measures signified an incipient sovereignty, a recognized personality in the life of international relations. Spain could not make any treaty that obliged us if such treaty was not sanctioned by our will. So the Tratado de París does not govern for us because our will was not consulted for that transfer. The American occupation in Puerto Rico in other words is a question of fact but not of right.” This is the basic thesis of his conference. Referring to the hope that is placed in women, he stated that he did not see that they were acting on a civic plane superior to man. He says that he has been reading the interviews of doña Angela Negrón Muñoz, in EL MUNDO dominical and has not found a renovating ideology except for the last one published by doña María Cadilla de Martinez “We men believe ourselves so incompetent and so cowardly that we have placed hope in women at the last hour.” There is a remedy to the situation of misgovernment reigning in Puerto Rico. If there is; but it needs civism, valor and spirit of sacrifice. We have to raise the question of our sovereignty in the international forum. Estados Unidos fears international opinion. The cablegram from Barceló to the Sexta Conferencia Panamericana made the Presidente and the world press speak for the first time about our case. Why doesn’t the legislature assign an amount of $30,000 so that three individuals with the official representation of this organism ventilate the problem of Puerto Rico before the Liga de las Naciones, before the Unión Pan-Americana and other international forums?” He referred to the recent naval visits of Alemania, Inglaterra and Estados Unidos. “These are international waters and here the enormous economic imbalance in the world due to the fabulous financial expansion of Estados Unidos will be ventilated. The North American nation has mortgaged four continents of the planet. Europa alone owes it 18 billion dollars. That amount is not going to be paid with kisses and handshakes but with shots. Estados Unidos currently has 65 percent of the gold in the world. That constitutes an imbalance in the economic life of the world and will have to be resolved in some way. El Caribe will be the theater of the war of the future.” At the end of the lecturer, not a single question was formulated to him despite the fact that he was open for interrogation by the public. Then he stood up again and stated to the public that “independence was a theme that should not be discussed in Puerto Rico.” A warm ovation was paid to him at the end of his conference and afterwards numerous people went up to congratulate him for his brilliant dissertation that lasted for more than two and a half hours. In the corridors of the galleries, the act was favorably commented on, a sign that the conference had left a lasting and welcoming mark on the spirit of the audience.
PEDRO ALBIZU CAMPOS 1930
LA ASAMBLEA GENERAL NACIONALISTA DE AYER22
Albizu Campos Speaks
“This afternoon should be memorable in the mind of each of us. Here have spoken the representatives of the diverse political groupings of our public life. I lament that in this assembly the voice of a feminine opinion has not been heard, now that the portorriqueña woman has in her hands the powers to carry out a great civic labor. I treat this question so that women do not fall into the sin in which men have incurred: that is, to divide themselves on the question of the independence of their Patria when we are all united by indissoluble ties of nationalist sentiment. Woman is the creative matrix of all physical and moral energies, she is the matrix of transcendental life and therefore the authentic mother of nationality. That is why the portorriqueña woman cannot give an unconditional example, orphaned of civism and dignity, repeating in this way the servile action of the directing men. I wish her to be seen defined, frankly and openly for the independence of her Patria, or if on the contrary she desires that her country continue being a colony submitted to the economic despotism of Estados Unidos.”
“It is necessary to carry this moral responsibility to our women in order to determine if they want to continue the policy of surrender to the invader that the different insular parties have been deploying.”
Then señor Albizu Campos related an anecdote that happened to him in Santo Domingo during his propaganda journey through América Latina. In Puerto Plata a commission of ladies representing a cultural club of the city went to greet him at the hotel to offer him their greetings and ask him what they could do for the independence of Puerto Rico. “I bring this incident up,” he said, “to highlight the civic and heroic spirit of the dominicana woman and compare it with the civic laxity of our woman,” “Ah!, if we could forge -he added- men as women can, the situation of the Patria would be different.”
“I want to carry to the heart of the portorriqueña woman that ideal of responsibility towards her Patria. Women cannot enter into the ridiculous and suicidal game of our paltry politics. Not only is she the depositary of physical life but she must also be the depositary of moral life.”
