RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PUERTO RICAN:
“His first responsibility is not to be a slave; his second responsibility is not to procreate a slave posterity, and there is no force on the planet capable of reducing a people that upholds those principles. The timid, the cowards, those who traffic with their own decorum, know nothing of that force, and confuse and fear brute force, not the power of law but brute force, but the Goddess of brute force is a very frivolous Goddess, she is a Goddess who, one day, crushes those who surrender to her cult, and all the peoples who have surrendered to the cult of the Goddess of brute force have ended up receiving the contempt of history. We remain unwavering, as is the divine power of the right that the Puerto Rican nation has to be master of its destinies, and we defy all the powers of the earth that intend to keep us in slavery.”
CULT TO VALOR
“We have faith in the victory of our cause because we have valor, and courageous men and women were never slaves to anyone. That is why nationalism is the cult to valor. We have faith in our right; we have faith in the restoration of our freedom, because we have faith in the civic conscience of Puerto Rico. The reconquest of Puerto Rico has begun with the reconquest of its ashes and has also begun with the reconquest of the symbols of its sovereignty. We have here the two symbols of the sovereignty of Puerto Rico: the Homeland flag and the cross of the Homeland. And that was the “little flag”. Slaves profane all values including their own dignity. Today is the Flag of Puerto Rico and we have called this day the day of Consecration to the Flag, because it is necessary that each of you be consecrated to the symbol that represents the political power of the Homeland: its Flag”
DE DIEGO AND THE MARTYR
“De Diego sang to it with all his inspiration and his last prayer was to one day rise above his tomb and wave that flag in the sky. But that flag has something even greater than that generation. That flag is the consecration of the purest blood of an adolescent. I have said on other occasions that great values are forged in great sacrifices, and for the sacrifice to be a sacrifice, it must be the offering of the purest of the entrails of the Homeland. Let us salute this afternoon, gentlemen, the venerated figure of the first martyr mother of the Homeland of this generation, Doña Amparo Díaz who is present.”
PUERTO RICAN MATERNITY:
“The audacity of the Yankee invaders has gone to the extreme of wanting to profane Puerto Rican maternity; of wanting to invade the
a people is forged with work, with virtue, and with valor, and that is the message left to us by the names of De Diego and Suárez Díaz.” Mr. Albizu Campos’ speech was repeatedly interrupted by long and thunderous applause. Once the act was over, the numerous forces of Cadets of the Republic who had come from the interior marched to their respective municipalities amidst cheers and enthusiasm.
J. PANIAGUA SERRACANTE In San Juan, Puerto Rico
Homage to the young Francisco Pagán Rodríguez, President of the National Federation of Puerto Rican Students, celebrated at the Condado Hotel in the month of July of 1933.
THE VETO OF PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT TO THE ELECTORAL LAW DECLARATIONS MADE TO THAT EFFECT BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONALIST PARTY 83
“There is no Legislature in Puerto Rico. Legislative power is a myth. The electoral struggle is a periodic farce to keep the Puerto Rican family divided. Playing at senators and representatives in a fantastic parliament is more than a comedy. The Puerto Rican nation has been subjected to that constant mockery during the Yankee intervention. Nationalism has pointed out that there can be no talk of legislative powers when the absolute veto weighs on every legislative resolution. Deep down, everyone has understood this, and the Legislature did not bother to reconsider the projects vetoed by the Governor, the representative of the intervention, aware that his boss, the President of the empire, reserved the absolute and irrevocable veto, and that he would never disapprove of his own representative, the Governor. The naive believed that Colonel Beverley’s veto was due more to personal whims than to a determined imperial policy. There were those who hoped that since the current governor, Colonel Beverley, was affiliated with the North American Republican party, and the dictatorial president of the United States, Roosevelt, was the head of the Yankee Democratic party, the President of the United States would revoke the veto of the representative of his Republican predecessor, Hoover. North American politics is simply a calculated, deliberate, and cold system, aimed at displacing us in our own Homeland. There is no disparity of criteria or procedures between the Yankee political parties with regard to the North American intervention in Puerto Rico. Republicans or Democrats, they are all worse, as a good jíbaro would say. The situation has also been clarified for the naive who in Puerto Rico aspire to convert their Homeland into a Yankee province (“state” sic). The Democratic party, which says in its program that it will convert Puerto Rico into a province of the North American empire (“state” sic), currently governs the United States, and here a coalition that aspires to that political solution dominates the majorities. The coincidence could not be more perfect. However, the electoral law approved by that coalition is rejected by the Yankee president. What can the Coalition expect from a Republican North American administration already defined against that political status? For a definitive constitutional lesson, annexationists should see that the provinces (“states” sic.) and even the Yankee national Congress have disappeared from the North American political reality. It is anachronistic to speak of sovereignty of the “states”, with which the defenders of statehood deceived themselves. The United States currently lives under the strongest personal dictatorship that could have been conceived.
