Albizu Campos comments on the process against the nationalist leadership. Without a doubt, Fiscal Snyder follows the instructions of his Government. He has said that he will continue the process against the nationalist leadership because he has not received instructions to the contrary from the Department of Justice of Estados Unidos, notwithstanding the presentation of the Tydings project. After the recognition of the Independence of Puerto Rico that the executive power of Estados Unidos has made, the continuation of this process, which was initiated as part of a terrorist plan to intimidate the nation, appears to everyone as improper. The recognition of the right of Puerto Rico to Independence in the form that we have indicated by the North American powers is a formal rectification of that policy. If the rectification has been sincere, it is appropriate for the Government of Estados Unidos to order the filing and dismissal of said process. A resolution in that sense will serve as proof of North American good faith towards Puerto Rico in the New Policy that the Government of Estados Unidos has announced. To recognize the right of Puerto Rico to be free, sovereign, and independent, and to continue persecuting the spokesmen of Patria independence precisely for their political ideology is a contradiction that requires an explanation by the Government of Estados Unidos. El Mundo, April 29, 1936, p. 1 and 2. Before qualifying that situation, let us wait a few more days to determine the attitude of Estados Unidos in this case. We will then be able to know with precision the true intentions that determine the New Policy. North American journalists interview Albizu Campos A commission of North American journalists, representing various advertising unions of Estados Unidos, visited Mr. Albizu Campos at the Hotel Palace in request of data and his opinion on the economic situation that Puerto Rico would have to face upon becoming a sovereign and independent Republic. The North American journalists took for granted as a realized fact the independence of Puerto Rico. They interpreted in all its importance the declaration of the North American Executive Power that recognizes the right to independence of Puerto Rico and that said declaration is a formal recognition of said government. For them, Puerto Rico has already entered the concert of international life. As North American journalists, eager to make known to the public of their country the situation of Puerto Rico, especially in the economic field, which seems to be the one that worries them the most, they questioned Mr. Albizu Campos about the Tydings project and the economic reaction that its approval would produce in Puerto Rico. Mr. Albizu Campos answered them that neither the Tydings project nor any other project of the Congress of Estados Unidos obliges Puerto Rico; that it is not necessary to discuss the content of said project because it diverts the public mind from the vital question, which is the consummated fact of the independence of Puerto Rico by the North American Executive Power El Mundo, May 2, 1936, p. 1 and 12, and La Palabra, May 4, 1936, p. 1. under the presidency of Mr. Roosevelt; that this recognition is irrevocable and that in such virtue all the governments of the free countries will not delay in recognizing the independence of Puerto Rico as soon as a legitimate government of Puerto Rico is organized. Mr. Albizu Campos continued explaining that in the event that the most generous law for Puerto Rico were presented in the Congress of Estados Unidos and approved, such a law could influence the international relations between Estados Unidos and Puerto Rico only by virtue of a treaty between Estados Unidos and Puerto Rico, duly ratified by both powers in accordance with the applicable provisions of their respective constitutions. If such project is good, or such law is good, its provisions would be incorporated in said treaty, but only by virtue of a negotiable treaty in said form could the provisions of that law have value. As part of said treaty, Estados Unidos could not alter by any subsequent legislation of a unilateral character, the rights that Puerto Rico had acquired by virtue of that treaty, which to amend it, the concurrence of both powers would always be forced. If a bill is presented in the Congress of Estados Unidos that harms the interests of Puerto Rico, it does not affect us in any way, because to govern the provisions of that law in Puerto Rico, it is required that its provisions be incorporated in a treaty negotiated between Puerto Rico and Estados Unidos. Of course, the plenipotentiaries of Puerto Rico are not going to accept any claim from Estados Unidos that harms their national interests; and in case our plenipotentiaries were surprised by the insertion of a clause in the draft treaty between Estados Unidos and Puerto Rico that would harm our interests, for that, to correct that evil and remedy it definitively, would be the definitive action of the Parliament of Puerto Rico, which would refuse to ratify a treaty to the detriment of our nationality. The North American journalists insisted with Mr. Albizu Campos that he explain more extensively the need for the Constituent Convention of Puerto Rico, to which he replied as follows: That in order to liquidate the