“I want to address myself now to the parties whose representatives we have had the pleasure of hearing here this afternoon. It is noticed by their manifestations that we are united in fundamental questions and divided by tactical questions of a transitory character. That is why I would like to see the unity of all the parties realized for the immediate recognition of the independence of Puerto Rico. But señores, after 30 years of yanqui colonialism, we have seen that all the amiable and diplomatic resources of containing the dominators have been exhausted. We have fallen even into servilism to flatter the invader to see if we could get something from them, but however, the invaders have not respected anything in our Patria.”
“In the economic terrain they have led us to ruin with their nefarious work of penetration and economic displacement. But it is not only the physical dispossession but also the moral dispossession trying to postpone the native and to submit him by all imaginable means, creating a caste of serviles.”
“We cannot risk one more day tolerating this denigrating norteamericano colonialism that annihilates us physically and morally. We have to face the invader in a frank and straightforward manner, we have to unite to stop this painful economic displacement and to avoid that a man from the Comisaría de Instrucción Pública demoralizes the country with a system that is a school of servilism for our people.”
“Señores, there is no margin to carve out a policy of submission like the one that has been prevailing in Puerto Rico. It is necessary to postulate a frank and defined nationalist ideology in the face of the invaders. There is no margin for a fraternal and solidary attitude with the enemies of the Patria. It is necessary to stand up to the invader valiantly, otherwise we will be destined to perish irremediably.” (Ovation)
INFORME DEL SR. ALBIZU CAMPOS
At the request of the Presidente, señor Albizu Campos was called to render the report of his nationalist mission through the suramericano continent.
The informant pronounced a discourse of more than two and a half hours relating the diverse incidents and activities that he deployed in his propaganda journey. He made reference preferably to his stay in the República Dominicana where he said he was filled with all the attentions and generosity of the dominicano people who lent him fraternal cooperation both economic and moral. He referred to the homage that he rendered in the company of the dominicanos intellectuals and the high clergy of the República in the Capilla de los Inmortales to the great patricios of the independence of Santo Domingo. He highlighted the name of the writer and patriota Luis C. del Castillo who answered his discourse in a most eloquent oration. In Santo Domingo he said he dictated a series of conferences in the principal cities of the República without receiving any monetary remuneration, he organized the portorriqueña colony in that country and founded several juntas pro-independencia de Puerto Rico, some of them presided over by the venerable patricio doctor Henríquez y Carvajal, whose representation was held in the assembly by doctor Manuel Guzmán Rodríguez, from Mayaguez. He made a succinct reference to his visit to Haití, where the Unión Patriótica presided over by M. Pierre Paul paid him a homage of sympathies. He said that in Cuba “the government of Machado put many obstacles to his mission”, but that “the youth showed themselves openly on his side”. He added that the university students designated him to represent them “on the great commemorative date of the students shot during the Spanish regime.” That in la Habana he dissolved the Congreso de la Prensa Latina with a resolution requesting that the Congreso be in solidarity with the cause of the independence of Puerto Rico and Filipinas, “and that the assembly was closed for not discussing the motion despite the adhesion that the delegations of Bélgica, España and la América Latina lent to it.” The orator stated that due to the lateness of the hour and how much he had to narrate of his visit to Méjico and el Perú he suspended his report. Before finishing he censured the attitude that the dirigentes and the Partido Nacionalista in general had been assuming. “It is necessary to end this cardboard nationalism and it is necessary to foment a true nationalism, of action, informed by a spirit of sacrifice and of acrizolado patriotism,” he finished by saying. (Applause).