No less interesting in the face of that imperial ukase is the situation of the other governmental faction, with the kind name of liberal, but clearly invoking the use of foreign tyranny against its Homeland. The leadership of that group is boasting and rejoicing that, due to its efforts in Washington, with memorials to the President and the Secretary of War of the United States, the imperial veto has been obtained, annulling the legislative will.
The sensible country will never cease to be amazed at that “liberal” action, of that leadership that, although nobody believes its protests of independentism to be sincere, however, there was some hope in its regional sentimentalism. Yesterday’s unionists, today liberals who had spent their lives criticizing identical actions of the declared annexationists before the same enemy powers, are the current spokesmen for the exercise of a frank tyranny in their Homeland, if with it some of the budget falls into their hands. It can be seen in the declarations of the director of that group himself that this concern overwhelms him. It can never be explained why the leadership has brought before the foreign enemies who have set themselves up as masters of the Homeland’s destinies, all the blemishes, gossip, and pestilence of this miserable partisanship fostered for their own profit by the same Yankee invaders, before whose chief the leadership of the liberal group has appeared with its file of boricua entanglements.
The dictator Roosevelt must have smiled to see that formal recognition from the two sides, liberals and coalitionists, who recognize in him the legitimate arbiter of our destinies. The political history of the world does not know a more shameful spectacle.
Dirty laundry is washed at home, says an old adage, which deserves respect in politics as well, especially when it comes to the rights of a nation intervened by a foreign enemy power like ours, such as the Yankee empire.
The liberal leadership sins of naiveté, however, in believing that, through its officious management, the Yankee dictator has decreed the absolute veto on the electoral bill.
We remind them that foreign despotism is exercised with exclusive regard to its own good, which necessarily results in evil for the intervened nation. The submissive liberal petition has had no influence on the indicated result, other than to serve as a pretext for the chief of the enemies of the Homeland for his act of tyrant.
Each trip to Washington made by the liberal leadership has been fatal for their party:
To justify its repudiation of independence, it presented a “bill campbell”, the whereabouts of which no one was informed; to glorify the fusion of unionism with annexationist republicanism, it returned from Washington with the marvelous formula of “sovereignty within sovereignty”; and now, without knowing for what purpose, from the Yankee Capitol, it derived the political remedy of “evolutionary” independence, without anyone knowing what was meant by that, and which has turned out to be, in a few days, the maintenance of Yankee tyranny, through the absolute imperial veto over all resolution or act of the Legislature.
The reason for Mr. Roosevelt’s irrevocable veto is none other than to maintain absolute control of the electoral result. This is foreseen in the military regulation with which it is intended to bribe this country and which is called the Organic Charter. In the past elections, for the first time during the Yankee military intervention, it was in the hands of the Puerto Ricans to be the sole arbiters of the electoral result. In principle, it was recognized in the bill that President Roosevelt has just thrown into the trash can. That the bill had its defects was undeniable, but the fact that it was Puerto Ricans who would have the electoral power in their hands was enough for no one in Puerto Rico to lend themselves to the Yankee government’s maneuver to find a pretext to annul it.
