finds itself only within its party in that important extreme. His Party and the Socialist Party, having been until now allies of adversity, feel an affinity between them of such a nature that it separates them as a group from the Unionist Party. The immediate effect of the declarations made in the Manifesto will be to precipitate the general link between the Republicans and Socialists, despite the official hostility that the coalition would encounter. There is no doubt that in Estados Unidos there is currently no room for tolerance towards socialist parties or coalitions with socialist parties. The unionist party is then presented with a situation that requires immense internal organization to prepare for the electoral struggle that will be extremely passionate. The moment is one of expectation, especially for the socialists who have been disauthorized as a political party in the manifesto. This has been the cause of protests among all socialists. We sincerely believe that it would have had a better effect to invite them also to a general understanding, since they are a party constituted in Puerto Rico representing living forces in the country. Our duty is clear, whatever the result of the assemblies held by the militant parties, we will be within the liberals, defenders of each and every one of the rights of our people to enjoy their complete civilization without restrictions that arise from their will. PEDRO ALBIZU CAMPOS EL LCDO. ALBIZU CAMPOS RESPONDING TO THE IDEA OF MR. BARCELO SUBMITS TO THE CONSIDERATION OF THE COUNTRY A NEW PLAN FOR THE FORMATION OF THE PUERTO RICAN ALLIANCE Ponce, Puerto Rico April 24, 1924 Hon. Antonio R. Barceló, President of the Senate San Juan, Puerto Rico My distinguished friend: Throwing stones at our compatriots is senseless. I applaud the invitation made by “La Democracia” to all Puerto Ricans to suggest the ideas necessary to carry out the beautiful idea of uniting us all in the Homeland. That invitation is inspired by good faith and by the highest patriotism. Responding to it and in fulfillment of a civic duty I allow myself to offer the following plan: First: Formally invite the Socialist Party to be part of the Puerto Rican Alliance. The reasons for not doing so presented in the alliance project between the Unionist and Republican Parties do not seem sufficient to me. Not doing so would be to commit a preterition against a legally constituted Party, represented in our Legislature, and signatory of the Joint Resolution, and whose representatives went to Washington and worked as members of the Joint Commission to collect the rights that were demanded in said resolution. This preterition will be capital, in the hands of the enemies of a good faith understanding among all Puerto Ricans and will tear down the noble purpose that is pursued, and instead of consolidating the Homeland in a beautiful unity, deeper divisions will arise to the detriment of the country. Second: Platform. A. Economic Part 1. Return our lands to Puerto Rican hands. 2. Industrialization of the country. 3. Develop maritime and commercial life to make Puerto Rico an essentially maritime country as indicated by its island condition. 4. Raise the standard of living of our workers. B. Cultural Part. 1. Promote the study of mechanical arts and physical and natural sciences. 2. Restore our culture, orienting youth towards the sources of our civilization. C. Political Part. (a) Transitory regime. 1. Elective Governor without restrictions of any kind. 2. Abolition of the Federal Court to unify our judicial system. 3. Creation of a Supreme Court with final jurisdiction in all cases except those involving the interpretation of American constitutional law and public international law. (b) Definition of status. 1. Formal commitment between all current parties so that our Legislature approves a Joint Resolution requesting the Congress of Estados Unidos to convene the people of Puerto Rico to a constituent convention. D. Administrative Part. 1. Selection of the best men for the positions, applying the Civil Service Law with absolute impartiality. 2. Creation of the judicial career selecting for it the men by rigorous position. To achieve this it will be necessary to raise the salaries of the judges and that the superior positions be filled by the ascent of those already appointed, and that these occupy their positions while they demonstrate good conduct in them. This measure will be effective to sanitize the collective environment. 3. Preponderance in the insular administration of bona fide elements residing outside the capital to force it to concentrate its attention on the general interests of the country. Third: Procedure. A. Creation of mixed local boards that represent the current parties in the proportion determined by the assemblies to be held by said parties. B. The candidacies for local boards must be endorsed by a certain number of voters and these will be submitted to primaries in each municipality. C. Each local board will designate two representatives from its midst, who with the representatives designated by the local boards of the district, will constitute the district board. D. In general primaries, in each district, from three candidacies that the district board will submit to the electorate, three representatives, bonafide residents, will be elected for each of