Puerto Rico: The Oldest Colony on Earth

     On June 3^rd, Puerto Ricans get to vote in a Presidential primary; in November those same Puerto Ricans cannot vote in the actual Presidential election. It is a political contradiction that spotlights unrepentant hypocrisy by five generations of U.S. leadership.

      To get a handle on the history, please consider these facts.

       In 1937 Theodore Roosevelt Jr., published The Colonial Policies of the United States. Puerto Rico was one of the colonies and in 1937 neither Theodore nor Franklin Roosevelt seemed troubled by the open admission that the United States owned a colony. In fact, in 1937 Franklin Roosevelt reiterated forty years of another U.S. policy. Puerto Rican teachers needed to use English –and English only- as the medium of elementary and high school instruction. Otherwise, the Puerto Ricans would remain “hopeless” and the United States hopelessly stuck with the tiresome burdens of imperial power.

    By 1945 aspirations for self determination clashed with the U.S. Constitution. Article Four, Section Three of the Constitution stipulated that Congress made all needful rules and regulations for U.S. territories. Thus, since 1898, Congress claimed plenary or absolute power over Puerto Rico and its citizens; Senators who knew nothing about the island sat on a throne and from that pedestal they stressed, in September of 1945, that Congress had no intention of giving the Puerto Ricans either statehood or independence. They would remain a colony and that was that.

     Many Puerto Ricans had other ideas. During and after the war, aspirations for an end to Western colonialism stirred passions from one end of the globe to the other; so, in late 1945, the Puerto Rican legislature passed a bill that asked for a vote of self determination. Rexford Tugwell, the Governor of Puerto Rico, quickly vetoed the bill and the Puerto Ricans then passed the bill over Tugwell’s veto. That sent the legislation to the desk of President Truman and, as files in his library indicate, the President sustained the veto because he did not want to be humiliated on the world stage. Since Congress had already stressed that the Puerto Ricans would remain a U.S. possession, why let them vote –in all likelihood for independence- and then have Congress remind them that self determination might apply in Indochina, but not in Puerto Rico, the epicenter of America’s Caribbean lake.

       With statehood and independence foreclosed the U.S. allowed the Puerto Ricans to elect their own governor –for the first time –in 1948. And then, in 1950, Congress gave the Puerto Ricans the right to produce a Constitution of their own making. It seemed like serious change unless you read the Congressional debates. As Congressman Fred Crawford stressed, Puerto Rico could never be a state or independent but “Puerto Rican can be a colonial possession and have a great deal to say about her own government under which the Puerto Ricans live.”

   Even more emphatic was a House Report from March of 1952. “It is important that the nature and scope of S. 3336 (the bill to permit a Puerto Rican Constitution) be made absolutely clear. The bill under consideration would not change Puerto Rico’s fundamental political, social and economic relationship to the United States.” (My emphasis)

   The conclusion is inescapable: Puerto Rico was a colony in 1937; and nothing fundamental changed in 1952, so Puerto Rico remained a colony even though then Governor Luis Muñoz Marin wanted to tell the United Nations that Puerto Rico was a Free Associated State. Echoing Congress, Washington officials quickly told Muñoz what he could do with his assertions. Puerto Rico was neither free nor a state. Congress maintained plenary or absolute power, but, as a form of cosmetic surgery, Muñoz could use the word Commonwealth.  It hid the colonial reality unless Muñoz got pushy. For example, during House hearings in 1963 he tried to put meat on his Free Associated State, only to be reminded by the powerful Representative John Saylor that nothing fundamental changed in 1952. With great reluctance, Muñoz made this response: “If it (Puerto Rico) is still a colony of the United States, it should stop being a colony as soon as possible for the honor of the United States and for the sense of self respect of the people of Puerto Rico.”

   Tragically, Muñoz was spitting against hurricane winds. America has no honor when it comes to Puerto Rico. Indeed, as the Puerto Ricans vote in the Presidential primaries on June 3^rd, they need to keep in mind President Bush’s 2005 report on the island’s political status. After stressing, on page 1, that the United States Congress made “all” needful rules and regulations for Puerto Rico, President Bush’s Task Force also made two other important points.

    First, since the U.S. invasion in 1898, Puerto Rico was “not intended to become a state”; and, second, Puerto Ricans were citizens by statue rather than birth. Congress had forced the Puerto Ricans to accept citizenship in 1917 –the alternative was to be an alien in your own nation- and even though President Wilson heartily welcomed the “new citizens, not as a stranger, but as one entering his father’s house”, President Bush’s Task Force suggested that Daddy could still expel the Puerto Ricans whenever he and Congress pleased. (My emphasis)

        In Washington the Puerto Ricans skated on thin ice; in the warm Caribbean they found themselves overboard without a life jacket. Either way, whatever responsibility Puerto Ricans share for tolerating their status, the moral buck still stops at the desks of men like Harry Truman and George Bush II. 

     The United States cannot claim plenary or absolute power for 110 years and then not accept primary responsibility for the political and economic condition of Puerto Rico and its people. The island remains the oldest colony on earth. And, none of the Presidential candidates stresses yet another Bush contradiction: Washington forcefully demands self determination in the Middle East but not on the extraordinary 35 by 100 mile island of Puerto Rico.

    If they had the courage, the Presidential candidates would offer this kind of commitment: I (Senator Obama, Clinton, or McCain) will move Congress to guarantee that, whatever the choice, Congress will accept the democratically expressed will of the Puerto Rican people.