The current constitution of the Insular Electoral Board was respected, with a representative of the empire, and a delegate from each of the parties with public strength and opinion: Nationalism, the Republican Union, Liberals and Socialists. The Liberal party is called upon to publicly recognize that this board, as constituted, guaranteed all its acquired rights. It is true that nationalism retained the power of arbiter, but let its gratuitous enemies of the liberal leadership be honest, that this power was exercised in a strictly legal sense and never with a view to partisanship, which, in principle, is foreign to the nationalist mentality, which was conscious at all times of the enormous power that it had snatched from the head of the Yankee intervention.
Moreover, we believe that a political party that feels defenseless in the face of this legal situation, when it has one hundred and seventy thousand voters (170,000), should dissolve if, in order to come to power to destroy that miserable budget that does so much harm to the civic conscience, it has to resort to begging the North American dictator to exercise the tyranny that the military regulation grants him with which it is intended to subjugate the Homeland.
In the current situation, the representative of the intervention, the delegates of the liberals and of the Republican Union have a vote on the Insular Electoral Board. The head of the intervention has regained that power of absolute arbiter.
During the ugly controversy that the liberals and coalitionists were carrying on in Washington, we kept our reservations so that the blow would fall on the country in cold blood, so that it would awaken to the reality that the electoral struggle is a farce as useless as it is disorienting; that there is no legislature in Puerto Rico, nor any judicial or administrative body under the dominion of the Puerto Ricans; and that conservatives realize that they do not finish lining up in nationalism, that they live in full foreign tyranny, and sanctioned in advance, by what is supposed to be a constitutional charter.
Now, by virtue of Roosevelt’s ukase, the head of the intervention retains the electoral result. Unionism, today liberalism, knows what that means, and will once again be its propitious victim at the first opportunity that suits the empire. While liberalism lends itself to destructive politics against our Homeland, it will be pleased; if one day it wants to react, it will stumble upon the good-natured but disdainful smile of the Yankee despot, whom it now deifies as the arbiter of justice. The despot is reached peacefully only through flattery and always to serve him. Faced with this harsh reality, clarified by Mr. Roosevelt, the Puerto Rican nation knows that every party that promises to govern under this Yankee intervention is deceiving it, because only the despot who represents it governs under foreign absolutism.
It is the national hour, Puerto Ricans!! The only arbiter of our destinies is the sovereign will of the Homeland.
P. ALBIZU CAMPOS
“BARCELÓ LAYS DOWN A THEORY IN ACCORDANCE WITH HIS POLICY OF SUBMISSION TO THE REGIME” SAYS THE NATIONALIST PRESIDENT 84
The Yankee tyranny against Puerto Rico is exercised, by virtue of the Organic Charter, by the President of the United States, DIRECTLY in the appointment of the judicial and administrative positions, federal and insular, of highest importance, by virtue of his absolute and irrevocable veto on any bill approved by the legislature. INDIRECTLY through his representative, the Governor, local head of the intervention who appoints the judicial and administrative officials of secondary importance, and who ensures —as is natural— not to put into effect any law that harms Yankee interests.
For better protection, the empire, through its Congress, reserves the power to annul, without prior consultation with anyone, each and every one of the laws in force; and its courts of appeal can revoke all the sentences of the existing interventionist courts.
It is organized despotism. Injustice imposed without considerations of any kind for the Puerto Ricans.
And it is so, because foreign despotism is exercised with exclusive attention to its own interests. All its acts constitute an aggression against a nation that does not even defend itself.
To affirm that the veto of the electoral law, of the current dictator who suffers the North American people, “is a triumph of public morality, of justice and decency” —textual words of the President of the liberal group— we will say that it is a childishness so as not to qualify the fact in the artful terms that worry Mr. Barceló.
We will serve him the truth in the most amerengada and easily digestible form for a newborn in politics. We have not held the liberal leadership responsible for the implementation of the Yankee regime. Mr. Barceló did not need to defend himself from that supposed imputation. He has, however, grave responsibility in the consolidation of the Yankee oppression, but that is not a matter to be dealt with at this time.