present relations between Estados Unidos and Puerto Rico and place them on the international plane of mutual recognition of sovereignty and independence, Estados Unidos itself had to stimulate the immediate Constituent Convention of Puerto Rico, since this is the only means that an intervened nation has to create the legitimate public powers that can represent it and without which it is not possible to deal with them. He repeated to them the precedents of the Cuban Constituent Convention and the Hughes-Peinado treaty in the República Dominicana, which are cases identical to that of Puerto Rico and precisely originated under the same North American empire. In both cases Estados Unidos had to view with approval the organization of the legitimate national powers of Cuba and the República Dominicana in order to deal with said nations and regulate their relations with them from power to power, on a footing of juridical equality. From the point of view of Puerto Rico, the immediate celebration of the Constituent Convention is more forced, since the recognition that the Executive Power has made of the right of Puerto Rico to independence, does not cease to be a challenge to our political capacity and to our patriotism. If the enemy hoists a white flag, it is our duty to hoist a white flag; if he offers to parley, our parliamentarians must immediately attend to deal with him as equals. At this hour the Constituent Convention should be functioning in Puerto Rico and at this moment an embassy of Puerto Rico should be in Washington and, in addition, at these moments our plenipotentiaries accredited to all the free nations of the globe should have been requesting recognition of the independence of Puerto Rico. Attendance at the rally held by the Partido Nacionalista in the Plaza de Armas of San Juan on April 16, 1936 in commemoration of the birth of José de Diego. Such a demonstration would already have attracted upon Puerto Rico in a decisive gesture, the definitive solution of its difference with Estados Unidos. The opinion of Estados Unidos and of all the countries and of all the nations would be perfectly moved and duly illustrated on our national position at these moments. The North American journalists agreed that such a procedure would be effective to end a state of dangerous uncertainty for both nations. To the question of one of the North American journalists of whether Puerto Rico would accept a good law of independence approved by the Congress of Estados Unidos, Mr. Albizu Campos insisted again that the best law that the Congress of Estados Unidos could approve for Puerto Rico was a unilateral act of the government of Estados Unidos and that said law was revocable by the same Congress of Estados Unidos at any moment; that Puerto Rico could not place its right to independence in the position of a precarious one at the mercy of the North American will. Mr. Albizu Campos was asked for an explanation of why Puerto Rico should not accept the Plebiscite. “In the first place,” Albizu Campos replied, “is that the Plebiscite is a legislative formula that is used to consult the will of the inhabitants who occupy a slice of land between two sovereign nations when the population of the two sovereigns has mixed in such a way that it is not possible to draw a territorial limit that divides them; that the Plebiscite is never to consult the national will of a duly constituted nation to ask it if it wants to be free, because that consultation is a gratuitous offense inferred to the nation and is also an insidious guideline to divide it, because it puts into discussion nothing less than its existence as a sovereign, free and independent nation; and that is not permissible at any time”. “To allow a foreign power that maintains under its armed forces the military occupation of the nation to make that consultation, is to give it an opportunity for a permanent intervention in the national life of Puerto Rico; since the mere consultation could bring even a civil war in Puerto Rico and also encourages the enemies of the independence of Puerto Rico, that under the guise of law, organize themselves to destroy the independence of the Patria. “Such a consultation is a torpedo that is launched in the very heart of nationality”. “The effects, even without said Plebiscite project having become law in the Congress of Estados Unidos, we are already feeling them”. “The timid spirits, the vested interests enemies of independence, the speculators with national life, threaten with their mere presence in a plebiscite action the existence of the nation as a sovereign and independent power”. Mr. Albizu Campos repeated to them that for Puerto Rico the Treaty of Paris is null and without value and that every act of the Congress and the Government of Estados Unidos in Puerto Rico is null and that therefore no law of plebiscite consultation has any value for Puerto Rico. “That plebiscite project can be the cause of enormous shame for the nation of Puerto Rico, because although it is indisputable that more than 90 percent of Puerto Ricans would pronounce themselves at any moment in favor of the independence of their Patria, it is no less than a national shame that the expression of treason or slavery or sordid interests is allowed by us, it is a shameful spectacle to declare that it prefers