6.- It shall foster the exportation and the establishment of industry and maritime transportation. 7.- It shall exclusively favor native banks, and where there are none, it shall endeavor to have them organized. 8. It shall endeavor to organize finances in such a form of native banking respectability that national deposits are made only in its banks, and it shall endeavor to free the country from foreign loans, public or private, so that agriculture, commerce, and industry in Puerto Rican hands may re-emerge powerfully. “Finally, the Nationalist Party declares that it shall limit itself to the acceptance of elective positions, and that as a means to destroy foreign intervention.” Nationalism repudiates alliances, understandings, pacts, etc., with the government factions because the union between separatism, which strives for the immediate constitution of the republic, and the organized capitulation that supports the present irresponsible government, postponing with subterfuges the proclamation of independence, constitutes a moral impossibility. Our program is clear, and a solemn oath imposes its fulfillment. It was not made to deceive the people. The nation knows what it implies to vote under the flag of the Homeland. It is imperative that it impose the holding of the constituent convention of the republic upon receiving the suffrage of the majorities. Nationalism is aware of the historical reality that surrounds us. It is true that, in general, the recognition of the independence of nations has been the precious fruit of a war. The independence of our enemies, the United States of North America, was imposed by the fleets and armies of France and Spain. The independence of the Latin American nations was the creation of the liberating geniuses, of Bolívar, Petion, San Martín, and their eminent lieutenants seconded by the national action that repudiated the tutelage of the Motherland itself. The independence of the European nations is the work of the equilibrium that the sword fixes. Respect for the Asian nations is due in large part to Japanese cannons. The suppression of foreign interference has been no more painful than the radical changes of constitutional regimes: from republic to monarchy or vice versa; from plutocracy to socialism or vice versa. While it is true that this struggle in the contemporary age has become more terrible with the deadly power of modern armaments, it is also true that the fear of greater evils has imposed the recognition of intervened nations or the transformation of constitutional regimes. Thus we see in the last century the peaceful separation of Norway from Sweden; in contemporary times, the renunciation of Great Britain to all interference in the internal and external life of the nations that were its dominions, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and limiting itself to regulating its relations with them solely on the basis of treaties of mutual convenience. The former dominions regulate their diplomatic relations with the rest of the world, have their own army and their own squadron, and maintain the embassies they deem necessary. Thus Canada maintains its own embassy in Washington. It is not uncommon for customs tariffs in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, or South Africa to harm British industry to 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, which were its dominions, is a common monarchical dynasty. Ireland, however, has just raised with frankly probable success, the suppression of the oath of fidelity to the British Crown, as this is a question of constitutional law. The case of Santo Domingo in the face of the intervention of the same North American empire that exploits us is particularly enlightening for Puerto Rico. Faced with a heroic people like the Dominicans, 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 that which Puerto Rico suffers from the violence of force. The Treaty of París 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 Motherland and other powers. The Autonomic Charter recognized our international personality, and that recognition obligated all free nations, and it was irrevocable. Puerto Rico could not be the object of cession. Its status vis-à-vis Spain was superior to that of Canada vis-à-vis Great Britain. Nationalism shall summon the United States before the corresponding international tribunal 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 route: the suffrage. A vote that is given to a governmental faction, be it the Republican Union, the Socialist faction or the Liberal, is a vote that is thrown in the trash can. It serves only to justify 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 national redemption. A vote is a liberating vote, and a protest against 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 they make to the electorate. The legislature can do nothing because the absolute and irrevocable executive veto 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 an absurdity. That is what the elector does when he votes 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 shall 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 shall be an implacable supervisory power. We oppose the policy of mendicancy that demoralizes everyone. What the people need is honest work. Our rehabilitation plan demands 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 an extraordinary 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 back in Puerto Rican hands. That is the reason for the official persecution against our political movement. Electoral control in the hands of the governor obliges 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 set the Liberals against the Coalition. Nationalism has saved those directors from that humiliating situation. They shall have nothing to expect or thank the chief of the intervention. Movement of concord is Nationalism; of necessary and imperious Puerto Rican concord to end Yankee imperialism. The nation has for the first time the privilege of opting for its independence or of 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? Then 