From very early on, friends and relatives and numerous nationalists arrived at the Nationalist Junta where the corpses of Beauchamp and Rosado were displayed, who, in turn, rendered a guard of honor to their companions.
Shortly after, Doña Ramona Ayala and her husband, Mr. Pedro Rosado, parents of Hiram Rosado, and Ana Luisa Pérez, wife of Beauchamp, the father of Elías and his brothers, arrived.
Entrance was allowed to the people, who in small groups, remained for a moment in mute contemplation, until near the doors, only the members of the Party, the nationalist gentlemen, the relatives of the young men, and the representatives of the Press remained inside the premises.
A tragically emotional moment was when, before leaving for the cemetery, over the lid of the glass, the parents, who until then had been strong, said goodbye to their children crying.
-You are leaving me, my son! You are leaving me!
Said the father of Hiram Rosado. His wife, who had retreated a little, then approached Mr. Rosado and tried to give him encouragement:
-Do not cry Pedro. I am not crying anymore!
The most desolate affliction was portrayed on the face of Beauchamp’s father.
In perfect order, carried by their own parents and by their nationalist companions, the boxes were placed in the hearses. They went in front of four abreast, in the first place the Director and Sub-Director of the cadre of nurses of the Liberator Army, and a group of nationalist ladies carrying bouquets and wreaths of flowers, among them a young woman, family of Ramón S. Pagán, who carried a wreath from the commercial firm José B. López, in her hands, behind the funeral carriages, surrounded by the relatives and friends of the victims and then the people.
An immense crowd that grew larger, stretched out to fill the streets materially.
As the immense multitude passed, the buses and cars had to stop, to give way to the human sea, which in a demonstration of sympathy for the fallen, came from all sectors of the city. More than fifty cars accompanied the burial, this being an imposing and moving spectacle.
In perfect order, the funeral procession paraded to the Catholic church of Barrio Obrero where the licenciado Albizu Campos was already waiting, surrounded by several leaders of the Party, who stood next to the coffins while Reverend Hernández sang the responsory for the eternal rest of the deceased.
In the same way, it continued to the Santurce cemetery at the height of whose street another huge crowd was waiting.
Next to the open graves, one next to the other, the nationalist ladies stopped, on one side, with the flowers and on the other the maximum Leader licenciado Pedro Albizu Campos and his followers, at that moment the father of Hiram Rosado arrived at the foot of the grave where his son would soon rest, who waited for everything to end to bring to the unfortunate mother of the young man, the crucifix that was placed on the box, and that she wanted to keep as an eternal and painful memory of her immense misfortune.
When the crowd realized that the licenciado Albizu Campos was going to take the floor to dismiss the mourning, the words of the Nationalist leader were heard.
“Gentlemen: The most permanent value in man is valor. Valor is the supreme virtue of man and is cultivated as all virtue is cultivated and can be lost as all virtue is lost. Valor in the individual is his supreme good. It is of no use to man to be full of wisdom and physical vitality if he lacks valor. That is the supreme good of the individual and of the nation. Because valor is the only thing that allows the transmutation of man for superior purposes. Valor is what allows man to walk firmly and serenely over the shadows of death and when man passes calmly over the shadows of death, then it is that man enters into immortality.”
“The cult of heroism is not a romantic cult. The cult of heroism is the cult of eternity.”
“Here we bring, gentlemen, precious ashes, we bring precious ashes of authentic heroes. We bring ashes that speak of the immortality of Puerto Rico, of the eternity of Puerto Rico. We bring ashes of glorious and valiant heroes. And it was said, gentlemen, that valor had died in the Homeland; and when it was said that valor had died in the Homeland, the Homeland was sentenced to the death of slavery; but, gentlemen, there has been a denial of that phrase that the Puerto Rican collectively taken, was cowardly. That is a legend that a rotten leadership brought to the Homeland to justify its trafficking with the life of its Homeland. Our people are courageous, our people are a heroic people.”
“We have already brought here precious ashes of other heroes. Nationalism has brought to the Homeland, the transmutation of its being, because man was not born to vegetate or to be fat and strong, man was born to stand on supreme principles in accordance with his immortality. To enter into immortality there is only one entrance; the door of valor that leads to sacrifice for a supreme cause. One must sacrifice oneself for the independence of the Homeland.”
“An empire, gentlemen, inferior to us, in order, in culture, in wisdom, in goodness, in charity, in all the virtues that make peoples great, intends to dominate us, and when the Puerto Ricans all react against the deception of that empire, the shameful and criminal tyranny, it uses murder as a regime of government. And it was not Albizu Campos who said it, but Dr. Rhoads of the Rockefeller Institute who in 1932 was fulfilling the sweet mission of killing the women of Puerto Rico, because what the yankis are interested in is not the Puerto Ricans, but the large and beautiful land of Puerto Rico.”
Mr. Albizu Campos cites what is related to the letter in which Dr. Rhoads confessed to having killed 8 Puerto Ricans, and says that after completing his work of assassinations, the government provided him with a plane to go to receive the prize for his work in the United States.