to the independence of its Patria the military occupation of the national territory by foreign forces”. “Furthermore, already recognized by the Executive Power of the government of Estados Unidos the right of Puerto Rico to its independence, what sensibly proceeds to do is an immediate liquidation of the present North American military occupation and that the corresponding treaties that are convenient to both powers be signed between Puerto Rico and Estados Unidos”. The North American journalists asked how Puerto Rico would have to face the placement of its products abroad and especially in Estados Unidos, once the government of the Republic was constituted. Several expressed their point of view of possible damage to the national economy of Puerto Rico with the constitution of the Republic. In reply, Mr. Albizu Campos explained that at the date of the North American invasion, Puerto Rico was a creditor nation, that the general government of Puerto Rico and the government of all the Ayuntamientos of Puerto Rico had a surplus in gold in their coffers; that wealth was divided equitably; that the poor of Puerto Rico in the year 1898 were people who had 8 or 10 cuerdas of land and two hundred or three hundred pesos saved in the stockings of their wives; that Puerto Rico then maintained international trade with all the maritime powers of the world, including Estados Unidos; and that due to this, merchandise of the best quality was brought to Puerto Rico, both from Estados Unidos and from Europe, at the lowest prices, since it was a market of intense world competition; that in all the ports of Puerto Rico ships of all flags of the great commercial nations could be seen; that all the products of Puerto Rico had access to all the great markets of the world. Mr. Albizu Campos recommended to the North American journalists to read the first report of Governor Allen, who was the first governor under the Foraker Act and in which this North American leader made recognition of the immense wealth of Puerto Rico and said that the immense damages caused by the cyclone of San Ciriaco of 1899 should not be a cause for concern, because the wealth of the country, and its economic solvency, was such that the immediate recovery would not be long in coming and would not need help of any nature. “Under the North American military occupation more than 60,000 landowners have disappeared; we have no market for any of our agricultural products, which has totally ruined agriculture; outside of the sugar industry there is no industry of importance to the country; commerce is in ruins and without credit; banking is in the power of the North Americans. On that economic disaster it would suffice to read the report of Governor Teodoro Roosevelt, Jr., in which he synthesized the North American occupation with the following significant data: of 600,000 patients of uncinariasis, 37,000 declared tuberculous, the highest mortality on earth, etc., etc., 76 percent of the adult population in forced unemployment, etc., etc. We believe that this picture of misery and ruin and death cannot be surpassed by the most macabre mentality and it is a terrible reality”. “What is Puerto Rico going to lose then, what economic values is Puerto Rico going to lose then by declaring its independence?” “Of course, none. On the contrary, it is going to recover them all. Currently all the municipalities are mortgaged, the insular government is mortgaged, all private property is mortgaged; and if those properties were put up for public auction, no Puerto Rican could acquire them because he has no money, they would have to become the property of North American interests. Puerto Rico has no markets, neither in Estados Unidos nor in any foreign country, for its products. Upon hearing this, a journalist interrupted him to ask: “and the sugar market in Estados Unidos?” Then Mr. Albizu Campos made the following explanation: Let us study in the first place the situation of our farmers because sugar is not an agricultural product, it is an industrial product and later we will consider that aspect of the economic question. “Estados Unidos produces all the agricultural products that Puerto Rico produces, of good quality, with the exception of coffee. Estados Unidos has an agricultural overproduction. As soon as the American farmer covers the needs of his market, he throws the surplus of his harvest into the international market at any price, producing a demoralization in the prices of agricultural products. “To counteract this avalanche of North American production, the great nations like England, France, Germany and Italy, have discovered that the highest tariffs were not enough; and the entry of North American agricultural products has been limited to very small quotas to prevent the ruin of the agricultural wealth of those great nations. If Puerto Rico is free, in order to defend its agricultural wealth from the avalanche of North American production, it would have to approve laws similar to those that govern in France, Germany, England and Italy to regulate the entry of North American products. “Now, since North American agricultural production enters without any restriction into the market of Puerto Rico, and on the assumption that there is no North American policy whatsoever to ruin our farmers and with the