Word: puerto
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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These words, coming without warning, shocked and surprised both Washington and Puerto Rico. U. S. management of Puerto Rico, like U. S. management of other colonies, has been neither very good nor very bad. Puerto Rico has given the Washington government a few mild aches & pains but nothing officially serious enough to indicate that President Roosevelt was even considering a quick amputation from U. S. sovereignty of this Caribbean territory...
...Puerto Rican politicians long ago discovered the conviction that the people of Puerto Rico, like the people of Cuba, of a right ought to be free and independent. But this traditional tenet of the Liberal Party which ruled Puerto Rico for years was largely an academic issue which failed to rouse the drowsy insular population to thought or action. The only violent advocates of independence have been the Nationalists, a small minority party led by Pedro Albizu Campos. Two Nationalists recently assassinated Colonel Elisha Francis Riggs, chief of the insular police and personal friend of Senator Tydings. Last week...
Senator Tydings' bill to free Puerto Rico was modeled on his Philippine Independence Bill. It provides that on Nov. 2, 1937, Puerto Ricans shall be invited to vote on the question: "Shall the people of Puerto Rico be sovereign and independent?" If a majority vote "Yes" a convention is to be called within seven months to draw up a Constitution to be submitted, within one year, to the President of the U. S. Then a commonwealth would be set up for four years and immediately appropriations of U. S. money for the islands, with certain minor reservations, would cease...
Briefly Senator Tydings explained: "One reason why the option is proposed to be given to the people of Puerto Rico is that it is in line with present-day American policy. . . . There are other reasons, however, which impel the introduction of the measure at this time. First of all, the chief of police was recently assassinated in Puerto Rico. The conduct of trials in Puerto Rico has been the subject of some criticism not only outside of the island but in the island as well...
...Then the election machinery in the island is not complimentary to the island at all, because the recent registration of voters in Puerto Rico shows that out of 852,832 persons over 21 years of age in the island, 852,904 of them are registered voters. In other words, there are about 100 more people registered in Puerto Rico and qualified to vote than there are people of both sexes over 21 years of age in the island...