THERE IS NO NATIONALISM OUTSIDE OF THE PARTIDO NACIONALISTA
San Juan, Puerto Rico July 17, 1930
Sr. Don José Lameiro. San Juan, de Puerto Rico.
Distinguished friend and coreligionist:
We have recently received several ships loaded with “patriots”, all commissioned for various purposes in Estados Unidos: to beg for alms, to extend to Puerto Rico all the laws of that country, to put an end to the association of Maestros de Puerto Rico, to destroy our culture, to support the policy of the colonial governor and thus ingratiate themselves with the power, and to turn us into Yankee instruments in the diplomatic and consular service of that country in its systematic invasion of Latin America.
All these gentlemen require physical rehabilitation after such an effort. The Homeland will not deny it to them opportunely. It did not occur to any of them to say in Estados Unidos that our only need is Independence to resolve our own problems; that we have capacity and abundant natural resources to attend as it should be to our Nationality. The only need is Independence to be able to dominate the invasion of invading landholding capital, and to restrain the insolence of the foreign banks that want to do away with our wealth, to protect our workers against the invading exploitation and to regulate our commerce by means of treaties that suit us. In one word, to end the hoarding of all our resources and impose a better distribution of them that allows our citizens to live a decent life in harmony with the exigencies of contemporary civilization so that our people can reach the complete development of their spiritual and physical life.
But no. These commissioners come boastful of the suggestions that to the power they offer so that it annihilates us completely, giving it opportunity to make its demolishing work appear as an act of supreme charity.
They repeat like parrots the already worn-out language of the Yankee teacher who occupies the fortress.
Could the sepoys not think of anything else?
Your letter of adherence to our party published recently in “La Correspondencia” comes. You have true orientation. Your letter rejects that wave of submission.
You leave behind unionist liberalism. We salute, with enthusiasm, when that effort of renovation began. We yearn for the day that all political parties consign in their program as only longing the Independence of their Homeland. How not to rejoice that that party shields itself to the exclusive ideal of Independence and prepares itself to adopt the Nationalist tactic of immediate action against the usurpers of our right to the life of Free Nation?
But we have seen, as you, that a tremendous defeat awaits that Unionist youth only. It is certain that some prominent directors offer their adherence, but the majority of the influential ones are decisively against it. There are those who rush to show solidarity at these very moments with the most unconditional existing. Faced with the supreme right of Independence, the canticle of autonomy is heard, at this point. Is an autonomous regime under the flag of Estados Unidos perhaps possible? Its constitution ignores such a political solution. Either Puerto Rico opts for its inalienable right to Independence or it voluntarily becomes extinct in a Yankee province, “state”, or it will suffer indefinitely the present territorial regime of absolute irresponsibility before the governed. No autonomous regime can be compared with Independence, but there are those who still accept in advance and voluntarily, the restrictions that are only tolerated when force imposes them. There is no Nationalism outside of the Partido Nacionalista. To its ranks those who love the Independence of the Homeland! Let us pressure the enemies of our liberation to form their annexationist bloc so that they alone bear the historical responsibility of having done everything in their power to end the personality of their own country, and thus make themselves gracious with an invader who, while he uses them, feels deep contempt for them.
Yours in the cause,
Pedro ALBIZU CAMPOS.