holiest of economic intentions on the part of Estados Unidos, the North American overproduction in agriculture alone is impossible to resist. “For example, in Aguas Buenas a farmer can produce corn flour from the country at 4 cents a pound but when he has it ready for the market he finds that the tenant of his farm does not buy it, and the reason for this strange fact is that in the store of the neighborhood the tenant of his farm can buy North American corn flour at 1 1/2 cents a pound. “And this example is applicable to all agricultural products. “As for coffee, whose quality is regulated by the topography and which is necessarily limited, it cannot have the protection of North American tariffs, because the North American nation is not going to tax its consumers with an import tariff on the coffee it needs in large quantities, in order to protect our coffee growers. This North American practice of admitting the coffee they need free of duty should not be a reason for opposition for us because they do well to always act in defense of national interests and with that they give us a good example of what we have to do. “If Puerto Rico produces grapefruit, oranges or pineapples or any other agricultural product, well, in California, in the states of the Southwest and in Florida, there is an overproduction and the Puerto Rican producer, all that is certain is ruin. “If the Puerto Rican producer dedicates himself to dairy farming, the North American overproduction floods our market and it is not possible to fight against that economic preponderance. “If to that we add the fact that in Puerto Rico there are no health regulations applicable to North American products imported into our land, whether they are canned meats or canned vegetables or not canned, we find that North American agricultural products confiscated by the health laws of the different North American provinces and that have no value there, are launched on our market at any price, which represents a liquid gain for the North American market and a ruin for our farmers and the destruction of public health in Puerto Rico. Here is the source of all the diseases we have in Puerto Rico. They are all of North American import. As for sugar, it must be clarified that this wealth belongs to a group of North American capitalists in 65%, to capitalists from other foreign countries in 20% and from Puerto Rico in 15% that with notorious exception of cases of two or three families, the interests of Puerto Rico are on the verge of losing all their capital. “There exists in Estados Unidos the Institute of Sugar, Tobacco, Coffee, Cacao and other products that sets the price for said products in the market of Estados Unidos and of course sets the price of sugar. “The North American factories in Puerto Rico are not affected nor have they ever been affected by the power of that monopoly, which is so great, that it is currently subject to a process before the Supreme Court of Estados Unidos because it exploits both foreigners and the North American consumers themselves. The North American sugar factories have been exporting raw sugar to the refineries in their country that are controlled by the same interests as the factories located in Puerto Rico. That is to say, that the price of raw sugar, no matter how low it is, does not affect them at all. “Rather, setting a low price for sugar is a convenience that is practiced regularly and is a scientific system to evade contributions, both in Estados Unidos and in Puerto Rico. “The Institute of Sugar, Coffee, Tobacco, etc., has always fixed the price of raw sugar that is exported from Puerto Rico to Estados Unidos and that price, as we have said, only affects the producers in Puerto Rico, who do not have North American capital and, of course, the price has always been the lowest possible to eliminate that capital and to continue promoting the exclusive North American latifundio in Puerto Rico. Of course, the factory tried to unload its losses on its colonos. Thus it was the case that when the price of sugar was relatively high, the colono found that the sucrose of his sugar was low, and when the price of sugar was low, the colono had no one to complain to when contemplating his own ruin. “The colonos were subject to this merciless situation until Nacionalismo pointed out this truth to them and it has been scarcely three years since they have organized and have demanded that sugar chemists of theirs in the laboratories of the different factories watch over their interests. It is worthy of note that these chemists are all nationalists, no matter what the political affiliation of the colono. Of course, the colono has tried to unload his losses on the peón and that is where starvation wages and the picture of desolate misery and death that surrounds Puerto Rico are born. “With that system in fact social slavery has been restored, without any guarantee for the slave, not even of food. He has less protection than the ox that pulls a cane cart, because this one is fed well to preserve it. “This exploitation has restored the most merciless slavery that history knows with political-social consequences of serious consequences for the nation. “Until recently there was no refinery in Puerto Rico and there was the great paradox that while Puerto Rico was a great producer of