EL LCDO. PEDRO ALBIZU CAMPOS FUE ELECTO PRESIDENTE DEL PARTIDO NACIONALISTA DE PUERTO RICO²³
The Asamblea General del Partido Nacionalista celebrated in el Ateneo adopted in the early morning hours of yesterday the following resolution: “El Partido Nacionalista solemnly declares: “That the immediate suppression of norteamericano colonialism is unpostponable, and it commits itself to celebrate the constituent convention that establishes in Puerto Rico the government of a free, sovereign and independent republic, as soon as it receives the suffrage of the majorities. “The citizens of Puerto Rico, who, worthy of their origin, fight for a Patria independent of all tutelage, must enter the Partido Nacionalista to immediately present a united front to the invader. Their adhesion to other political parties contributes to the portorriqueña disorientation, weakens the national resistance, all in the sole benefit of the imperial norteamericana invasion, skillfully and systematically directed from Washington, to reduce our people to impotence so that we are pariahs in our own Patria. “It will treat without pity the natives or foreigners who, by good or bad arts, pretend to secure the colonial regime, in whatever form it is presented to the country. “It will end the illusion of converting our Patria with a norteamericana province, (“estado”, sic), because that represents the voluntary and ignominious suppression of our international personality. “It will abolish by all means within its reach the obligatory system of teaching in the language of the invader, which disorients and brutalizes our youth, in grave prejudice to our cultural personality. It will try to maintain close international, cultural and political relations, especially with the nations of our origin. “Under the hard yoke of norteamericano colonialism of a nation of proprietors, we have passed to be a mass of peones, a rich economic mine for the exploitation of the invading capital. “Let us free the obrero immediately from the caudillaje of the disoriented obrerismo of yanqui origin, which, under the suggestive denomination of socialista, but without any political definition, and, therefore, the most skillful and effective defenders of colonialism, have made him the bearer of the norteamericana flag, under whose shadow this colonialism prevails that has converted us into slaves of the norteamericanas corporations and companies.
Pedro Albizu Campos addresses the delegates to the Asamblea General del Partido Nacionalista celebrated in the halls of el Ateneo Puertorriqueño on May 11, 1930. This assembly elected him presidente of the collectivity. Among others appear, José Coll Cuchí, Antonio Ayuso Valdivieso, Manuel Guzmán Rodríguez, Antonio R. Barceló, Luis Llorens Torres, José S. Alegría, Vicente Géigel Polanco and Samuel R. Quiñones.
LO QUE CONTESTA EL PRESIDENTE DEL PARTIDO NACIONALISTA A LAS MANIFESTACIONES DE DON JOSE COLL CUCHI 24
“Señor José Coll Cuchí, has retired from the Partido Nacionalista definitively. He declared it rotundly before the Asamblea that the Partido has just celebrated. He disdained the commission that went to look for him so that he would rectify what he said. He refused in absolute terms. I can assure señor José Coll Cuchí, that the Partido Nacionalista has definitely left an enormous nightmare. In answer to his injury to the Asamblea Nacionalista that applauded what I said before it, I will limit myself to rejecting his declarations, all false, affirming that Cuba, Santo Domingo, the foreigners, especially the españoles, and other entities were offended there. I have sustained here and everywhere, and not for any convenience, the following postulates: The independence of Puerto Rico; The antillana confederation; The Ibero-americana Unión; The world hegemony of the iberoamericanas nations. The prestige of each of those nations has been and is sacred to me. He accuses me of having attacked Estados Unidos for the policy that the invader has imposed in our land. I do not defend myself from that nor will I ever defend myself. It honors me. I grant señor José Coil Cuchí the privilege of continuing to sing to the flag of Estados Unidos as he did in my presence in the first nationalist meeting that we celebrated in the Plaza Baldorioty in the year 1924, something that obliged me to rectify him on the same tribune and in his presence. That same praise to the flag of Estados Unidos he repeated in the Asamblea de la Alianza celebrated in Mayaguez in the past year. Such is the information that deserves all credit and that I have received from respectable caballeros attending said act. We venerate the glorious name of José Martí all the defenders of liberty. That is why I called him in the discourse that I pronounced in the Asamblea, el Apóstol, el Maestro, and el Mártir of the libertarian ideals. I do not know if señor José Coll Cuchí is known in Cuba