Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T17:46:04.277Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ideology and Leadership in Puerto Rican Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Henry Wells
Henry Wells
Affiliation:
University of Puerto Rico
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Far and away the most powerful force in the political life of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is the Popular Democratic party (Partido Popular Democrático, or PPD). Since 1945 elected representatives of the party have held the office of Resident Commissioner in Washington and more than two-thirds of the seats in both houses of the insular legislature. Since the election of 1948 the president of the party, Luis Muñoz Marín, has been Governor of the island. Inasmuch as there are no other elective officials in the executive branch, gubernatorial appointees loyal to the party and its program fill all the top policy-making and administrative posts. And because the Governor also appoints all judges, the percentage of Populares on the Commonwealth bench is understandably high.

The party's control over the insular government is a direct result of its extraordinary showing at the polls. Its island-wide candidates have never received less than 60 per cent of the total vote in any election save that of 1940, the first in which a Popular Democratic ticket was on the ballot. In the most recent election, that of November 4, 1952, the Popular candidate for Governor received a record 65 per cent of the votes cast.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 1955 , pp. 22 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1955

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For the 1952 election data on which the above comments are based, see Amy, William M., Estadísticas de las elecciones celebradas en Puerto Rico el 4 de noviembre de 1952, 2nd ed. (San Juan, 1952)Google Scholar.

2 See Key, V. O. Jr., Southern Politics (New York, 1950), passim, esp. pp. 298–310, 406–9Google Scholar.

3 In a last-ditch but singularly unsuccessful attempt to bring an end to the insurrection in Cuba, and thus to avert armed intervention by the United States, the Spanish Crown on November 25, 1897, issued three decrees liberalizing the governments of Cuba and Puerto Rico. The first decree, the so-called Autonomic Charter of the Antilles, granted a considerable measure of self-government to the two colonies; the second instituted universal manhood suffrage; and the third brought Cubans and Puerto Ricans under the protection of the bill-of-rights provisions (Title I) of the Spanish Constitution of 1876. The first two decrees are translated in Laws, Ordinances, Decrees, and Military Orders Having the Force of Law, Effective in Porto Rico May 1, 1900 (Washington, G.P.O., 1909), Part III, pp. 1821–61Google Scholar. For the text of Title I of the 1876 Constitution, see Documents on the Constitutional History of Puerto Rico (Washington, Office of Puerto Rico, n.d.), pp. 9–12Google Scholar. The Puerto Rican parliament elected under the Autonomic Charter convened on July 17, 1898; on the 25th American troops landed on the south coast of the island; on the 28th the parliament disbanded, never to reconvene. See Gontán, José A., Historia Político-Social de Puerto Rico (San Juan, 1945), pp. 316–18Google Scholar.

4 The Organic Act of 1900 (the so-called Foraker Act, 31 Stat. 77) permitted the Puerto Rican people to control their own municipalities, to send a Resident Commissioner to Washington, and to elect the members of the lower house of the insular legislature, but it vested in the President the power to appoint the Governor, the justices of the Supreme Court, and the members of the upper house (called the Executive Council, an eleven-man body, six members of which served as heads of the executive departments).

The Organic Act of 1917 (or the Jones Act, 39 Stat. 951) made the upper house elective, authorized the Governor to appoint most of the department heads, and extended United States citizenship to the people of Puerto Rico. A 1947 amendment (usually called the Elective Governor Act, 61 Stat. 770) made the governorship an elective office, but the Auditor and the Supreme Court justices continued to be presidential appointees until the Commonwealth Constitution took effect.

The drafting of a constitution by the Puerto Rican people was authorized in 1950 by Public Law 600 of the 81st Cong., 2d sess. (64 Stat. 319), enacted “in the nature of a compact” with the people of the island. This act did not take effect until ratified by the latter in a referendum. The constitution was thereupon drafted by a constituent assembly, ratified by the Puerto Rican people, and approved by Congress (66 Stat. 327, 1952). It took effect on July 25, 1952, thus bringing the Commonwealth into being. See Franqui, Victor Gutiérrez and Wells, Henry, “The Commonwealth Constitution,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 285, pp. 33–41 (Jan., 1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Under the terms of Public Law 600, about half of the Organic Act of 1917 was repealed upon the taking effect of the new constitution. By the repeal of Section 34 of the Organic Act, Congress gave up its right to annul insular legislation and withdrew the right of the President to uphold gubernatorial vetoes of such legislation. Other repealed sections included a bill of rights and provisions relating to the structure and powers of the insular government.