“A tyrant has fallen, gentlemen, named Colonel Riggs whom God forgive for the crimes he perpetrated in Puerto Rico. We say this without hatred or resentment and with the dogmatic certainty of the purest Christianity as if we were looking at him face to face, as we looked at him one day in El Escambrón, face to face. The Río Piedras assassination was his work; with him, a bunch of ill-born Puerto Ricans are responsible for that assassination. With them is also responsible General Blanton Winship who occupies La Fortaleza. A cold assassination to perpetuate assassination as a norm of government, has been carried out by the entire police force. I tell my countrymen, that when the police of that regime have arrested their children or their brothers, be careful because they are educated in the school of assassination.”
He continues speaking about what the police are as a body to guarantee the lives of citizens and what an armed institute is, elaborating on considerations about the way that he believes is the correct one when a person is arrested. Mr. Albizu Campos believes that it is not to the barracks that those arrested should be taken but to the jail. But that here in Puerto Rico it is not done that way because the police authorities know that their authority ends when an arrested person is taken to the jail where only the warden of the jail can dispose of his life. “Those arrested — continues the nationalist leader — must be handed over to justice so that it can purge the responsibility. In this case, the police under the command of General Winship committed an assassination worse than those of the ‘gangsters’ of Chicago. Worse, because the ‘gangsters’ have a code of honor and do not even kill a kidnapped person. General Winship wants to raise us a policy with the criterion that codes, courts of justice, prosecutors, judges be suppressed. Because, what are those officials needed for when with four bandits armed with ‘machine guns’, with an army, with a fleet and a tyranny to do justice in the name of foreign despotism they assassinate in the General Barracks everyone they take there.”
“General Winship says that he does not need laws or prosecutors, or courts, or judges. The police are authorized to kill. General Winship says that those are stories that the death penalty exists here. He has no reason then to ask that the death penalty be restored. He has at his disposal a squadron, an army, planes, submarines in his bloodstained hands of noble blood. And he is right. Tyranny is one and indivisible, tyranny is not shared with anyone, not even with a brother, much less with the slave. Why restore the death penalty, if he restored it and executes it in the name of the freedom of all Puerto Rico?”
The speaker expands on considerations about the hunger and misery of Puerto Rico that he attributes to the exploitation exercised by the foreign regime. He cites the case of the Ponce police who shot to death in his own bed in the hospital a wounded man, to elaborate on his allegations that the police in Puerto Rico have learned the lesson that derives, according to the nationalist leader, from the order of the late Colonel Riggs to kill the nationalists.
“And it is said, continues the speaker, that there is freedom in Puerto Rico, and that Albizu Campos even speaks on the radio. Albizu Campos has put everything to the test. And when they have seen that a patriotic movement has emerged, not to do banditry politics, but to point out the crimes, nationalism turns out to be bad for them.”
“The day after having assassinated Pagán, Santiago, Rodríguez Vega and wounded Pearson, Colonel Riggs said in a newspaper that there would be a war to the death against all Puerto Ricans. This was telling Puerto Rico that it is a noble, kind people. Riggs forgot everything and we forget him in front of his shadow because we believe in immortality and he is alive to answer before the eternal God for his crimes committed with these two victims of Homeland independence. That is why I repeat his words here, because that is what happened yesterday in San Juan. That is why Blanton Winship is right and we do not explain why he asks the Legislature to restore the death penalty. A man who presents himself with his army, with his squadron, with his cannons and with the noblest blood of the Homeland asking the Legislature to restore the death penalty, serenely and in the name of yanki fraternity for all Puerto Ricans.”
He attacks the police saying that after locking up their defenseless victims they already assassinate them with gunshots, the agents then mutually excusing each other and declaring for each other to cover up their crime.
“A man appears beaten to a pulp and others riddled with bullets.” Tyranny creates irresponsibility of government. No one is irresponsible in a tyranny. When the tyrant says that he is not responsible for a crime, he is telling his henchmen: “You are not responsible either.” It is written in black and white. The lesson of tyranny has been learned and General Winship is right. Captain Martínez Chapel is right. They are supremely right.
There are no codes, or tribunals or prosecutors, or anything. The foreign tyranny is not interested in any of that. It is only interested in killing the nationalism of the invaded country. They are right but the assassinations cannot go unpunished in the conscience of men of honor and valor.
As long as there are free men and men of valor, the assassins will not go unpunished. The yanki regime is doing us a supreme good. The yanki wants to intimidate us with assassination. They bring bandits from the United States as teachers to teach us English.
They can kill Albizu Campos. Nothing will be solved. They can kill 10,000 nationalists. A million Puerto Ricans will emerge. The best and fastest way to make the nation nationalist in 24 hours is by following that school of assassinations. Nationalism will not attack treacherously but facing the sun, facing eternity.
“Here are two authentic heroes, Elías Beauchamp and Hiram Rosado, blood of heroes, they are the fruit of an ideal and of a reconquest; their ideology is the independence of Puerto Rico. It is the ideology and it is a consecration to heroism and sacrifice. Here two heroes and two brave men tell me and everyone that the oath in Puerto Rico is valid and is sealed with the blood of immortals.”