Nationalist. I was always a defender of the absolute independence of the Homeland. I characterized the annexationist “republicans” as renegades and the “socialists” as disoriented, and the parties they integrated as instruments of United States imperialism 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 directly cooperated in the work of demolition 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, a pleasant memory for many traitors, and threw the unionists out of power, I suffered a grave error in believing that, apart from the sorrow, a rebellious party would be organized. I confused the hubbub formed by those who had lost public office with true rebellion. Then I joined the Unionist party. I was the only one who entered the struggle when the party could not count on a single post. Everyone knows how ignominiously it surrendered to the imperial power. Despite that, I continued to uphold the ideal of independence in all the rallies 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 definitively acquiescing to colonialism and I immediately withdrew from its ranks. My work in the Nationalist Party is known throughout the country. -What about your trip to Hispanic America 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 trace so that Puerto Rico achieves 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 coming. -Do you believe that the United States represents a danger for Hispanic America or, on the contrary, is it the point through which the new civilization is to enter for us? -The United States is a danger to all of humanity, and especially to Ibero America 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 through our connection with Spain. That civilization has degenerated in the United States. 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 their empire. -Do you not 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 the United States. The battlefield will be our waters off Panama, Europe, Ibero America and Asia, which will not tolerate being reduced to the vassalage that the United States intends to impose on them, either by direct force against defenseless peoples of their territories or by economic penetration. The Antillean Archipelago occupies a privileged position in world geography. It is essential to throw the United States out of its territories and 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 does the Puerto Rican literary movement deserve in relation to our politics? -Almost all our literati have extinguished their numen in the shadow of the budget, or believe themselves to be completely defeated. The letters speak to us only of pain, uncertainty, disappointment, 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 gallantly. They, although few, invoke the irresistible force that emanates from our Hispanic civilization and culture and from our racial traditions. They wield the word with courage and inspiration so that our people may regain 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 directly contribute to its defeat with bloodless verses that smell of suicide and dissolution. The poet who evokes all its greatness in our people has not yet emerged. -Then, what orientations should the poets have in order to make a strong contribution to those ideals? -They must recover the courage that inspires all creation so as not to disfigure when thinking of external conventionalism. They must not drown their numen in their sterile subjectivism and amorousness 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 their Hispanic culture, so that they may figure in the world Parnassus. -We would like to know what your vision of the future of Puerto Rico vis-à-vis the United States is. -Our Homeland will be a free and sovereign nation against the will of the United States. Its independence without limitations, as well as that of the nations of the Caribbean and Central America under the pernicious influence of the United States currently, will be imposed as a universal necessity that sustains the equilibrium among the nations, and a state of law among them in this hemisphere. -What do you believe is the destiny of Hispanic America in the concert of great nations? -Our Iberian nations are the nations of the future. Europe and North America intend to secure privileged positions within them with a view to future events. A harmonious understanding among the Ibero-American nations would immediately reestablish the international equilibrium destroyed by the Great War, which gave the North Americans economic hegemony of the world, thus creating the most serious danger that humanity has encountered so far. These are, in broad strokes, some of the ideas poured out by Albizu Campos in the course of our long conversation. Naked and frank, they contain between the lines serious and profound commentaries. We meditate… “MACFADDEN IS THE ONLY CONGRESSMAN WHO HAS PENETRATED THE CONSCIENCE OF THIS PEOPLE. WE ARE ANTI-AMERICAN BECAUSE WE HAVE TO COMBAT A GOVERNMENT THAT ONLY SERVES TO TEAR THE RICHES FROM OUR LAND”: ALBIZU CAMPOS (From our Editor