Public Law 600 kept the remainder of the Organic Act in effect under a new title: the Puerto Rican Federal Relations Act. The latter contains provisions concerning the Resident Commissioner, U. S. citizenship, the applicability of federal laws to the island, economic privileges originally granted to Puerto Rico in the Organic Act of 1900, and other matters.

Although still in the process of definition, commonwealth status is the product of all these changes. Its basic meaning is that Puerto Rico is self-governing in local affairs under a constitution of its own adoption and that its relations with the United States are those of association based upon the principle of consent as recognized in a compact with the federal government. Puerto Ricans continue to be citizens of the United States and are subject to most federal laws of general application. They do not have voting representation in Congress or the right to participate in presidential elections, but on the other hand they pay no federal taxes. For a description of commonwealth status and a discussion of possible avenues of future development of the commonwealth relationship, see Marín, Luis Muñoz, “Puerto Rico and the U. S., Their Future Together,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 32, pp. 541–51 (July, 1954)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 See Perloff, Harvey S., Puerto Rico's Economic Future (Chicago, 1950), esp. pp. 3–9, 21–37, 159–67, 196–209Google Scholar.

6 In 1897 Muñoz Rivera had founded the Liberal party, which in 1899 became known as the Federal party. In 1904 its name was changed again to Partido Uniòn de Puerto Rico. In 1924 and 1928 Unionists were elected to office as the dominant partners in an electoral grouping known as the Alliance, the other members of which were dissident (i.e., non-statehood) Republicans. In 1929 the Alliance fell apart and in 1931 the Unionists reorganized themselves as the Liberal party.

7 In its 1922 convention the Union party adopted a platform calling for the creation of an Associated Free State (Libre Estado Asociado) in terms that clearly anticipate the Commonwealth status recently achieved. It is to be noted that the word “Commonwealth” is rendered Estado Libre Asociado in the Spanish text of the new constitution (Art. I, Sec. 1). See Barceló, Antonio R., “El Partido Unión de Puerto Rico,” in El Libro de Puerto Rico (San Juan, 1923), pp. 194–200Google Scholar.

8 In the election of 1917, the Socialist ticket polled 24,468 votes, or 14 per cent of the total. In the 1920 election, it polled 59,140 votes, neany 24 per cent of the votes cast. See Candidatos elegidos y proclamados en las elecciones celebradas el 16 de julio de 1917 (San Juan, 1917)Google Scholar and Estadísticas de las elecciones celebradas el 2 de noviembre de 1920 (San Juan, 1920)Google Scholar.

9 For details concerning the programs and activities of the three parties, see Barceló', “El Partido Unión,” and “American Rule in Porto Rico, 1899–1924,” Current History, Vol. 21, pp. 511–17 (Jan., 1925)Google Scholar; Canet, Sebastián Dalmau, Luis Muñoz Rivera: su vida, su política, su carácter (San Juan, 1917), pp. 274–396Google Scholar; Santiago Iglesias, “Partido Socialista,” and Martínez, Prudencio Rivera, “Federación Libre de los Trabajadores de Puerto Rico,” in El Libro de Puerto Rico (cited previously), pp. 208–14, 898–902Google Scholar; Iglesias, , Luchas Emancipadoras (San Juan, 1929)Google Scholar; Pedreira, Antonio S., Un Hombre del Pueblo: José Celso Barbosa (San Juan, 1937), pp. 133–54Google Scholar.

10 Muñoz had long thought otherwise. In his twenties, while living in New York and trying his hand at poetry and free-lance journalism, he had written, “the sentiment for independence is real enough among the young fellows and the common people, and it only waits to be organized by a politician with some poetry in his make-up.” “Porto Rico: The American Colony,” The Nation, Vol. 120, pp. 379–82 (April 8, 1925)Google Scholar.

11 See especially Muñoz, , “Porto Rico: The American Colony”; “The Sad Case of Porto Rico,” The American Mercury, Vol. 16, pp. 137–41 (Feb., 1929)Google Scholar; “What Next in Porto Rico?” The Nation, Vol. 129, pp. 608–9 (Nov. 20, 1929)Google Scholar; and “T.R. of P.R.,” World's Work, Vol. 60, pp. 21–24 (July, 1931)Google Scholar.

12 For Muñoz' comments on the Tydings bill (S. 4592, 74th Cong., 2d sess., introduced April 23, 1936), see El Mundo (San Juan, P. R.), April 24, 1936Google Scholar. Muñoz describes the bill's unsettling effect on his thinking about independence in “Development through Democracy,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 285, pp. 1–8 (Jan., 1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 The foregoing account of the changes in Muñoz Marín's thinking and of the founding of the PPD is based on conversations that I have had with Muñoz and with his associates of that period. For a lively description of the 1938–40 campaign, see Marín, Muñoz, “Plight of Puerto Rico,” The New Republic, Vol. 108, pp. 51–52 (Jan. 11, 1943)Google Scholar. See also Córdova, Olivo de Lieban, Siete Años con Muñoz Marín, 1938–1945 (San Juan, 1945), pp. 39–96Google Scholar.