them, and these will constitute the Central Board of the Puerto Rican Alliance. This will have the power to enforce the plan approved by the assemblies of the current parties. To be free from official influence, it will have its seat in Ponce or in any district other than San Juan. E. The municipal candidates and the candidates to the Chamber will be selected in primaries of candidacies submitted to the electorate by the Local Board or by a certain number of voters. The number of candidacies that the Local Board must submit to the electorate will be three. F. In primaries in each district of the candidacies that the District Board submits to the electorate, or a certain number of voters, the senators for said district will be welcomed. The District Board will submit three candidacies to the electorate. G. In general primaries throughout the country, the candidates for senators and representatives by accumulation and the candidates for insular elective positions will be chosen, from three candidacies that the Central Board will submit to the electorate, providing that the Senatorial District of San Juan may not have more than one senator or representative by accumulation. H. The change of residence invalidates the right to represent the city that granted it, whether it is a Local Board, a District Board, Municipality, Representative District or Senatorial District. I. The Central Board with a representative designated ad hoc by each District Board, will constitute the Board that will recommend to the executive the candidates that will have to select for insular administrative positions. Fourth: distribution of power. This will be done on the basis of proportional representation in accordance with the result of the 1920 elections. The general sanitation has to start with the decentralization of representation. The progress of the country will be uniform and rapid. This is a patriotic understanding and requires new orientations that emanate from good faith and from the sacrifice of prejudices and vested interests. We can all well dispense with the current names, since there are no reasons for great pride for anyone when the partisan struggle of the last 25 years has reduced us to pariahs in our Homeland. You and Mr. Tous Soto have broken the collective inertia. The movement begins, and although we do not constitute a large people in territory or population, we can be great in material wealth, in art and sciences, and be at the forefront of civilization. Please accept this humble effort in proof of the appreciation that motivates the beautiful idea of rebuilding our Homeland. With all my consideration. Your friend and S.S., P. ALBIZU CAMPOS. IN PUERTO RICO A PLAN IS PROPOSED FOR THE ANNEXATION OF THAT COUNTRY TOGETHER WITH CUBA AND HAITI TO ESTADOS UNIDOS⁶ A PUERTO RICAN ALSO PROTESTS In addition to this vibrant and magnificent protest by the Cuban Consul, who has known how to defend our dignity, a distinguished Puerto Rican, Mr. P. Albizu Campos, answered Mr. Tous’ manifesto with noble virility. “Convinced Mr. Tous -says Mr. Albizu Campos- that the Americans do not esteem us as equals despite citizenship, but always desirous of seeing us tied to the Yankee imperial chariot, advises our de facto acceptance and contrary to the right and effect maintains a project of amendment to the Constitution, to admit Puerto Rico as a “state” with representation but without a vote in Congress, except in its own affairs. Such an amendment would well reflect the American attitude, but it is not moved by an ingenuity that allows its hypocrisy to be unmasked. Even if the amendment were feasible, it is so humiliating that we accept a position of inequality that that is enough to reject it outright. The most painful thing of all is that Mr. Tous is not content with the sinking of his homeland, but offers Estados Unidos a plan that would destroy the aspirations to independence of the great Filipino people, and that constitutes a gratuitous attack on our sister peoples in the race, Cuba, Haití and Santo Domingo, who with sacrifice, the only savior, freed themselves from the clutches of conquest. Why, instead of facilitating the annexation of Cuba, Haití and Santo Domingo, does he not protest the vandalistic outrage of which the Dominican people are victims, the promiscuous massacre of thousands of Haitians, the failed attacks against the sovereignty of Cuba after having sworn to defend it? He does not protest. We form a chain with those indomitable peoples, whose example we must imitate, and since we sink with pleasure, he believes that we must drag them also to the same abyss. This attitude is logical, after preaching so much to this unhappy people that they are not capable of anything, comes the conviction of moral incapacity to resist the brutal attack of the strong, and he forgets that these men in other lands ARE NOT MADE OF GELATIN. It is dishonorable that Puerto Ricans serve as an instrument to facilitate the plan premeditated by American statesmen, to annex their Latin neighbors, with economic penetration, disorganizing their institutions and finally applying the cudgel of military force”. THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNIONIST PARTY AND PUERTO RICAN NATIONALISM The Puerto Rican Alliance, a fusion of the Parties that were called Unionist and Republican, has placed the