in Ponce, Mr. Maldonado) In the “Hotel Meliá” we greeted the Vice President of the Nationalist Party, Ledo. P. Albizu Campos. We formulated several questions of political actuality to him, which he answered immediately: -What do you think, we interrogated him, about the manifestations that Representative MacFadden made to President Coolidge, regarding Puerto Rico? “MacFadden has said the absolute truth. He is the only congressman who has penetrated the conscience of this people,” Lcdo. Albizu Campos answered us. “We Puerto Ricans are anti-Americans because we have to combat a government that only serves in our land to tear away its riches, destroy its culture, and reduce it to an amorphous, despicable mass of peons.” “A strong people like the United States, with all the means to make Puerto Rico happy, denies it the most elementary rights of life and liberty, presenting itself in the crude form of the old oppressive empires, which have deserved the curse of history.” -“What opinion have you formed about the cablegram directed by Mr. Barceló to the Resident Commissioner, Mr. Córdova Dávila, asking him to confirm if MacFadden had really made the declarations imputed to him? “Sad message of disloyalty. We must be loyal even to our enemies. It is of interest to Puerto Rico that the gentlemen of the colonial Legislature manifest themselves with more civism, so that they can inform the government of the United States of the way our people think and feel.” Definitive definitions are the only basis for permanent understandings between friends and between enemies. That message contributes to the disorientation of the North American people, to whom it is necessary to say frankly that their policy in this land and in other parts of the world has created profound hostility.” What scope do you give to the manifestations of Representative Mac Fadden regarding that “the North American government must adopt measures to avoid that the pro-American sentiment does not weaken in Puerto Rico”? “Puerto Rico has never been and will never be Yankee. Every measure that the government of the United States adopts to denaturalize our country, with the purpose of “Yankeeizing” it, assimilating it, annexing it definitively, will be rejected by the Puerto Ricans, consciously or unconsciously, because there is an eternal conflict of race, of culture, of civilization and of material interests between the people of Puerto Rico and the people of the United States, harmonizable only on the basis of the only understanding between defined nationalities, which is the mutual recognition of their independence, which postulates reciprocal treatment on the basis of equality reestablished by the law of nations and by the principles that inform our western civilization. “We Puerto Ricans will combat every executive, legislative or judicial act of the United States in this land, because its only sanction is the force of the United States, and it is contrary to our will. North America has a duty to fulfill with us, and with the Ibero-American peoples, of whom we are a part, and that is to recognize the full independence of Borinquen.” “And that duty will be imposed on it by the force of incontestable international events that are coming to reestablish the equilibrium disturbed by North American imperialism.” PEDRO ALBIZU CAMPOS It was at the door of “La Correspondencia de Puerto Rico”, where I met, unexpectedly, with the dear friend Albizu Campos. We gave each other a hug, and after the routine greetings he interrogated me thus: -And those Quixotes, how are they doing? Haven’t they been knocked against a windmill yet? -No, nor will they be knocked against… -Because here there are no more mills than those of coffee and the others, which are not precisely of winds… Which ones? Which ones are they? Which ones are you referring to? -Those of the sugar centrals, which are more fearsome and more fatal for the Puerto Rican, than what the blades of those others were for the Wandering Knight, which when he attacked them, the hidalgo of La Mancha came out wounded and battered in body, but not in soul. And those mills of today, not only grind the body of the pale boricua, but they crush even his soul. Thus goes the body and the spirit of this people… Listen, listen, Albizu Campos said, interrupting me, I see you in a tragic plan. -How in a tragic plan? -I mean in an interview plan. And if that’s what you intend to do, I warn you that you won’t catch me. You won’t do to me what you did to Ignacio Guasp. -And what was it that I did to him? -Almost nothing: An interview so disjointed that in good times I won’t forget it… -Ah, but… didn’t you like it? -That’s why I say that I won’t forget it in good times, because I liked it very much. I read it two or three times. How good that was! How much I laughed; you can’t imagine it. Those things that go beyond the vulgar are what attract attention and make one have a good time. There is nothing more unbearable in life than that donkey-like seriousness with which some gentlemen want to shade all