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, on 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 A PROCLAMATION OF THE NATIONALIST PARTY REGARDLESS OF THE RESULT OF THE RECENT ELECTIONS PROCLAIMS TO THE NATION The army of independence is constituted. Five thousand nationalists have responded to the proclamation to immediately constitute the republic! If the majorities had responded to that patriotic clarion call, at this moment the Constituent Convention of the Republic would be meeting. The case of Puerto Rico in the face of the North American empire would already be raised before all the free nations of the world. North American intervention would have come to an end, and our people would have heard the solemn Te Deum upon entering the concert of the sovereign nations of the planet. The North American imperialist policy has triumphed again at the conjuring of the propaganda of the government factions; Liberals, Union-Republicans and Socialists. The victory of Puerto Ricans over Puerto Ricans is the defeat of the Homeland. Do not be deceived, the country. The triumph of any government faction, be they “Liberals”, “Republicans”, or “Socialists”, is the triumph of the Yankee imperialist policy that leads us to total ruin. Nothing has happened after the elections. The invading empire shall continue devouring everything. The “Republico-Socialist” Coalition is offered an opportunity to demonstrate its sincerity. Will it immediately propose the definitive annexation of Puerto Rico to the United States as a province (state, sic)? The situation is apparently favorable to it. The Democratic party has just triumphed in the United States. This maintains in its program statehood for Puerto Rico. Here the Coalition has just triumphed which says it aspires to that political status. The coincidence could not be more perfect. But, the Coalition will do nothing. It does not believe in statehood. Its directors know that annexation cannot be worthy in any form. Those directors also know that the Yankees want coexistence with us based on our slavery. The Coalition will not raise the problem of statehood. It is a Yankee government party in Puerto Rico, and it has to defend the policy of that government against us. That policy is none other than the maintenance of this irresponsible colonial system that has converted a civilized and rich country into a factory, where the owners are Yankees and the laborers Puerto Ricans. Statehood in the Coalition program is nothing more than an apparently respectable veil to protect the Yankee imperialist policy of intervention that leads us to definitive colonialism. Instead of taking the formal steps towards statehood, the spokesmen of the coalition are already coming with the discredited song of a Puerto Rican governor as a solution to this national tragedy. That of statehood in the coalitionist program is exactly the same as that of independence in the program of the Liberal faction. The Unionists, today “Liberals”, maintained that disposition in their program during twenty-five years of government. They never raised the independence solution. They fulfilled their role as a government party, developing the Yankee imperialist policy and have delivered the country to us in ruins. An impartial observer will not be able to understand how the popular ascendancy of these government factions is possible. It is simple. It is the triumph of skillful imperialist politics. The Yankee takes possession of all sources of wealth, agriculture, communications, commerce, industry, and finance. They put the contributory weight on the natives of the country. Part of what they collect by force is redistributed in salaries among the natives. The directors of local politics are in charge of the distribution. That amount currently amounts to about twenty-two million annually, that is, the assembly of the insular budget and of the municipal budgets. In reality, it is the only industry that the native directors have left to live on. The more cultured classes flee, as is natural, from peonage, but, in order to live they have to be foremen in this regime of forced slavery. The politicians of the government factions dispute that privilege. They get angry with each other; as it is a matter of maintaining slavery, no truth is preached, and instead, the low passions are ignited in the multitude; they separate and embrace each other again, according to the needs of that triumph. They obtain means to manipulate votes and commit the most unheard-of outrages against citizen dignity. It is our duty to call the attention of the sensible people who are left in our country, that this policy is strengthening the national slavery of a people and restoring individual slavery with the purchase of citizen dignity incarnated in suffrage. In these elections that we have just witnessed, the government factions have resorted to all methods to raise the lowest passions in the masses, resorting to all forms of bribery. Something unheard of has been resorted to: the kidnapping of voters. The hopes of collective renewal placed in the female electorate have vanished. Those directors have not bothered to refrain from initiating women into that disastrous policy. Puerto Rico presents the picture of a shipwreck of the most precious human values: honor, patriotism, sacrifice. Yankee imperialism, morally, has led us to despise ourselves; materially, it has converted us from owners into laborers; and from laborers into beggars sentenced to death. Nationalism is the only salvation because it revives in each one of us the conscience of a free man for whom human dignity has no price, and who cannot conceive why he should not have the right to govern the destinies of his children or of his Homeland. That painful renovation of the slave into a free person is not easy to effect and we must have the patience of waiting for that supreme good of man to crystallize internally, even if we have to make the maximum effort to accelerate the moral process. For this we need disinterested, noble, wise, courageous directors. In a word, patriots, worthy emulators of the Bracetti, of