A MANIFESTO OF THE NATIONALIST PARTY ON THE OCCASION OF THE UPCOMING ELECTIONS
TO THE NATION
Two political parties go to the polls: the government party and nationalism. The government party embodies the principle of the legitimacy of the intervening regime that exploits us, and generously offers its most decisive cooperation to North American interventionist politics. Rivalries engendered by public positions and the benefits of the budget keep the government party divided into three factions that are called Republican Union, socialists, and liberals. The struggle between these factions is bitter and merciless. Its directors have stirred up passions in the popular masses, producing dangerous divisions in the Homeland unity. That work, as long as it is effective, strengthens the imperialism that crushes us. There is no right to ignite hatreds among the members of the same family. The father who did that with his own would be branded as foolish. In the political order, the directors of the crowds have greater responsibility than a father of family. It is necessary to brand as foolish a politics that launches Puerto Ricans against Puerto Ricans. Nationalism invites everyone to follow norms of elevated Puerto Rican harmony, to maintain firm the opposition to North American intervention. The program of nationalist action goes only to that end to eliminate the foreign interference that sucks our life. Here is in synthesis its content. “The Nationalist party of Puerto Rico solemnly declares: That the immediate suppression of the intervention of the United States of North America is unavoidable and commits to celebrating 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 Homeland independent of all tutelage, must enter the Nationalist party to immediately present a united front to the invader. Their adherence to other political parties contributes to Puerto Rican disorientation, weakens the national resistance, all for the sole benefit of the North American imperial invasion skillfully and systematically directed from Washington to reduce our people to impotence so that we are pariahs in our own Homeland, to be exterminated in the short term, as has been proven. It will treat without pity the natives or foreigners who, by good or bad arts, intend to strengthen the foreign occupation in any form that is presented to the country. It will end the illusion of converting our Homeland into a North American province, (sic, state) because that represents the voluntary and ignominious suppression of our international personality. It will abolish by all means at its reach the mandatory system of teaching in the language of the invader, which disorients and brutalizes our youth, in grave detriment to our cultural personality. It will procure to maintain close international, cultural and political relations, especially with the nations of our origin. Under the hard yoke of the North American occupation, from a nation of owners we have passed to be a mass of day laborers, a rich economic mine for the exploitation of the invading capital. We will immediately free the worker from the leadership of the misguided workerism of Yankee origin, which, under the suggestive denomination of socialist, but without any political definition, and, therefore, the most skillful and effective defenders of the North American intervention, have made him the bearer of the North American flag, under whose shadow this foreign regime that has converted us into slaves of North American corporations and companies prevails.” The Nationalist party will develop the following economic program: 1.- It will organize the workers so that they can demand from the invading foreign interests the participation of the profits to which they are entitled, assuming their immediate direction, putting men of stature, responsibility, and patriotism to direct them. 2. It will procure by all means that the fiscal weight falls on the non-residents, to destroy the latifundismo and absenteeism and divide the real property among the greatest number of landowners. 3. It must by all means at its reach destroy the effect of the apparent free trade between the United States and Puerto Rico, because in reality what exists is the monopoly that the North American invader has in our market, both of purchase and of sale, imposing the conditions of sale for its products and of purchase to our products. 4. It will exclusively favor the native commerce where it exists and will foment it where it has disappeared. 5. It will exclusively favor the consumption of the fruits of the land and the Puerto Rican industry, procuring by all means to satisfy the Homeland needs.
