Word: puerto
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...local and internal affairs of any of the people who happen to be under our flag, but certainly so flagrant a case as this which apparently is receiving no remedy in that island, makes us question the worth of American institutions as being adapted to the people of Puerto Rico and to the conditions under which they live...
Immediate and violent was the Puerto Rican reaction to this unexpected offer of freedom. Puerto Rican Senator Luis Muñoz Marin, a leader of the Liberal Party, was in Washington when the surprise struck. Cried he angrily: "It provides for ruining the people of Puerto Rico entirely before the date set for the beginning of the independence. . . . The bill is not worth being taken seriously, either by Puerto Ricans or continental Americans. A bill worthy of consideration would have to determine a relationship whereby Puerto Rican consumers could buy first from Puerto Rican producers, second from the United States...
Said President Rafael Martinez Nadal of the Puerto Rican Senate, head of the Republican (Statehood) Party: "The bill puts a premium on assassination of American officials by Nationalists. Because one official was slain by the Nationalists Tydings would give us our independence in four years. If the Nationalists kill three or four others he would give it to us in 24 hours. . . . The bill is a triple betrayal of the Puerto Rican people...
...Only Puerto Rican publicly to rejoice was Pedro Albizu Campos. He predicted that if the referendum on independence were put to the people, they would vote 90% for freedom...
Significance- Simple was the explanation of Puerto Rican chagrin: 90% of the island's exports (chiefly sugar, tobacco, citrus fruits) go to the U. S. Most welcome of the island's imports are dollars from the U. S. Treasury. Independence would cut off both...