the acts of their life. It is the only thing that distinguishes us from the animals: laughter, and he who with his ingenuity manages to make us laugh and make us have a happy time, that is the man, even more: the hero. While I talk to Albizu Campos, I begin to observe him in detail. He is more tall than short; thin; his tan color characterizes him as a pure criollo; his eyes, like his gaze, have the expression of the gaze of a saint -this phrase is from Vasconcelos, who personally told me once that Albizu is one of the men of the most intellectual power in America; his conversation is clear, precise; his voice resonant; all his gestures are of modesty and he manifests them in such a way that it becomes impossible to believe that within him can be harbored, as it is harbored, the spirit of a rebel, of a future conductor of men, of peoples, of races; his culture is vast; he is only concerned with one thing: the liberation of his little island, of his Puerto Rico, for whose freedom he would offer his life at any moment. He cannot conceive that in the 20th century there are masters who command and slaves who obey: Albizu Campos will be for Puerto Rico what the famous Mahatma Gandhi is for India. -Listen: were you born in Ponce?, and I ask you that in that tragic interview plan that you have just indicated to me. -But do you really intend to do an interview with me?, he asked me with terror. -Yes, yes, an interview; so tell me: where were you born? -I was born and raised in Ponce, as our jíbaros say, he answered me resigned. When? -Well, on September 12, 1891. So I have my 36 years complete. -The primary instruction, did you take it in Ponce? -Yes, I took the first and second teachings in Ponce. -And the university, where? -In the United States, at Harvard University. -Did you reside in the North for a long time? -What studies did you do there? -I passed the course of Chemical Engineer, Letters and Philosophy, Military Sciences under the French Military Mission in the United States and Law. -Then you also put on the trappings of the military? -Yes, and I was a volunteer in the world war. -With what rank? -With the rank of first lieutenant of Infantry. I offered my services personally to the Department of War in Washington, on the condition of forming part of the Puerto Rican expeditionary troops destined for the European front. -Why did you stipulate that condition? -I stipulated that condition because I always believed and continue to believe that our participation in the European War would have been of great benefit to the people of Puerto Rico. The military organization of a people is necessary for its defense and that is achieved only with the painful sacrifices imposed by a war. If 30 or 40 thousand Puerto Ricans had returned from France lame, one-eyed or mutilated in any other way, there would be today in our land an organized rebellion that would impose respect on the North American empire. The European War offered us a splendid opportunity to organize our collective valor. For Puerto Rico the armistice was premature, and the recruitment contributed to the demoralization of the people. The only thing that has been achieved is the Federal Military insurance and certain pensions that attract a considerable group of Puerto Rican families towards the American flag. -And did you continue with the uniform? -After the European War, I rejected an appointment as first lieutenant of the reserve issued by the Department of War. Puerto Ricans should not be part of the military organizations, both naval and land, of the United States. We must reject the pretense of forming the cipayo army of Puerto Rico to attack our brothers in America. I have seen with great satisfaction that the Department of War has resolved to demobilize all Puerto Rican military units because they do not inspire confidence in them. Puerto Ricans do not lend themselves to the work of cowardice that the Yankee Marine Infantry carries out in lands of America. The government of the United States knows of the resurgence of Puerto Rican Nationalism, which organizes our people to cooperate in the international opposition against the imperialism of North America. -Your profession as a lawyer, do you practice it? -Yes, I have been practicing it since 1921. I have my office open in Ponce. -When did you enter the politics of the country? -When that mule from Kansas City arrived in Puerto Rico, sealed with the letters Mont. Reily. With kicks he took the mask off our politicians. He ended that prevailing duplicity of being Yankee before the Capitol and nationalist before our people. He threw the Unionist Party out of power, because the very stupid man believed it to be a party of true opposition. He was led to that confusion by the Fifth Base of his program that stated as a final solution the independence of Puerto Rico. The Unionist Party, however, was frankly governmental and Reily demanded from its constituents, one hundred percent Yanquism. There was formed, as you will remember, a great hubbub. Reily violently dismissed all