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Puerto Rico and the United States: the Need for a New Encounter, 1985

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Puerto Rico and the United States: the Need for a New Encounter, 1985 REPRINTED FROM: Puerto Rico: The Search for a National Policy edited by Richard J. Bloomfield Copyright 1985 by Westview Press, Inc. Westview Press / Boulder and London 2 Puerto Rico and the United States: The Need for a New Encounter Arturo Morales Carrion An examination of Puerto Rico's future should begin with a review of the eighty-five-year-old relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico. It is a complex relationship and cannot be understood by looking at only one side of the historical ledger. Mutual assets and liabilities have affected both parties in the relationship. Although the economic dimension of the relationship is fundamental, other factors play a significant role: the strategic importance of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean; the special link between the island and Latin America; and the unique West Indian ethnic, cultural, and social traditions of the Puerto Rican people. Puerto Rico has the attributes of a cultural nationality: The population shares a common language, a collective memory of past experiences and traditions, and the subjective belief that it belongs to a distinct cultural group. In short, a Puerto Rican ethos exists. Thus, Puerto Rico, as a cultural society, is distinct from the United States. This distinctiveness is particularly characteristic of the Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico, where they are close to the source of their mores and traditions. After eighty­ five years of association, full assimilation into the American cultural matrix has not been achieved in the island. As powerful and pervasive as the American influence has been, Puerto Ricans still adhere to the Spanish language, and their mores and perceptions continue to differ from those of the United States. These facts, stubborn facts, must be considered in any assessment of U.S. policies on Puerto Rico, past, present, or future. The economic web of mutual interest, the strategic imperative, and the presence of a distinct Puerto Rican culture are all historically interrelated. Taken together, these factors create the complexity that characterizes the contemporary situation in Puerto Rico. 9 10 Arturo Morales Carrion The Need for a New Encounter 11 "They would inevitably fail without a course of tuition under a strong The Rise of Colonial Tutelage and guiding hand. With that tuition for a time their natural capacity The genesis of the present relationship between Puerto Rico and the will, it is hoped, make them a self-governing people."3 This doctrine, United States began in 1898. That year Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the together with the doctrine of congressional supremacy, as stated in the United States in the Treaty of Paris, which put an end to the Spanish­ Treaty of Paris, provided the needed framework for colonial tutelage. American War. The cession of the island was promoted by the jingoists, Even before Congress acted, the military occupation had centralized who argued that the United States had both a right and an obligation administration in the critical areas of education, justice, and security, to dominate the Caribbean and to penetrate the markets of Asia and and had established both the theory and the tone of U.S. colonial rule Latin America. Jingoism was the ideology of empire building and was over the island. fueled by messianic nationalism. The strategic value of Puerto Rico Congress finally decreed civil government in 1900 by approving the loomed large. Alfred T. Mahan, the prophet of U.S. naval expansionism, 1Foraker Act. Politically, the act followed strictly from the Root dictum. put it succinctly: "Puerto Rico, considered militarily, is to Cuba, to the The omnipotence of Washington prevailed. Both the executive council future isthmian Canal, and to our Pacific coast, what Malta is, or may and the governor were appointed by the president. The Congress added be, to Egypt and the beyond."1 Thus, the strategic imperative was the . a House of Delegates, elected by the Puerto Rican people. But after main reason for the annexation of Puerto Rico. Furthermore, Mahan's much debate in Congress, U.S. citizenship and full incorporation were words are still significant: Puerto Rico's strategic influence is still present denied. Puerto Rico was not to be treated like Hawaii or Alaska; nor because of the Marxist takeover in Cuba and the planned withdrawal was it intended to be eventually independent like the Philippines. It of U.S. forces from Panama. was to be a ward of Congress, ruled by presidential appointees as the Besides the strategic reasons for annexing Puerto Rico, there was also supreme interpreters of colonial tutelage. According to the Supreme the messianic imperative. President William McKinley saw Puerto Rico Court in the insular cases, it was to be a nonincorporated territory, and the Philippines