country in the dilemma of submitting to the dictatorship of the plutocracy or to the dictatorship of demagogy. The electoral right has been destroyed; the directory will decide who we must vote for in the next elections if we are to allow it to exercise the will it intends. When the electoral right is destroyed, the gesture is made of favoring women’s suffrage. Dictatorships have used many subterfuges to impose themselves, but we never believed that they would have to use the skirt of a woman as a shield. What is the purpose of a dictatorship in Puerto Rico? This is imposed only in moments of great crisis and to collect or protect fundamental collective rights when all ordinary means of government have failed. It is an extremely exceptional measure and is tolerated and sanctioned by an imperative necessity. Our people are accused of not being prepared for their own government. Their rulers deny them the opportunity to prepare themselves and exercise a veiled imperialism over them. To culminate their humiliation, their own children want to assume the gesture of dictators over them. Each political party in Puerto Rico should be a school of democracy. Apparently, it is an inconvenience to certain leaders of public opinion. What is the purpose of the dictatorship? In the definitive agreements of the assemblies, there is talk of the agrarian problem, the problem of the schools and other problems, for whose solution a dictatorship is not justified because today we have powers to solve those problems. We are also told that the Alliance will direct all its efforts to the consideration of full self-government to achieve the sovereignty of the people of Puerto Rico within the sovereignty of Estados Unidos. The authors of this phrase have explained to us that achieving full self-government is confined to obtaining the approval of the bill pending consideration before the Congress of Estados Unidos, by virtue of which Puerto Rico may elect its own governor in 1928. But that same project provides that that governor may be removed by the President of Estados Unidos. The governor thus elected will feel responsible to the President of Estados Unidos and not to the people who granted him his representation. We will achieve with his election to put one more puppet at the disposal of Yankee imperialism in Puerto Rico, which will thus be able to escape the responsibility of its misgovernment and the sons of our country will bear it. Wise is Yankee politics that knows how to find good instruments for its execution! The debated phrase “sovereignty within sovereignty” some tell us that it means the federal “state” and others that it means free associated state. The authors of it offer interpretations that constitute an antithesis. It carries death within itself. Of course, it cannot refer to the federal “state”, because this is neither state nor sovereign. It is a mere province of the American nation. As the other interpretation is so contrary to this, we come to the conclusion that the phrase means nothing. It is a veil to cover the colonialism that wants to be implanted with the consent of the men in whom we deposit our trust. The Department of War, which disposes of life and property in Puerto Rico, has just published an official report in which it makes a complete narration of the policy of Estados Unidos in Puerto Rico from the Hispano-American War until now. We are clearly told that Puerto Rico will never be admitted to the American Union in accordance with all the precedents followed until now. It is also denied its right to constitute itself as a free nation. And cynically it is affirmed that American citizenship for us is only an imperial means to keep us subject to the Yankee mandate. Our leaders seem resigned to the situation imposed on them by American kaiserism, and for “convenience”, they want to subject their people to that will, which is inimical to their happiness and dignity. Faithful to the imposed mandate, they have constituted the Alliance to formalize the colonialism already established. We have been told that the object is to sanitize the political environment, to protect us against the socialist calamity, etc., etc., but no one has believed this, except for the people who are interested in the constitution of the directory. None of the militant parties will take care to defend our collective personality and our inalienable right to constitute a free people among the free peoples of the world. The ideal of independence has died among the militant parties, our people have been played with. Its great majority is pro-independence to the bone. We offer the most exceptional spectacle: the people are the action, their leaders, the reaction; the people, the vanguard, their leaders, the impedimenta. All the effort of our leaders seems to have been limited to organizing hosts that, after being organized, have become afraid and have resolved to surrender with their army so as not to incur the malevolence of the enemy. For the Unionist Party, whose soul was always nationalist, what has happened is death. They have been formally decreed by stipulating that the Alliance will be for an indefinite period and that all its official organisms will be suspended. No one may convene the Union of Puerto Rico to any meeting after this agreement. “The preservation of the insignia, the name, and the