Let’s go directly to the question of principle raised by the liberal director by serving as a dupe to Mister Roosevelt to veto the electoral law. We will try to explain all this with the greatest tenderness we have at our disposal.
As Mr. Barceló shuns, as is natural, the question of principle raised by our statements yesterday, it must be revived.
The elective offices constitute the only representation that the Puerto Rican nation has under North American intervention. Of that representation, the most important is the legislature. The liberal group fights to acquire a majority in that body. What for? To keep it submissive to Yankee power? That was the sad history of yesterday’s unionism and the aspiration of its successor, today’s liberalism. All because of bad leadership. The party has been worthy of better luck.
We are forced to this conclusion by Mr. Barceló’s declaration. Thus, if one day the liberals happen to have a legislative majority and approve a project over the Governor’s veto, by virtue of a vote of more than two-thirds, and then the local head of the intervention submits the project to the absolute veto of the dictator Roosevelt, what would Mr. Barceló say if the coalitionists stripped him of his sack of boricua gossip and appeared in Washington to unravel it before the President of the empire?
Mr. Roosevelt would repeat for the benefit of the leaders of the Coalition the kind and protective smile -somewhat sardonic- that he had for Mr. Barceló and consulting, as is required, the Yankee interests exclusively, he would veto the legislative project.
The coalitionists would paraphrase Mr. Barceló and say with him that Roosevelt’s veto was “a triumph of the public morality of justice and decency”, and with legitimate pride and joy they would celebrate that “triumph”.
If the men who have been elected to occupy legislative seats are not good for anything other than serving as dupes to the Yankee tyranny, they should retire to private life because they have miserably deceived the voters who gave them their votes.
The Yankee President and his lieutenants, the Governor and the Secretary of War, must have laughed when reading Barceló’s words, when the liberal chief arrogates to himself that “triumph” of the presidential veto.
It is not convenient for any empire to exercise tyranny openly, and it always uses the natives of the intervened nation as a shield for the exercise of its despotism.
Barceló, for that fact, will surely deserve, at least, a hug from the new governor, Mister Gore.
And now we ask the irascible liberal chief: what has his party achieved with Roosevelt’s veto?
In the vetoed project, the Puerto Ricans retained the result of the elections. The loss of this power is a reason for joy for the “liberal” director.
Without valor to face the truth and fearing to make affirmations of any nature, he insinuates, however, an understanding between the Nationalist party and the Coalition.
There is no way to restore the rectitude of conscience in those who lack memory and who are victims of incurable vices. To refute, however, once again the crude insinuation with which he intends to continue deceiving his own party, it is necessary to remind Barceló of the rulings of the Insular Electoral Board in which the
representative of the Nationalist Party, among other things of lesser importance, guaranteed the Liberal Party two senators, a representative, and a municipal government. He will not remember because the liberal chief is currently engaged in the policy of flattery to the North American dictator Roosevelt.
As a result of the veto, the Governor retains control of the electoral result. The Yankee representative and the delegates of the Liberal Party and the Republican Union will have a vote on the Insular Electoral Board. As long as the liberals are willing to please the Yankee government, they will have two votes against one in that body, but the day they try something that is not convenient to Yankee interests, the votes against them will also be two.
It is necessary to distinguish the liberals from their leadership. The party leaders have a policy: to keep the Yankee government happy and will not hesitate to disregard the interests of their party in certain municipalities, if by doing so they serve the imperial policy.
For illustration, we will cite the case of Guánica in the past elections. The candidate for mayor was affiliated with the Republican Union, pleasing to the Guánica Central, and, of course, to the Yankee Government. To ensure his election, the Insular Electoral Board was asked to transfer the polling stations of Guánica to Ensenada, where no one can enter, not even public officials, without prior permission from the administrator of the Guánica Central, who in that area, is absolute king over lives and property.
The local committees of the Nationalist, Socialist and Liberal Parties opposed the transfer. So serious was the matter that these three committees requested and obtained a public hearing before the Insular Electoral Board. Submitted the matter to a vote on the Insular Electoral Board, the representative of the Liberal Party, the one of the Republican Union, and of course, the president of the Board, who is the representative of the Government, voted in favor of the claims of the Guánica Central and the Yankee government. The delegates of the Nationalist Party and the Socialist Party voted against.