the martyrs of Lares, of the Hostos, Rius Rivera, and Betances. With this solemn invocation to the sacred manes of our Christian civilization, nationalism returns for all the fueros of the Homeland. Hosanna! that the liberating army is constituted. It has five thousand places! Its motto: valor and sacrifice. San Juan de Puerto Rico, on the 16th day of November of 1932, 64th anniversary of the Proclamation of the Republic. The National Board, P. ALBIZU CAMPOS, President Rafael RIVERA MATOS General Secretary THE LIE OF SUFFRAGE By Pedro Albizu Campos Sovereignty resides in the nation. The powers of the State, that is, of the national legal personality, are formed by delegation that the nation makes, directly, at times, as still happens in popular assemblies, or as in many Swiss communes, indirectly, by means of compromisarios, a form that is used to designate the North American executive. When the circumscription passes a certain territorial extension or if the population is numerous, the popular assembly to designate the mandataries is replaced by the current electoral district with its respective colleges. The sovereign national will is marked on the electoral ballot. In any case, the condition of citizen sui-juris is required, which varies with the constitutions of the nations and of their political regimes. The serf or the slave lacks the suffrage for not meeting those constitutional requirements, but, already legally abolished servitude, the denial of that right to those who lived in slavery and to their descendants persists, by the superior social mandate. Such is the case of more than sixteen million North Americans, who, for the sole fact of having African blood in their veins, still cannot vote in their own country. The organization of the State is the result of the equilibrium of the social forces that integrate the nationality. The number of mandataries of each class is determined by the constitution or custom, without distinction of political regimes. The virtuality of suffrage is, however, in its power to modify in any form the written or customary constitution of the nationality. In Puerto Rico, suffrage does not exist in any form. The organized legal personality of the Puerto Rican State does not exist due to its suppression by the force of the North American military occupation. The country is governed militarily by a regulation imposed on it by the occupying imperial power of the United States. The military regulation provides for the holding of elections to designate mandataries who exclusively sustain the regime. The imperial power reserves its intervention to destroy the result of any election as has been demonstrated in the case of the municipality of San Juan. The municipality itself could be abolished if necessary. If it were a matter of the representation of the colonial legislature, the occupying power could, through its imperial congress, immediately amend the regulation called organic charter, to nullify the result of any election. Neither citizenship nor suffrage exists. Before the invading military occupation, the Puerto Rican nation has to organize its legal personality. It cannot submit because it will never agree to its extinction. It has to do so under the adverse conditions imposed on it by the occupying enemy force. The electoral farce can become a reality that demolishes the regime that oppresses the Homeland. It would be the case of a forced plebiscite against the power as has happened in Spain. In our case, it is a matter of something more serious still; of the suppression of the foreign occupation, to organize the Puerto Rican nationality. The mandataries shall be constituents. The convention shall establish the government of the Republic and shall request recognition from all nations and international powers. The dilemma for the North American empire before the firmness of the Puerto Rican nation would be to dissolve the convention with gunfire or recognize the Republic. Of course, its regime being declared null by the Convention, no act of the Yankee congress could be imposed on the country unless force, blood and fire were resorted to. The North American empire does not face that dilemma, according to the opinion of its most illustrious personalities. It has to agree, according to them, to the recognition of the Republic. To do otherwise would throw down its prestige in addition to the serious international complications that would necessarily arise. Restored the Republic, there would be citizenship and suffrage. REGARDING THE BANKING SITUATION OF PUERTO RICO THE NATIONALIST PARTY ADDRESSES ITSELF TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE. San Juan de Puerto Rico March 7, 1933 Hon. Rafael Martínez Nadal President of the Insular Senate San Juan de Puerto Rico Sir: In compliance with a resolution of the National Board of the Nationalist Party, the undersigned has the honor of addressing the Mr. President of the Insular Senate. In the wake of the San Ciprián hurricane, Nationalism submitted to the consideration of the insular Legislature the measures deemed necessary to avert the economic crisis produced by said hurricane. Among these measures are: The general moratorium and the suspension of payments of the public debt. In the face of the North American financial catastrophe, the chief of the intervention Colonel Beverley, decreed a banking moratorium taking shelter in the disposition that authorizes him to fix holidays on certain occasions. The law on holidays does not authorize said official to decree a moratorium in the interest of anyone, and less of the foreign banks that retain in their coffers the funds of this people, shielding them with that sole measure from the inevitable consequences of the collapse of the economy of the United States. That decree exclusively benefited the foreign banks because the banks of the country were solvent to attend to their commitments. The same North American official, with today’s date, declares null his proclamation of March 4, 1933, to comply with the executive order of the President of the United States of North America, which