personality”, is a skillful formula to maintain the cohesion of the hosts so as not to see the directory reduced to a pretentious skeleton. The truth is that the Union of Puerto Rico and the so-called Republican Party have been dissolved and a new party dominated by the plutocracy has been constituted. No people could expect a benefit from this combination, and much less ours, which, overly confident, places its trust everywhere. The only goodness of said movement is the resurgence of Puerto Rican Nationalism. The new nationalism will be true. It will watch over the economic well-being of the working classes, it will return the lands to Puerto Rican hands, it will not allow the imposition of an exotic culture, and it will not cease its effort until it vindicates the national dignity. This painful imposition has been invested with the language that is used to consecrate the great ideals. Undress the proposition of that beautiful clothing and you will find the macabre figure of a daring committed by sons and the tranquility, of reconstruction. (sic). It will not be the plutocratic Alliance, nor will it be the demagogy that is imposed on this people. All of Puerto Rico will rise with the patriotic ideal of a pure nationalism and will punish at the polls the men who have violated its trust. The Homeland is indestructible and will survive all the impositions of its own or of strangers. PEDRO ALBIZU CAMPOS Ponce, Puerto Rico, May 12, 1924 OUR INTERVIEWS We went to see Lcdo. Albizu Campos, at his office in the city of Ponce, where we talked extensively with him, about the political topics that in this hour of anxieties and thoughts worry the world; Albizu is deeply documented, and is also in direct relations with the men and associations from abroad that at this moment are interested in the right of the peoples, and in the justice of humanity. Albizu Campos is a nervous and dynamic spirit that acts silently, without stridencies, but putting his absolute faith in the solid creed of his ideal. His precise and forceful conversation cracks like a whip, glows, sometimes burns like a flame. He is one of our most distinguished tribunes. His oratory is not sprinkled with rhetoric but abounds in ideas and virile exaltations. When he speaks to the people, his word acquires strength and flashes of fire, shaking the masses in a whirlwind of gusts of tempest. Then, the blizzard becomes soft and when he speaks to the heart, even the most recalcitrant multitudes, meditate. Albizu Campos is an unquestionable reality, but his great promising harvest is already in season. The ears of corn are turning yellow, while they are overwhelmed by pure maternal feelings. Having already done our interview, we asked him for his portrait. -I don’t have a portrait-he said. -But, we need it. -It doesn’t matter, publish the interview without it. It is not necessary. -Let’s go to Valiente’s studio. The man became surly. -It would be an outrage,-he protested. Our gaze was running through the paintings in the office, while we were talking. At a glance we found the object of our desire. We already had the photograph. In a careless moment it would be ours. It would also offer us the opportunity to let our readers know about the cordial reception that José Vasconcelos received in the city of the South on his way to Santo Domingo, by this group of men who love Puerto Rico above all things. Here is something of the much that we talked about with Pedro Albizu Campos. -Where did you graduate as a lawyer? -At Harvard University in New England. -When you came to Puerto Rico, which political party attracted your attention? -None. -We would like to tell the readers of “Poliedro” your personal political process until its culmination as Vice-president of the Nationalist party. I was always a defender of the absolute independence of the homeland. I qualified the annexationist “republicans” as renegades and the “socialists” as disoriented and the parties that they integrated, as instruments of the imperialism of Estados Unidos and largely responsible for the destruction of our nationality. The Unionist party, despite its fifth base requesting the recognition of our independence, did not interest me, because it was a frankly governmental party that cooperated directly in the demolition work directed from Washington instead of sustaining a collective action that would allow us to conserve our wealth, as a necessary base to establish our national sovereignty. When Mont Reily arrived in Puerto Rico, of fond memory for many traitors, and who threw the unionists out of power, I suffered a grave mistake in believing that, outside of the pain, a rebel party would be organized. I confused the uproar formed by those who had lost public positions with the true rebellion. Then I joined the Unionist party. I was the only one who entered the fight when the party could not count on a single position. Everyone knows how ignominiously it surrendered to imperial power. Despite that I continued to sustain the ideal of independence in all the meetings and assemblies of the party. When it resolved to constitute the Puerto Rican Alliance with the Republican party, I understood that the majority party was definitely complying with colonialism and I immediately retired from its ranks. My work in the Nationalist Party is known throughout the country. -What