The supreme liberal leadership consciously sacrificed its own electorate of Guánica to serve one of those inexplicable prevailing concupiscences.
The Liberal Party has obtained nothing with the veto. On the Insular Electoral Board, it is at the mercy of the Governor’s will and caprice. It will have to please him in everything to get something.
And it may be that at a given moment, the electorate of a liberal municipality finds itself with a vote on the Insular Board against it, of three votes against none, because the representative of its political group before said Board, votes according to the instructions of the Central Board of the Liberal Party, as happened in the cited case of Guánica.
The Liberal Party will not have better luck than its predecessor, the Unionist, and “will be strangled in full infancy in a bed of perfect and inexplicable budget-consuming concupiscences by the surprising amiability and ladina generosity of the Yankee Democratic party”.
And this longed-for dream of the budget is almost a delirium. Travieso, honorary president of the Liberal Party, conservative, pro-Yankee, annexationist, and spokesman of his party clearly dedicated to the perpetuation of the Yankee regime, has just announced the need to convert the Liberal Party into a boricua branch of the Yankee “Democratic” Party. As his words today in this newspaper are not to be missed, we reproduce them verbatim:
“Do you believe that the Liberal Party should affiliate with the Democratic Party of the United States? We interrogated him and he answered us: “I believe that between the Liberal Party and the Democratic Party there are many points of contact and community of ideals. The only point that would be in disharmony is the one referring to the political status for Puerto Rico. On the one hand, the Democratic Party has statehood for our island in its platform and the Liberal Party proclaims independence. It could be that in an exchange of impressions between representatives of one party and the other, a formula could be found that harmonizes these tendencies.”
The only difference between the Democratic Party and the Liberal Party is the political status. Well, almost nothing. Travieso knows that this nonsense can be fixed after an exchange of impressions. And it is that he is the guiding and necessary figure of a group that, calling itself independentist and liberal, has reactionary spokesmen of a colonial regime as directors. Nationalism forced them to put on the mask of independence to avoid their political collapse. The farce cannot last much longer, and it will be necessary to act to be able to participate in that “noble” budget that obliges certain men to everything. Soon we will have “liberal democracy” On the path of apology of foreign tyranny, Barceló lays down a theory in accordance with his policy of submission to the regime. He affirms that minorities should not have protection and that their existence should be at the mercy of the majorities. All the wise ones maintain that laws are made to guarantee minorities, because majorities can guarantee themselves and intend to crush minorities by force. Of course, the liberal leadership is guided by something other than respect for the rights of others. It needs too much of the budget. For that reason, Nationalism must be strangled, and its head offered on a platter to the Yankee dictator Roosevelt. Remember Barceló that he tried to do that when it was the Hardings, Coolidges, and Hoovers who governed the United States, but he failed and could never inspire confidence in the North American despots from whom he deserved only contempt. Empires combat their natural enemy, the nationalist cause, but they always respect it. The oppressors wish to measure themselves against the dignity and valor that represent the men who embody the patriotism of the intervened nation. As no empire can be maintained without the cooperation of the
natives of the country occupied by force, they use them but despise them.
Nationalism is a principle of Homeland affirmation that once it sprouts there is no power that can crush it. It appeals, in the first place, to the electoral struggle, because it is sensible to exhaust the resources of peace but has never limited its action in the face of the impediments that the empire and the cipayos have thrown before its advance.
The nation knew on the night of April 16, 1932 that Nationalism lives its motto: valor and sacrifice for its flag. It is in everyone’s interest not to hinder its peaceful development. It represents the integral rights of all Puerto Ricans.
Puerto Rico is standing. The Homeland was never represented by those who were at the service of its enemies, the invaders.
Those who had the motto spoke in its name: Valor and sacrifice to make its independence respected.
The Liberating Army has five thousand places covered.
P. ALBIZU CAMPOS