those unionists who occupied public office and who were known as separatists. -Then you believe that a frank opposition. . . -I have always believed in an open opposition to the colonial government and since none of the political parties, until 1921, followed a tactic of non-cooperation, I abstained from taking part in any partisan activity. Reily provoked a general rebellion in the country by depriving the unionists of their posts in the government. I believed possible then the organization of a group that was willing to openly combat the colonial regime. On a memorable night, when the Central Board of the Unionist Party was peregrinating, seeking the support of every good Puerto Rican against the attacks of Governor Reily and the traitors of the Party, and when this collectivity could not have a single public post at its disposal, I made my entry into its ranks to reinforce its rebellion. No one in Puerto Rico followed my example. -Why? -Because there prevailed a general insomnia before the prospect of the total loss of governmental influences. -Then, when did you abandon the Unionist Party?. – When the Direction of the Party, shortly after my entry, resolved to abide by the will of the North American Government, so that no more separatist campaign was made in Puerto Rico, I withdrew immediately and contributed to the formation of the Nationalist Party, integrated by the detachments of the few patriots that there were in the unionist ranks. -Tell me, and the current politics of Puerto Rico, how do you see it? -Nationalist ideology dominates the country. No one dares to combat it. The old politicians do not dare to accept it openly because they do not want to lose their influence in the government of the colony. They find themselves between two fires: Washington does not attend to any of their entreaties or supplications despite the repeated genuflections. They can offer nothing to the electorate that constitutes a true reform of the current irresponsible regime that destroys our people. On the other hand, the nationalists and the independent Press that has recently emerged have destroyed the public confidence deposited in these “illustrious” gentlemen until recently. -So the amended electoral Law is another defensive resource, isn’t it? -The latest amendment to the electoral Law synthesizes the defensive plan adopted by those who resist renouncing the prebends. Barceló, supreme chief of the Alliance and Santiago Iglesias Pantín, owner and lord of the Republican-Socialist Coalition, have reached a harmonious agreement to divide the loot. There will be no elections in 1928, as there were none in 1924. The chiefs will distribute the votes in accordance with what was forged beforehand. The organization of new parties will not be possible, given the provision of the Law, which requires for its constitution the inscription of a candidacy subscribed and sworn by ten percent of the electors of each electoral precinct. For some time now suffrage has not existed in Puerto Rico. -And that kind of politics, where does it lead the people? -This policy leads our people, irremediably, to the organization of rebellious movements that advise the electorate not to resort to the polls, and that instead of doing that, constitute a formidable civic organization that restores respect for our right to constitute ourselves as a free people. The supreme definition is on the table: Yankees or Puerto Ricans. Let the traitors form their desolating legion under the suggestive stripes of the imprisonment in which they live; let the patriots enter the redemptive Nationalism. -And with respect to the problematic elective governor, what can you tell me? -That it is a Barcelonian dream, extinguishable every time the Sun comes out. -And to what do you attribute that support that at the last minute they gave Governor Towner? -It is completely insincere. Between the governor and the parties that have recommended him, there has been and there is a silent war. I attribute it to the distrust that the Alliance has of Mr. Córdova Dávila, notwithstanding the hypocritical endorsement that the Directory made of the policy of the Resident Commissioner. If this gentleman deserved that vote of confidence, the recent trip of the Legislative Commission to Washington was superfluous, which has served to disavow the Commissioner. -And Córdova Dávila, what do you think of him? -Córdova Dávila has penetrated North American politics. The Yankee government has full confidence in him. He had no scruples in representing it at the Pan-American Congress of the Press, before which he had the audacity to justify the shameful and tyrannical regime that prevails in our land. The Ibero-American delegates could not understand how “that Yankee of the latest vintage” could have emerged. -Well, but will the elective governor come or not? -To evade the commitment of the elective governor, Coolidge has declared that he will appoint to the governorship of the Island, a resident, without specifying whether this would be a Puerto Rican or a Yankee. Of