14 See Marín, Luis Muñoz, Historia del Partido Popular Democrático (San Juan, 1952), pp. 16–20Google Scholar.

15 Figured in 1940 dollars, the 1953 per capita net income was $213. See Office of Economic Research, Economic Development Administration, The Net Income of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (San Juan, 1953), p. 23Google Scholar, Table 10 as amended. For statistics on the expansion of industry, see Bureau of Economics and Statistics, Puerto Rico Planning Board, Economic Report to the Governor, 1953 (San Juan, April, 1954), pp. 66–73Google Scholar.

16 Anthropological studies of selected rural areas and small towns in the late 1940's revealed a continuing lack of interest in the status issue on the part of the average Puerto Rican voter. One such study reports the following: “Investigation quickly discloses … that most of the inhabitants of the many small towns and of the rural areas are not intensely preoccupied with the question of Puerto Rico's colonial status. These people are too deeply involved in everyday problems of making a living, marrying, reproducing and raising children, and trying to enjoy a bit of recreation now and then to give thought to such complex, usually incomprehensible matters as political status, tariff advantages and disadvantages, or the position of Puerto Rico among the nations of the world …. Once the city and University are left behind, the status question is likewise left behind, for the rest of the island's population performs its daily activities seemingly unaware of, or indifferent to, the question of Puerto Rico's political status.” Siegel, Morris, “A Puerto Rican Town,” unpub. manuscript (Social Science Research Center, University of Puerto Rico, 1948), p. 294Google Scholar. See also the following unpub. dissertations (Columbia University, 1951): Wolf, Eric R., “Culture Change and Culture Stability in a Puerto Rican Coffee Community,” pp. 166–67Google Scholar; Mintz, Sidney W., “Cañamelar: The Contemporary Culture of a Rural Puerto Rican Proletariat,” pp. viii/2–3Google Scholar; and Padilla, Elena, “Nocora: An Agrarian Reform Sugar Community in Puerto Rico,” p. X/25Google Scholar. These Columbia studies are the outcome of a project sponsored by the Social Science Research Center of the University of Puerto Rico and directed by Professor Julian Steward. They will soon appear in book form under the imprint of the University of Illinois Press.

17 See Tugwell, Rexford Guy, The Stricken Land (Garden City, 1947), pp. 540–41Google Scholar.

18 See note 4.

19 See note 4.

20 The successive stages in the United Nations' consideration of the Puerto Rican case are summarized in the following U.N. documents: A/AC.35/L.121, A/2465, A/2556, and A/PV. 459.

21 The anthropologist Mintz, who lived for more than a year in-a cane-workers' village (“Barrio Poyal”) on the south coast, reports the following: “When a loyal Popular in Barrio Poyal was once asked if he had a picture of a saint in his house, he pointed jokingly to a photograph of Muñoz Marín and remarked: ‘There is my saint, he lives in San Juan; his name is San Cocho.’ [Sancocho is a kind of stew.] Muñoz Marín is thus identified with the most fundamental needs of the common people.” Mintz, , “Cañamelar” (cited in note 16), p. viii/2Google Scholar. Mintz and others have called attention to the fact that many of the poor people refer to themselves as Muñocistas rather than as Populares. See Wolf (cited in note 16), p. 155; and Padilla (cited in note 16), p. X/17.

22 Personalismo, in the sense that I use the word, is not to be found in any of the several Spanish dictionaries that I have consulted, but it is nevertheless a term of some currency, especially among students of Latin American sociology and politics. See The Evolution of Latin American Government, ed. Christensen, Asher N. (New York, 1951), pp. 109–10, 260, 414Google Scholar. It is to be distinguished on the one hand from paternalism, with respect to which personalismo is in a sense the reverse side of the coin, and on the other hand from caudillismo, a term which is not relevant to the Puerto Rican case, inasmuch as it connotes indigenous military or revolutionary leadership, a Latin American phenomenon which Puerto Rico fortunately has been spared.