about your trip to Hispano América as Special Envoy of Puerto Rican Nationalism? -The Nationalist party, in its last assembly, imposed that duty on me, and I hope to leave for the lands of Ibero-American promise at the beginning of this year. -What plan would you draw up for Puerto Rico to achieve the right to enjoy its sovereignty in the concert of free peoples? -Intense economic organization, conservation of our Hispanic culture and civilization, suppression of yacophile influences, non-cooperation with the North American imperial government, passive resistance and preparation of our people for the international struggles that are approaching. -Do you believe that Estados Unidos represents a danger for Hispanic America or on the contrary is the point through which the new civilization must enter for us? -Estados Unidos is the danger for humanity as a whole, and especially for Ibero América because of its absorbing policy. In Europe and in America there is a civilization of Greco-Roman origin and of which we Puerto Ricans are direct heirs because of our link with Spain. That civilization has degenerated in Estados Unidos. The knowledge that it has offered to man, the North Americans have dedicated to exploiting immigrants and blacks within their borders, and now they intend to continue the same work with neighboring nations. Lacking responsibility in human relations, for them all means are good if it is a matter of increasing their material wealth. And that is not civilization but barbarism armed with some knowledge of civilization. The North Americans have nothing to offer the world for its improvement unless it is the destruction of its empire. -Don’t you believe in the possibility of a new world war? If so, what do you think would be the destiny of the Antilles? -It is inevitable. The common enemy is Estados Unidos. The battlefield will be our waters in front of Panamá, Europe, Ibero América and Asia, will not tolerate being reduced to the vassalage that Estados Unidos intends to impose on them either by direct force against defenseless peoples in their territories or by economic penetration. The Antillean Archipelago occupies a privileged position in world geography. It is essential to throw Estados Unidos out of its territories and to consolidate them under a confederation with sufficient naval power to resist any revenge, because I have no doubt about the decision that the next war will have. This will not end until the North American empire is reduced to impotence. -What concept do you deserve of the Puerto Rican literary movement in relation to our policy? -Almost all our literati have extinguished their numen in the shadow of the budget, or believe themselves completely defeated. The letters speak to us only of pain, uncertainty, deception, suicide or conventionalism. There are the noble exceptions of those men who know why God has given them the privileged faculty of seeing clearly and expressing elegantly. They, although few, invoke the irresistible force that emanates from our Hispanic civilization and culture and from our racial traditions. They wield the verb with courage and inspiration so that our people may have faith in their own greatness and prepare for the struggle for the vindication of their rights. -Do you believe that our poets are doing something with their literature for the cause of the ideal of independence? -Almost nothing. When they do not contribute directly to its defeat
with bloodless verses that smell of suicide and dissolution. The poet has not yet emerged who evokes in our people all its greatness. -So, what orientations should the poets have to give a strong contribution to these ideals? -They must recover the value that inspires all creation so as not to disfigure it by thinking of external conventionalism. They should not stifle their numen in their sterile subjectivism and amorous squabbles at odds with aesthetic expression. They must be the vanguard in the defense of their own dignity and that of their Homeland, as well as of their Hispanic culture, so that they may figure in the world’s Parnassus. -We would like to know what your vision is of the future of Puerto Rico vis-à-vis Estados Unidos. -Our Homeland will be a free and sovereign nation against the will of Estados Unidos. Its independence without limitations as well as that of the nations of the Caribbean and of Central America under the pernicious influence of Estados Unidos currently, will impose itself as a universal necessity that sustains the equilibrium between the nations, and a state of law between them in this hemisphere. -What do you believe is the destiny of Hispanic ‘America in the concert of the great nations? -Our Iberian nations are the nations of the future. Europe and North America pretend to secure in their bosom privileged positions with a view to future events. A harmonious understanding between the Ibero-American nations would immediately reestablish the international equilibrium destroyed by the Great War that gave the North Americans the economic hegemony of the world, thus creating the most serious danger with which humanity has stumbled until now. These are in broad strokes some of the ideas expressed by Albizu Campos in the course of our long conversation. Naked and frank, they enclose between the lines grave and profound commentaries. We meditate…