declares suspended the banking operations during the days six, seven, eight and nine of this month. This executive order of the Mr. President of the North American power has been immediately extended to Puerto Rico, without any prior consultation or request from any Puerto Rican entity. It is the historical law that is repeated. The intervened nations like ours will add their wealth to that of the power that dominates them for the exclusive benefit of the latter. When the empire enjoys prosperity, misery will be the fate of the subjugated nation: and when the empire is in crisis, total ruin is what awaits the intervened nation. Foreign interventions are excuses to hoard the wealth of the peoples victims of force. The legislation of the North American Congress that, applied to Puerto Rico, exclusively benefits the United States, will be extended to Puerto Rico without consulting us for anything; but the laws that could possibly protect Puerto Rico are of course not extensive to this country. We must clarify that what comes as a mere concession from the power that holds its sovereignty could never benefit Puerto Rico. It is true that, to disorient the public opinion of Puerto Rico, some crumbs of the budget of the United States are distributed in businesses that the dominating nation is interested in maintaining here, but that does not benefit us in any way because it only serves to stimulate the apologists of the regime. The exploitation that signifies the monopoly of our market cannot be compensated in any way. It cannot be otherwise. That is why the North American intervention exists. Proof of what we have just affirmed appears in the Press with the same date as the aforementioned executive order of the President of the United States of North America. The congress of that country has denied the loans requested to the Financial Reconstruction Corporation and to the Agricultural Credit Corporation, North American entities created to rehabilitate the North American people. The terms of these loans are liberal: they could benefit the country even if poorly administered by the North American officials who govern their disbursement, and it was necessary to deny their concession to Puerto Rico. It is childish to pretend that North American finance facilitates us the slightest help to get out of its clutches. As Judge Evans said in the light of the concept that the United States has of law, Puerto Rico is a domestic country in the international, and it is foreign in the North American national. Later we will see how these concepts are shuffled to harm our country. The executive order of the Mr. President of the United States is the preliminary step to accustom the public to the inevitable; the banking moratorium for an indefinite time. The expiration of the term stipulated in said order, only small amounts will be allowed to be withdrawn. The moratorium will be effective as the collapse of the economic castle of the United States imposes it. While banks are exonerated from the obligation to return deposits, they are protected in their right as lending creditors. The executions of business houses, farms and homes will continue due to non-compliance with the payment of the obligations contracted with the banks. While these corporations enjoy the privilege of retaining in their coffers all the cash! A more effective system could not be invented to ruin everyone and to definitively concentrate in the power of the North American companies what little remains of the national wealth in Puerto Rican hands. To prevent that dispossession, a moratorium on the payment of any obligation to a bank is required, whether the obligation is personal or mortgage. That measure can be initiated by the Insular Legislature to save its responsibility to the extent permitted by the legal means at its disposal. The veto of the chief of the intervention is considered certain. It is to be expected, but the country can orient itself and would adopt the measures that protect it against strangulation. The procedure that informs the executive order of Mr. President of the United States is not new. It has been the norm of action in the financial crises that the North Americans have suffered, crises, which compared with the present, can be classified as benign. Given the seriousness of the situation that arises for Puerto Rico, patriotic duty obliges the clarification of such a delicate matter. In no country in the world can a bank be opened
with the facility that it is done in Estados Unidos or in countries subject to its laws. The banking law that governs in Puerto Rico proves it. It seems liberal. In reality, the small bank that opens its doors becomes a forced branch of the most powerful bank in the country, which through that elastic system becomes a rediscount bank. So that the obligations of the small banks can circulate, the rediscount bank must give its prior consent that it will accept them, but for this it will require as collateral the assets of the small banks, their shares and deposits. If the small bank goes bankrupt, the rediscount bank loses nothing. On the contrary, it always wins because it speculates with the collateral value. But if the rediscount bank goes bankrupt, it ruins the small banks and their depositors. Then, the great interests that dominate finances buy the lands, transportation vehicles, mines, franchises, etc., at derisory prices. Financial panic results in ruin for that unhappy norteamericano people, but it is one of the effective methods that the yanquee banking oligarchy has to remain in power for an indefinite time. This is not permitted in any other country that we know of. Everywhere the savings of the people are considered sacred. The organization of banks is made difficult, their number is limited. All governments demand guarantees that cannot be eluded in a moment of crisis. In the absence of a portorriqueño National Bank, because it is impossible to organize it under the present regime, the bank called National City of Nueva York, is functioning as a rediscount bank. Its importance in norteamericano finance is known to all.