1942: Puerto Rico

Distressing Economic Situation.

The war has hit Puerto Rico severely, causing serious shortages of gasoline and of food, which the island has always imported heavily, some 40 per cent of it from the United States. Because of the shipping situation food supplies are so low as to result in famine conditions. Food prices have soared, imported foods more than doubling in price, though the cooperation of the Federal Department of the Interior and the Agricultural Marketing Administration has had some success in keeping the price level down. Unemployment, too, is so serious that Governor Tugwell summoned a special session of the Legislature on Oct. 24 to consider these emergency problems. The report of a special unemployment committee indicated that 225,000 persons were out of work. A special report of the WPA Administrator for Puerto Rico found 12 per cent of the population jobless and 1,000,000 persons in need of government aid. The order in December for liquidation of the WPA will aggravate this situation as well as remove support from the school lunch program, which has been feeding over 143,000 undernourished children.

Attacks Upon the Governor.

Principal causes of the island's unhappy economic situation are the absence of war industries and the breakdown of transportation between Puerto Rico and the United States, which prevents the importation of construction materials, as well as food, and the exportation of the chief money crops. Blame for much of the distress has been laid upon the administration. Gov. Rexford Guy Tugwell has been made the target of bitter attack, culminating in demands for his removal and even for his impeachment. In February, Coalition Senators, representing the Union Republican, Socialist and Unification parties, asked for his removal because of delay in civil defense of the island. The Puerto Rican Farmers Association, the Chamber of Commerce and the Free Federation of Labor, as well as the Resident Commissioner in Washington, Bolívar Pagan, have also sought to oust the Governor. The spokesman of the opposition in the United States Senate has been Senator Vandenberg of Michigan, who has expressed serious doubt whether Governor Tugwell should be left in office in view of 'his swiftly expanding bureaucracy and his superlatively expensive administration, with all its implicit national socialization,' and proposed a definite two-year term for Governor. Opposition in the House of Representatives found expression in the action of its Agriculture Committee in making a $15,000,000 relief appropriation contingent upon the Governor's retirement.

Congressional Investigations.

In spite of Secretary Ickes' opposition, Senatorial investigation of conditions in Puerto Rico have been instituted by two Senate subcommittees, the Truman Committee and the Chavez Committee, which will inquire into the acute shipping and food problems. The report of the latter absolves Secretary Ickes and Governor Tugwell of responsibility for restricted food shipments and attributes the critical condition of the island to 'lack of coordination' and 'procrastination' in all activities relating to Puerto Rico. The War Shipping Administration is held directly responsible for the shipping situation.

The Chavez Committee report also criticized as impractical and 'only half-baked' the plan of the Office of Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs for a land-water route to Puerto Rico across the islands of the Caribbean, for which the lend-lease administration had supplied $500,000 to recondition a road between Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic.

Two other committees, the Byrd Committee on Expenditures and the House Committee on Territories, will explore basic political and economic factors. These last lead inevitably into the underlying reasons for the sharp opposition of certain groups in the island to the Tugwell administration.

Division of Land Holdings.

One of the main grounds of attack is the Governor's espousal of the nationalization of certain of the island's resources and the division of all land holdings of over 500 acres. A recent law limits holdings to 500 acres through purchase of land in excess of that amount, which shall be leased in small plots to individual farmers. The first big estate to be broken up was the 10,000 acre holding of the Cambalache sugar mill at Arecibo, by a consent decree signed by the Insular Supreme Court in March. At the time at least nine other sugar properties faced similar action. A popular front party, which controls the insular Legislature, supports Governor Tugwell in this and other administration policies. The President of the Senate, Luis Muñoz Marín, has stood back of the Governor, as has José Ramírez Santibáñez, President of the Liberal party.

Proposed Election of Governor.

An amendment by Congress of the Second Organic Act would be needed to effect a proposal made by Governor Tugwell that Puerto Ricans be allowed to elect their own governor. A bill to this effect was introduced in the House of Representatives on July 6 but by the Resident Commissioner, Bolívar Pagan, who tried to turn it against the present Governor by a proviso that it should be made effective in December 1942. According to the Tugwell plan the portfolios of Education and Justice would eventually be turned over to the people, too.

Insular Legislation.

An emergency relief bill for $10,000,000, which had been passed by the special session of the insular Legislature, was signed by the Governor on Nov. 27. It is estimated that, through use of 70 per cent of the rum tax, the relief total may reach $18,000,000. The $15,000,000 asked of the U. S. Congress by President Roosevelt was intended to promote the production of food and feed products in Puerto Rico for home consumption and would have constituted a step towards making the island self-sustaining, but the rider attached by the House Agriculture Committee nullified this constructive attempt to get at one of the island's basic difficulties.

Other measures considered by the special session of the Legislature were increases in taxation, including the income tax, and the refunding of the island's bonded indebtedness in such a manner as to save Puerto Rico $750,000 annually. The current budget has been increased to over $20,000,000. Sugar exports for 1942 exceeded 1,000,000 tons, of which 900,000 were shipped by the close of the year.