Word: ricans
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Last week in Puerto Rico eligible voters had to be at their polling places by high noon. Precisely at that hour doors were closed against late comers and voting began. As their votes were recorded, voters were allowed to slip out quietly one by one. When the last Puerto Rican left his polling place the election was all over but the counting. When the counting was all over it was revealed that white-thatched old Santiago Iglesias, the Samuel Gompers of his island, had been re-elected Puerto Rico's Resident Commissioner in Washington over Dr. José Lopez...
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...