23 No comprehensive political history of Puerto Rico under Spanish rule has yet been written in any language, but two excellent sketches are available in English. One is Amato, Pedro Muñoz, “Major Trends in the Constitutional History of Puerto Rico, 1493–1917,” Revista de Derecho, Legislatión y Jurisprudencia del Colegio de Abogados de Puerto Rico, Vol. 12, pp. 242–59 (1949)Google Scholar, and the other is Monge, José Trías, “Legislative and Judicial Reorganization in Puerto Rico,” unpub. diss. (Yale Law School, 1947), pp. 173–247Google Scholar. See also Monclova, Lidio Cruz, Historia de Puerto Rico (Siglo XIX), Vol. 1 (Río Piedras, 1952)Google Scholar, for an exhaustive account of the period 1808–1868. Volumes 2 and 3, forthcoming soon, will carry the story through 1898.

24 According to a recent description, the hacendado was “a patriarchal figure who acted at times as father, counsellor, physician and judge of his people. The term ‘padre de agrego’ (father by aggregation) is still used by some of the older residents of our rural communities when referring to the owner of the land where they live.” Muñoz, Raúl, Serra, Belén M., and de Roca, Angelina S., “Research and Evaluation in a Program of Community Education,” The Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 43–52 (1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 No economic history of Puerto Rico has yet appeared, but the following works contain material on land tenure and economic organization in the Spanish period: Clark, Victor S. and associates, Porto Rico and Its Problems (Washington, 1930), pp. 495–500Google Scholar; Crist, Raymond E., Sugar Cane and Coffee in Puerto Rico (Rio Piedras, n.d.), pp. 3–7Google Scholar. This work is reprinted from The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 7, pp. 173–84, 321–37, 469–74 (Jan., Apr., and July, 1948)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Perloff, , Puerto Rico's Economic Future (cited in note 5), pp. 12–16Google Scholar; and Picó, Rafael and Haas, William H., “Puerto Rico,” in The American Empire, ed. Haas, (Chicago, 1940), pp. 41–55Google Scholar.

26 See note 3.

27 For a discussion of the rivalry between Muñoz Rivera and Barbosa, see Pedreira, , Un Hombre del Pueblo (cited in note 9), pp. 121–49Google Scholar, and Dapena, José A. Gautier “Nacimiento de los Partidos Politicos bajo la Soberania de los Estados Unidos,” Historia, Vol. 3, pp. 158–78 (Oct., 1953)Google Scholar.

28 I am indebted to my colleague Professor Reece Bothwell for the suggestion that one reason for Muñoz Marín's rise to power in 1940 may have been the fact that the veteran políticos Iglesias, Barceló, and Martínez Nadal—leaders respectively of the Socialist, Liberal, and Republican parties—had just previously died or retired from active politics, thus leaving the field open for the emergence of a new leadership figure. Barceló died in 1938. Martínez Nadal could not campaign actively in 1940 because of ill health and died in 1941.

29 The survey was conducted during the period November, 1951 to February, 1952 by the Division of Community Education of the Commonwealth Department of Education, with the assistance of the Institute of Social Research, of the University of Michigan. Based on a scientific random sample of approximately 1800 adult respondents and representing the entire rural population of the island, the survey obtained information on the economic and social characteristics of the rural population, on the extent of its past and present experience with community action, and on its attitudes toward community action, including its perceptions of the role of leadership. The preliminary findings of the survey are summarized in Muñoz, Serra, and de Roca (cited in note 24), pp. 43–52. See also Division of Community Education, “A Survey of Social Participation in the Puerto Rican Community,” mimeographed (San Juan, July, 1952)Google Scholar, and “Report on Preliminary Findings …” (San Juan, Sept., 1952)Google Scholar.

30 “Research and Evaluation in a Program of Community Education” (cited in note 24), p. 50.

31 Ibid., pp. 50–51.

32 The anthropologist Wolf came to this conclusion after living for eighteen months among the jíbaros of a coffee region. In support of the thesis he calls attention to Muñoz Marín's “tactic of ‘going to the people’; his readiness to talk to the country folk; the simplicity of his speeches and language; hie willingness to share their food and hospitality; his informality in clothes and studied dislike, of urban articles of wearing apparel; his reputation as a man who can hold his liquor well; his appeal to women; his attempts to ‘give life’ to the people, to better their conditions. The kind of man who fits this description on the local level is the ‘good landowner’.” “Culture Change and Culture Stability” (cited in note 16), pp. 154–55.

33 For a description of this interesting development, which may well turn out to be one of the most significant achievements of the whole Popular program, see Cannell, Charles F., Wale, Fred G., and Withey, Stephen B., eds., “Community Change: An Action Program in Puerto Rico,” The Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 1–57 (1953)Google Scholar. Reference has already been made to one of these articles in note 24.

Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.