sugar, it was an importer of sugar. The raw sugar of Puerto Rico was exported to Estados Unidos and was imported from that country to ours refined. The Yankee refiners gained with the low price that they imposed on our raw sugar and they gained with the high price that they imposed on our refined sugar when introducing it in our market again. “As soon as a refinery emerged in Puerto Rico, its production was limited to facilitate the continuation of that exploitation that we have pointed out. “We repeat again that sugar is not an agricultural product, that it is an industrial product and that it can be produced from different raw materials, from sugar cane, from beet, from corn and from the wood itself. “No country can have a sugar monopoly because the necessary raw material can be acquired in any climate and that there has long been a world overproduction of sugar. “On the other hand, Estados Unidos does not want to repeat the precarious situation in which it found itself during the world war, in which it had to put the entire population on sugar rationing for not having enough produced within its borders and has long been promoting with nationalist sense its own sugar industry to get rid of overseas import in case of a general war. “The Costigan-Jones Act that regulates the production of sugar in Estados Unidos and in the countries intervened by said empire and that regulates the import of sugar in all the nations in the North American market, is a nationalist law with the object of freeing Estados Unidos from the import of sugar from overseas. “Let us examine the pertinent clauses. The sugar quota that the law sets for North American producers in the continental territory of that country, are taxatively fixed in the law itself; and it provides that if the consumption of sugar increases in the North American market, the resulting increase will be assigned entirely to the continental North American producers. “The production of sugar in Estados Unidos is unlimited. Beet is produced in any part of Estados Unidos, even in the arid zones of the Southwest, where irrigation has solved the water problem. “A scientific study of the increase in the production of beet sugar, leads us to the inevitable conclusion that in less than ten years Estados Unidos will be a great exporter of sugar, in accordance with the national intention of that country, indicated in said Costigan-Jones Act. “Thus Estados Unidos will be freed from the danger of the disturbances that a world war may bring in the transport of sugar from overseas. “What can the few producers of Puerto Rico expect from that situation? “Currently, the only thing they are used for is to protect the claims of the North American sugar interests in Puerto Rico, serving as a shield before the national Puerto Rican public opinion. “Said
The Costigan-Jones Law fixes the sugar quota for the continental North American producer and thus cannot be modified except by another law of the United States Congress. But in the case of Puerto Rico the sugar quota is fixed by the President of the United States at his discretion and said leader if he desires that only one ton of sugar should be produced here, that is law. “Also said law authorizes the President of the United States to distribute said quota among the producers established in Puerto Rico at his discretion. Thus if the President of the United States desires that all the sugar of Puerto Rico should be ground in the Central Guánica, that is law. “In other words: the Puerto Rican does not have sugar property no matter how much he desires it, because he always has the threat of ruin that may be produced by the mistake or arbitrariness of the President of the United States, whose will no one in Puerto Rico can govern and whom no one can hold accountable. “The Puerto Rican sugar producer is in a perennial precarious state. “The situations are not hypothetical, but it seems as a natural consequence of an irresponsible regime that the distribution of the sugar quota has benefited North American producers in Puerto Rico more than any of the other interests, whether Puerto Rican or of other nationalities. “The assignment of a sugar quota for Puerto Rico and its distribution has been used as a political power of North American intervention to bend the national will of Puerto Rico, either with the reduction of the quota or with the danger of assigning almost all of it to the North American interests established in Puerto Rico. “The gravity of this economic policy can be appreciated when the fact is established that the entire political system of the United States in Puerto Rico has been reduced to making Puerto Rico a sugar factory. “There will be some Puerto Rican who still enjoys some economic solvency in the sugar production industry, but one swallow does not make a summer. The reality is that the sugar industry established in Puerto Rico is not of Puerto Rico nor of the Puerto Ricans under the present regime. It is of the North Americans or of foreigners of other nationalities. “That political-economic regime does not benefit the North American people either. The name of the United States, its political, naval and military power is used to maintain that regime of exploitation in Puerto Rico, but the people of the United States derive no benefit. On the contrary, they