course, any governor, within the current regime, will continue to be the personal representative of the president of the United States and his actions are subject to the definitive instructions he receives from his mandator. But good politics advises the President to appoint an unconditional Puerto Rican, and Córdova Dávila is an ideal candidate for the purposes of Washington. Having the distribution of the budget in his hands, Córdova Dávila would automatically displace Barceló and all his lieutenants. The chief of the Alliance would be left alone because the men who surround him only seek to participate in the benefits of public influence and it is Barceló who distributes them today. The lackeys would go with the one who runs the show. That is why that unconditional and apparently inexplicable support of Governor Towner. -How do you judge the attitude of President Coolidge before the Puerto Rican Legislative Commission that visited him recently? -Coolidge is a despot and a rude man. Although that Commission deserves physical punishment in our hands, we Puerto Ricans must not tolerate the insolence of any President, he answers energetically. -Do you believe that in the high public spheres of Washington they take seriously the frequent visits that our legislative commissions make to them? -In Washington they have all the information necessary to know in depth the situation of Puerto Rico and they do not require the presence of informative commissions at all. As long as Puerto Rico is a source of income for the United States, no commission will be taken into account in Washington. The complaints of the commissioners will confirm the fact that the systematic imperial plan works to perfection. -And what then must Puerto Rico do? -Puerto Rico has to present a serious crisis to the colonial administration in order to be attended to in its demand. Until now the colonist has formulated requests for things of little importance. In Washington they have ignored their commissioners and these have resigned themselves to return to make another genuflection. A nation like the North American, with enormous national and international problems, does not have time to attend to submissive and servile men. It requires the formation of a rebellious organization that encompasses the entire people of Puerto Rico and that breaks definitively with the regime of the colony, and requests from the free nations the recognition of our independence in order to achieve the reconcentration of the North American mind on our situation. -Another thing: I have heard something about a political crusade that you are soon planning to undertake through the Antilles, Central and South America. How much truth is there to it? -Our painful situation under the empire of the United States is the situation that North America intends to impose on all our brother peoples of the Continent. Our cause is the cause
continental. Ibero-American thinkers clearly see the joint problem of Ibero-American America facing Yankee imperialism. If North American absorption triumphs in our land, the spirit of Yankee conquest will have no restraint. North American liberals wield an effective argument against the expansion of their country: the impossibility of assimilating peoples of a race and a civilization distinct, and superior to North Americans in many aspects of human culture. Puerto Rico is the most homogeneous people in America and of the greatest population density with more than 350 inhabitants per square kilometer, of Hispanic culture and civilization. If the empire triumphs in our environment it would be a strong blow for the Ibero-American race. Its prestige would be gravely harmed and a Yankee invasion would be attracted, without measure and without quarter. We must repeat Foch’s phrase facing the last German invasion: “They must be stopped where they are and dislodged from the positions they occupy.” -Then, in your way of seeing, what is the Ibero-American concern? -The Ibero-American concern is not to defend México, Colombia, Venezuela or other republics of our blood. The continental concern is to rip the Yankee boot from all the positions it occupies in the Caribbean. -Do you believe that the Antilles constitute a wall of containment to Yankee ambition or a battlefield for their colonial essays? -Puerto Rico and the other Antilles constitute the battlefield between Yankee imperialism and Ibero-Americanism. Ibero-American solidarity demands that all Yankee interference in this Archipelago cease in order to restore the continental equilibrium and assure the independence of all the Colombian nations. Within that supreme necessity, our independence is indispensable. That is in synthesis what I must expose in my mission to the Ibero-American nations. -Who accompanies you in that crusade? -No one, I go alone, he answers me with decision. -Which is the first country that you are going to visit? -The heroic and indomitable República Dominicana, in saying this, I notice that in his eyes shines a ray of light and sympathy towards the noble