its dominions, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and limiting itself to regulating its relations with her only on the basis of treaties of mutual convenience. The former dominions regulate their diplomatic relations with the rest of the world. they have their own army and their squadron, and they sustain the embassies that they deem necessary. Thus, Canada sustains its own embassy in Washington. It is not rare that the customs tariffs in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, or South Africa, harm the British industry for the benefit of other nations and by virtue of treaties that made them deserving in fair reciprocity of that privilege. The only link between Great Britain and the free nations today, that were its dominions, is a common monarchical dynasty, Ireland, however, has just raised with frank probable success, the suppression of the oath of fidelity to the British Crown, this being a matter of constitutional right. The case of Santo Domingo in the face of the intervention of the same North American empire that exploits us is particularly guiding for Puerto Rico. Faced with a heroic people like the Dominican, resolved to everything. The United States of North America had no other remedy than to withdraw its armed intervention from the Dominican Republic after eight years of military occupation of that great country. That intervention was as legitimate as the one that Puerto Rico suffers from by the violence of force. The Treaty of Paris imposed on Spain by the United States is null for Puerto Rico, because it was not negotiated by Puerto Rican plenipotentiaries, nor was it ratified by the Parliament of Puerto Rico, according to the Autonomic Charter. These requirements were indispensable to put into effect a treaty negotiated between the Mother Country and other powers. The Autonomic Charter recognized us international personality, and that recognition obligated all the free nations, and it was irrevocable, Puerto Rico could not be the object of cession. Its statute in the face of Spain was superior to that of Canada in the face of Great Britain. Nationalism will bring the United States before the corresponding international court to impose respect for independence. The peaceful transformation of Monarchy into Republic in Brazil at the end of the last century, and recently in Spain, give the key to the advance of respect for the national will. The case of Puerto Rico has to be raised by the Constituent Convention of the Republic. We appeal to the legal path: the suffrage. A vote that is given to a governmental faction, whether to the Republican Union to the Socialist or Liberal faction, is a vote that is thrown into the trash can. It serves only to justify the North American intervention. These factions are government Parties, that is, of the Yankee government, to cooperate with that government enemy of their Homeland, and necessarily to the detriment of Puerto Rico.
The cross that is made under the flag of the Homeland is symbolic of the national redemption. A vote is a liberating vote, and a protest against the foreign occupation.
The government factions, be they called liberals, union-republican, or Socialist, can do nothing for Puerto Rico; they cannot fulfill even if they want to any promise that they make to the electorate.
The legislature can do nothing because the executive veto, absolute and irrevocable, weighs on all its projects; the executive administration is the personal will of the Yankee governor; even the administration of justice is finally in Washington. To give powers to an incapacitated person to act is foolish. That is what the voter does when he votes for a Union-Republican, Liberal, or Socialist candidacy. The candidates, once elected, can do nothing and become instruments of the Yankee power that has devastated the country.
Nationalism will exercise the indisputable right of the nation to constitute itself into a free, sovereign, and independent republic, as soon as it receives the suffrage of the majorities. While it represents a minority, it will be an implacable supervisory power.
We oppose the policy of mendicancy that demoralizes everyone. What the people need is honest work.
Our rehabilitation plan requires the suspension of the payment of the public debt. This service costs the country six million a year and the treasury maintains in deposit more than that amount to respond to that obligation. The people need that money to raise their homes. The convocation for a special legislative session has been announced, and the country must impose this plan that saves it from ruin and death.
Nationalism has wrested from the governor the control of the elections and has put it again in Puerto Rican hands. That is the reason for the official persecution against our political movement. The electoral control in the hands of the governor obligates the political directors, liberals, union-republicans and socialists to be at the mercy of the governmental will, power that the governor has used effectively to make the liberals fight with the Coalition.
Nationalism has saved those directors from that humiliating situation. They will have nothing to expect or thank the head of the intervention.
A movement of harmony is Nationalism; of necessary and imperative Puerto Rican harmony to end Yankee imperialism.
The nation has for the first time the privilege of opting for its independence or opting for the continuation of its slavery.
To you reader we address ourselves. Do you want the continuation of this regime that makes you a slave? Well, vote for the liberals, the Republican Union, or the socialist faction.
Do you want to be free in a free country? Vote under the flag of the Homeland.
San Juan, Puerto Rico, November 2, 1932, on the 64th anniversary of the Proclamation of the Republic.
The National Board. Pedro ALBIZU CAMPOS President Rafael Rivera Matos General Secretary