PEDRO ALBIZU CAMPOS Student of Harvard University 1913-1921
INTRODUCTION
By J. Benjamín Torres
The present compilation comprises articles, proclamations, declarations, interviews, manifestos, reviews of speeches and some correspondence of don Pedro Albizu Campos published in some of the newspapers and magazines of Puerto Rico during the years from 1923 to 1936.
We have included his writings from 1923, the year in which he made his formal entry into the Unión de Puerto Rico Party and began his political struggle, until the year 1936, when he was tried in the District Court of the United States of Puerto Rico, known as the Federal Court, for the alleged crime of “conspiracy” and was convicted and sentenced to six to ten years in prison.
We will see through his writings and pronouncements his political development until 1930 when he assumes the presidency of the Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico and undertakes a gigantic campaign of education and awareness. He begins to rediscover and rescue all the values and heroic deeds of our ancestors and to fight openly against the merciless exploitation that capitalism, colonialism and North American imperialism maintain in our Homeland. He becomes the Teacher of his people. He converts the tribune into a professorship.
This gigantic and successful campaign of education and national awareness forces imperialism to take the offensive and plot the destruction of the nationalist movement. Indeed, from the year 1935 a brutal repressive wave is unleashed against the Partido Nacionalista, which culminates in the Ponce Massacre on March 21, 1937 and in the imprisonment of the nationalist leadership in the Atlanta Penitentiary in the United States on June 7, 1937.
This anthology is part of the fruit of the research work on the history of the Partido Nacionalista and on the life and work of don Pedro Albizu Campos that, together with my partner Sonia E. Vergne,
we began in June 1972 as a thesis project for the Programa de Estudios Puertorriqueños that was sponsored by the Universidad del Estado de Nueva York in Buffalo jointly with the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña.
We have been reviewing all the newspapers and magazines of the time and interviewing people who were and are linked to the history of Nationalism in Puerto Rico. Much remains to be reviewed and compiled. All this material has been scattered in different private collections and in the different public libraries of Puerto Rico. There is still much material not compiled or cataloged in the different federal archives and public libraries of the United States and in archives in some sister republics of our America. Our work has only just begun.
We must extend our recognition and our deep gratitude to doctor Luis Nieves Falcón and doctor Ricardo E. Alegría, advisors to our research. Doctor Nieves Falcón was the one who recommended that we study in detail all the events in the history of the Partido Nacionalista, and who motivated us enough to dedicate ourselves to this fascinating full-time research and provided us with the necessary advice.
Doctor Ricardo E. Alegría and the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña granted us the economic resources and the necessary assistance for the financing of this costly investigation. Without the generous and valuable cooperation and encouragement of doctor Ricardo E. Alegría this research would not have been able to be carried out.
We also wish to express our gratitude to all those people who have offered us their generous cooperation and have provided us with very valuable materials. Worth mentioning, among others, Juan Antonio Corretjer, Pedro Albizu Meneses, Jacinto Rivera Pérez, Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico, Juanita Ojeda, Francisco Matos Paoli, Isabel Freyre, Justo Méndez Colón, Manuel Alvarado, Rafael V. Pérez Marchand, J. M. Torres Santiago, Amílcar Tirado Avilés, Isabeło Zenón Cruz, Robert Lewis, Marisa Rosado, Ricardo Campos Orta and Ovidio Dávila.
Likewise, we want to extend our gratitude to Lcdo. Angel Cruz Cruz, to Nimia Vicéns, Rafael Cancel Rodríguez, Rafael Aponte Ledée, Erasmo Velázquez and wife and to doctor Luis Manuel Rodríguez Morales, Executive Director of the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña for all the economic assistance provided for the financing of this publication.
We also record our gratitude to María Cristina García, director of the photographic laboratory of the Biblioteca General de the U.P.R. and to her assistants: Wilson Ortiz Pagán, José Ramón Cruz and
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Flavia Marichal Lugo for all the attention and cooperation to facilitate the photocopying work of the located material. To Idalia Delgado and the colleagues of the Colección Puertorriqueña. And to the typists Dalia M. García, Sara León and Julie Roche, who were in charge of typing all the originals.
Our gratitude is also committed to the maestro Lorenzo Homar, who designed the cover of the two volumes, and with the colleagues Víctor Rivera Torres and Antonio Colón y De Jesús, who were in charge of the art and design of the same.
Finally, we want to express our gratitude to the students of the course El Nacionalismo en Puerto Rico who helped us correcting the galley proofs.
CHRONOLOGY OF PEDRO ALBIZU CAMPOS
By J. Benjamín Torres
1893: June 29. Born in the city of Ponce and his parents were doña Juliana Campos y Campos and don Alejandro Albizu y Romero. He attended his primary education in the public schools of Juana Diaz and Ponce. 1912: He travels to study at the Universidad de Vermont in Estados Unidos with a scholarship from the Logia Aurora de Ponce. 1913: He moves to the Universidad de Harvard to continue his studies on the recommendation of two professors. 1916: He receives his bachelor’s degree, continues post-graduate studies and enters the Law School of the Universidad de Harvard. 1921: He finishes his studies. He obtains diplomas in Chemical Engineering; Letters and Philosophy, Military Sciences and Law. He returns to Puerto Rico. 1922: He marries in Juana Diaz with Dra. Laura Meneses, of Peruvian nationality and whom he had met at Harvard. On 17 September 1922 the Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico, but Albizu Campos does not participate in the organization of this group. 1923: Albizu Campos makes his formal entry into the Partido Unión de Puerto Rico. 1924: March 26. His son Pedro Albizu Meneses is born in Ponce. In the month of May he breaks with the Partido Unión and joins the Partido Nacionalista. On May 18 he is elected first vice president of the Partido Nacionalista. 1925: August 30. His daughter Rosa is born in Ponce. On September 6 the Partido Nacionalista commissions him to visit the countries Latin Americans in a propaganda campaign of the nationalist ideal. 1927: June 20. He begins the pilgrimage through Latin America. He visits firstly Santo Domingo, then Haiti, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Venezuela. On October 16 his daughter Laura Esperanza is born in Peru. 1930: January 4. He returns to Puerto Rico. He goes to reside in the Barrio Villa Palmeras de Santurce. On May 11 he is elected president of the Partido Nacionalista in the assembly held by the group in the Ateneo and begins a gigantic campaign of education and awareness of the people throughout the fields, neighborhoods and public squares of Puerto Rico. His motto: “Nationalism is the Homeland organized for the rescue of its sovereignty.” 1932: April 16. The Legislature of Puerta de Tierra presents a project to convert the monoestrellada flag of Puerto Rico into a banner of the colony. Albizu Campos, together with the crowd that commemorated the birth of José De Diego in
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