receive the serious damage to their vital national interests, because the legitimate protest that Puerto Rico has against that merciless slavery has a worldwide repercussion against the great North American national interests and very especially in the free nations of our race. “Despite the establishment of a refinery, Puerto Rico continues to import sugar, in the form of sugar products; chocolates, candies, etc., that come to us from the United States and from Europe. The pound of sugar that we sell at 3 1/2 cents we pay for it in those products sometimes up to more than $1.00 per pound for the processing to which it has been subjected. “That brings us to the industrial defenselessness in which the present regime places us. “Also assuming that there is no intention on the part of the United States to crush Puerto Rican industries, the North American overproduction is of such preponderance that by intrinsic force, that by its momentum alone, it does not allow the creation of any industry in Puerto Rico. “The great nations such as France, England, Germany, Italy and Spain and Japan, to counteract this North American overproduction have had to tax it with large tariffs and in many cases these have been considered inadequate and have had to subject North American import to specific and very reduced quotas to protect their industrial wealth. “We, without having control of our customs, without any political power, without any administrative power to prevent the avalanche of Yankee products, imagine our situation. Hence the disappearance of the technical industries of Puerto Rico, with the North American invasion, such as the manufacture of fine furniture, leather goods, etc. Furthermore, it is natural that the government of the United States does not allow the development of any industry in Puerto Rico for the simple reason that they have an industrial overproduction and are not going to increase it with the promotion of any industry in Puerto Rico. Their policy will necessarily be aimed at preventing any important industry from being established in Puerto Rico. “For these purposes, the raw material that they can acquire in Puerto Rico for their industries, such as coconut oil for soap making, long staple cotton and other products, its price is regulated based on the most complete exploitation. “The industry takes on the character of human exploitation as happens with the needle industry which in no concept is for the national good. Despite that, as it offers competition to the North American production, its existence becomes more precarious every day. “The national credit is in the power of the North American banks that operate here with licenses to work in foreign countries. They are not subject to any regulation that obliges them to carry out operations for the national good for Puerto Rico. They have concentrated the credit in their hands. The money in circulation today is practically equal to the money in circulation in 1898. “Commerce is ruined because it naturally lives off agriculture and industry and if those two sources of wealth have disappeared, commerce is at the mercy of the same general situation. It has no credit. Imports from the United States will be made with sight drafts or drafts against knowledge. All the ports of Puerto Rico are closed with the exception of San Juan. WE DEMAND THE IMMEDIATE CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC. CONSTITUENT ¡VIVA LIBERE “Ponce, which was the first port of Puerto Rico before the North American invasion, is a pile of abandoned warehouses. Its great pier that produced around $400,000 of net income, we understand that today it only produces around $25,000. “The political-economic system is clear, it is aimed at preventing all national development. “The contributory system is complementary to that end. The country takes in contributions $12,000,000 for the insular government, $21,000,000 for the municipalities, around $30,000,000 for consumption taxes and benefit of North American consumers, $6,000,000 for the public debt service, a trifle of $70,000,000 annually that have to be extracted from the miserable salaries of the people and of the farmers. That is why, every year, the only sure harvest they have, is the list of the thousands of them who see their farms auctioned in public auctions to cover the demands of the treasury. “It is a great annual and sure harvest to add to the ranks of the pariahs. “That Puerto Rico is rich, these figures say so, if despite the exploitation to which it is subjected it carries all that fiscal weight, being free it could sustain a much greater fiscal weight. It is not necessary, however, to increase the present budgets, but rather to reduce them. “The wealth of Puerto Rico is spoken of by the following figures: During the thirty-six years of North American military occupation, Puerto Rico appears with a commercial balance in its favor, on paper, of some $340,000,000 gold, with the value of the dollar before the present devaluation of said currency. Taking into consideration that devaluation of the dollar, that sum would amount to some $550,000 gold. If that trade balance favorable to Puerto Rico were in the coffers of a national bank of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico would be the fourth economic power in the world, only