By P. Albizu Campos
The exercise of Empire is an executive act and for this reason every imperial system is irresponsible to those it seeks to govern.
Conversely, the exercise of Empire ceases by an executive act and that act is nothing less than the recognition by the imperial executive power of the independence of the intervened nation.
The Press dispatches of today say that for the first time in the history of the United States the Cabinet meets under the presidency of the president of the United States, Mr. Roosevelt, and that by unanimity of that Cabinet the executive power of the United States pronounces itself in frank recognition of the Independence of Puerto Rico.
The Empire ceases from that moment in which it accepts the nationalist criterion of our absolute right to National Independence.
That recognition of sovereignty and National Independence on the part of the executive power of the United States is irrevocable and has already had all its political and legal effects in international life.
The manner of effecting the withdrawal of the armed forces of the United States in our national territory is what remains to be discussed.
Nationalism does not accept the plebiscite theory by the principle of free national determination that informs our creed; by the nullity of the Treaty of Paris in regard to Puerto Rico, and now by the admission of the North American Empire that we are a free, sovereign and independent nation.
We believe that it is a convenience for the United States and for Puerto Rico the immediate withdrawal of the North American armed forces from our territory and the negotiation of treaties of mutual reciprocity, negotiated freely from power to power for mutual convenience.
This has been reached by the transcendental value of great national sacrifices and of the continuous Ibero-American protest against the senseless persecution that the North American power has made against the nationalist leadership.
It is of profound interest to the United States on the eve of the Pan-American Conference of Buenos Aires and in consideration of its vital interests in the New World that the continental conscience be calmed, that is, that the Independence of Puerto Rico be respected by the United States.
Puerto Rico has been and will be with all the free nations of our race.
The North American executive power, as is required, requested from its Congress a law in which the norm is fixed that the executive must follow to withdraw its armed forces from Puerto Rico.
Of course, any law that the Congress of the United States approves is not obligatory for Puerto Rico, even if that law is the guideline that the North American legislative power gives to its executive power.
It is up to Puerto Rico in its absolute sovereignty to organize itself immediately to negotiate on equal footing and from power to power with the Government of the United States.
This organization does not imply any hostility to the United States, but it is the logical consequence of our Independence.
For historical precedent we allow ourselves to recall the case of the Dominican Republic, under North American intervention.
The armed forces of the United States suppressed the Dominican political organization. When it became impossible for the United States to maintain its military intervention in Santo Domingo, they had to forcibly give way to the expression of the Dominican national will. To that effect, the national will was consulted through the different Dominican political parties and a preliminary treaty was reached between the United States and Santo Domingo which bears the name of Hughes-Peynado, in which the conditions for the withdrawal of the North American armed forces from Dominican territory were established.
We must clarify that with this we do not accept the goodness of the Hughes-Peynado Treaty, which due to the stipulated conditions was not accepted by the ultranationalist personalities of the heroic Dominican nation. We mention said Treaty as a precedent that we can understand and improve.
Once the Independence of Puerto Rico has been recognized by the Government of the United States, as has been done, to prolong by any time, however small, the present military occupation of the United States, is to invite a crisis without any need, of unsuspected consequences both for the United States and for Puerto Rico, because no one knows what turn international relations can take at any moment. In addition to the immediate material conveniences that the evacuation of our territory and the restoration of our sovereignty would produce, there is something primordial to which all Puerto Ricans must be sensitive: we must suppress, if it is within our reach, the shame of a foreign intervention.
We believe that the national will can be manifested immediately through conventions of the different political sectors all agreed to hold a Constituent Convention immediately in which a Provisional Government is elected without further delay to negotiate on equal footing and from power to power with the United States the cessation of its military intervention in Puerto Rico and treaties of commerce and other nature that are of mutual convenience to both nations.
Nationalism at this solemn moment in our history invites all brothers in the Homeland to unite immediately to assume our responsibility in the government of national interests. We are ready to offer all that is at our disposal with the spirit of absolute sacrifice and disinterest for the sacred cause of the Independence of Puerto Rico.
We insist that we are obliged to organize ourselves immediately in order to be able to treat from power to power with the United States at the very moment in which the North American executive power formally recognizes the independence of Puerto Rico.
Any pretext to elude this responsibility will not merit the patriotic examination of our civic conscience.
Take good note that in the project that has been presented in the Congress of the United States to fix the guideline that the executive power of that country must follow with ours at this historical moment, the right of Puerto Ricans to decide for themselves whether they want to organize the sovereign, free and independent Republic of Puerto Rico is spoken of.
In recognizing anew our natural citizenship as a corollary of the recognition of our sovereignty and national independence, the United States returns to rest on the nationalist criterion that we have never been North American citizens and therefore not organizable into a North American province (State, sic).
Between the military intervention that existed until these moments and National Independence there is no dilemma. The national will must be unanimous in favor of the immediate implantation of the Republic, but the immediate political organization is required that can legitimately assume the representation of national sovereignty at the moment when it is going to negotiate with it and with other powers treaties of mutual convenience.
It is not decorous for Puerto Ricans at this moment to wait for the United States to impose conditions of any sort.