as a great trust to which the United States was belonging to, but not constituting part of, the United States. committed "under the providence of God and in the name of human The designation of nonincorporated territory offered Puerto Rico a progress and civilization."2 Since Puerto Rico was to be permanently flexibility in economic and fiscal relationships that later proved to be attached to the United States, "benevolent assimilation" should follow. advantageous to the island's growth. With its economy in deep disarray Puerto Ricans had to learn the American creed, divest themselves of and its government facing a fiscal crisis, Puerto Rico was excluded from their past, and in return receive what General Nelson Miles called in the federal internal revenue system so that the island could shape its a 1898 war proclamation "the blessings of civilization." own taxation structure. Furthermore, to allow the government some There was no room in the spirit of the times for self-determination. revenues, customs receipts were diverted into the insular treasury. These In characteristic nineteenth-century fashion, the Treaty of Paris made unique features, forced by the fiscal crisis, inadvertently became a no allowances for Puerto Rican consent. The political status of the island cornerstone of the relationship between the island and the United States. was to be decided by the U.S. Congress, and no promise was made of With the Puerto Rican government in firm U.S. control, the island eventual U.S. citizenship. Outright annexation was to be followed by was opened to American· investment and trade. Because of its 1 million outright colonialism. To establish its legal and institutional framework, people, Puerto Rico was not an uninhabited land waiting for a tide of McKinley in 1899 appointed Elihu Root to be his secretary of war. Root, enterprising pioneers. It was a new frontier for American investment, a conservative corporate lawyer with a sharp mind and consummate particularly in the sugar and tobacco industries. Sugar, above all, looked legal skills, went to work with General George W. Davis, the last of like a promising crop. The first civil government promptly approved a Puerto Rico's military governors. In his 1899 report, Root framed the law chartering foreign corporations, and the first civilian governor, Charles theory of colonial tutelage, denying Puerto Rico any legal right but H. Allen, in his annual report insisted that the island's labor surplus recognizing "a moral right to be treated by the United States in accordance would make the returns to capital "exceedingly profitable . to the with the principles of justice and freedom which we have declared in immense and permanent prosperity of the island."4 our Constitution." Since the people had not been educated in the art The growth of the Puerto Rican sugar industry was based on free of self-government, he thought they had to learn slowly the principles trade as well as protection by U.S. tariff walls. The rapid influx of of self-control and respect for constitutional government. He added: American corporate capital raised sugar exports from 68,909 tons valued 12 Arturo Morales Carrion The Need for a New Encounter 13 at $4,715,611 in 1901 to 244,257 tons valued at $18,432,466 in 1910. the rise of trade unions, and the birth of a women's movement were Furthermore, through building roads and railroads and port improve­ bringing Puerto Rico into the twentieth century. Yet tutorial rule, ments, much of the needed infrastructure for the sugar industry was Americanization, and the increasing concentration of wealth were setting provided. Under the Foraker Act, "King Sugar" began his long and the stage for an explosive crisis. profitable reign in Puerto Rico. The earliest manifestation of political estrangement occurred in 1909 The long-term impact of these policies created deep divisions among I when the House of Delegates refused to approve the island's budget. Puerto Ricans. At the tum of the century, the island was poor and President Taft and the U.S. Congress responded by introducing legislation characterized by an agrarian-based economy. Coffee was the major crop, that further limited the political rights of Puerto Ricans. But between with a profitable market in Europe. Absentee ownership had not yet 1912 and 1916, sentiment for reform grew in the U.S. Congress. New become prevalent and 93 percent of the island's farms were owner legislation was introduced that offered Puerto Ricans U.S. citizenship occupied. ,and an elective senate. Action on this legislation was delayed until war The island's liberal elite had gained an autonomous charter from became imminent and President Wilson personally intervened. Yet despite Spain in 1897. Self-government, within a parliamentary system, was this legislation, the substance of colonial tutelage was preserved. Fur- just beginning when the war broke out. Even the right to negotiate . thermore, when the Jones Act finally passed Congress in 1917 granting commercial treaties had been granted by Spain.
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