Latin American perspectives; Luis Muoz Rivera and Luis Muoz Mar_n

Latin American perspectives a program of comment and analysis about current Latin American problems and their historical setting. The commentator for these programs is Dr. C. Harvey Gardner research professor of history at Southern Illinois University. Here now is Dr. Gardner. Ordinarily the word dynasty carries an ugly ring for Americans. We think of royal families of narrow minded monarchs and their incompetent heirs. We think in Latin American politics of Trujillo's failure to establish a dynasty in the Dominican Republic and some mosts success in doing so in Nicaragua and these in our world in time smack of the negative. But there can be dynasties of goodness when father and son represent indeed fight for the finer things of life. Puerto Rico provides us with such a dynasty in a pair of men named muñoz Luis. When you're with Rivera and his

son Louis one U.S. Marine they are father and son are subject of a volume recently published by Dodd mead and company authored by Marianna Norris and intitled father and son for freedom. The story of Puerto Rico's Luis when you were three and Luis when U.S. Marine indeed in the span of these two lives which now stretch more than a century and the son is still alive and very much with us. We have the story of the declining years of Spanish power in that Caribbean island and the days the seventy years of days that had been the U.S. identification with the island. The elder one year old Luis was very early addicted to poetry. Indeed as early as

1882 seemed more a poet than anything else. And it's interesting to note that a biography of his son Louis Munoz Marine published within the last decade has referred to him as the poet in love for her son in the governor's palace in Puerto Rico. And so in matters intellectual in matters exotic as well as matters political and pragmatic It is a matter of like father like son. But after those earliest moments when Rivera was a poet writing in the columns of newspapers in Ponce Puerto Rico the prominent city on the south side of the island he became politically oriented and joined the then Liberal Party a party which caused him to be elected to the town council of bar and key to us. And upland town in the

interior of the island and in time when your oath Rivera's outlook shifted from the battle of liberals versus conservatives in the framework of Spanish power in the island to a viewpoint that suggested that autonomy that the Puerto Rican should have a measure of control of island affairs became his principal focus. And so he joined a new autonomy party this party in turn and his addiction to it led him to establish his own newspaper which he appropriately named democracy. Or in the Spanish law Democrats. By 1895 he was one of the foremost spokesman for the cause of autonomy on the island of Puerto Rico. He made the trip privately his own expense to Spain to sound out

diplomats and others in Spain for the measure of support he hoped to when he learned that only the party out of power in Spain would give him the slightest hearing. And so he tried to ally his island hopes with the hopes of this party out of power. Lo and behold the party out of power came into power. The Spaniard who had pledged his word and support rendered that kind of support. And by 1897 Spain had taken steps to grant Puerto Rico self-government. When Youth Rivera was elected the first premier of Puerto Rico and it would have been a prominent human factor in the transition of power from mainland Spain to Island Puerto Rico if the Spanish-American War had not occurred. But occur it did.

And in that moment that the elders looking to autonomy for the island were having their hopes blasted. The United States moved in and established a colonial status for the island. Our first civilian rule in the island drew the ire of many Puerto Rico nuns including when you with Rivera and it wasn't long before he moved to a New York City again to publish the political thoughts and poems. It's in the new world that is New York City new for him and for his growing family that we have his son. When you're old enough growing to the measure of schooling that would make him somewhat of a human bridge between the Spanish culture of Puerto Rico and the Anglo culture of the mainland. For the elder his father it was going to be a difficult matter learning English. Becoming a spokesman for

the island here in the United States for the son it was going to be a matter of being bilingual. Knowing the desires of the island and voicing them in a manner that people in the mainland could not fail to understand in time. We don't Rivera became the resident commissioner of Puerto Rico. The Resident Commissioner occupies an unusual place in that he's allowed a seat on the floor of our House of Representatives in Washington. He's allowed to stand on his feet and voice his views but he has no vote. Whatever it means that a great deal of his work then is a matter of buttonholing representatives in the cloak rooms in the car utters causing them to understand and hoping to promote a great deal of goodwill in reference to the island its needs its desires a resident

commissioner then is in essence a super lobbyist and super lobbyist. Munoz Rivera was because he it was who helped spearhead the revision that gave rise to the Jones Act of 1917 the Jones Act gave Puerto Ricans US citizenship for the first 1000 years between 1898 in 1917. They had been in a political limbo. We taking the island from Spain had in essence cancelled their Spanish citizenship. But we soon decided that the Constitution did not necessarily follow the flag and so we did not automatically and immediately be sto US citizenship upon them. And so for a while they were in that special limbo that meant they were citizens of the island but the island was an appendage of the United States. Meanwhile living in New York living in Washington living in the United States and going to school here as well. The son

Louis Munoz Marine came to be a poet journalist and also a political thinker. In time he went back to Puerto Rico following his father's death. There were those who increasingly looked to him as yet another spokesman for the political status. The measure of dignity that Puerto Ricans wanted for their own island affairs and the measure of control they hope to a say in those affairs. And so by 1932 Louis Munoz Marine had entered the Puerto Rican Senate. He later moves from the Liberal Party to found a new popular Democratic Party. This party founded in the late 30s is to this day the king pin when one wants to explain the political developments and fortunes of the island across the last 30 years.

Beginning in the late 1930s and notice these were Depression years they were years in which the economic stress was greater than ever. We have the man who once had thought of Independence who had thought of severing ties between Ireland and United States. Once his fatherhood resumed the thought of severing the ties between Puerto Rico and Spain increasingly believing that there was a dignified status somewhat of a compromise relationship that continue to have Puerto Rico and the United States in a meaningful Taiwan to the other. After winning re-election to the Puerto Rican Senate and taking his party to the point of having won 64 percent of all the votes cast on the island he became the pivotal power Mr. politics as it were in the popular Democratic Party

in Truman years. We have for the first time a Puerto Rican appointed to the governorship. And in Truman years we have the legislation that made possible a Puerto Rican being elected to the governorship of that island. And so exactly 50 years after we acquired the island the first Puerto Rican was elected as governor of the island. And that man was none other than Luis Munoz Marine. Two years later he hoped to bring about and was able to effect a reorganization of the Constitution of the island. He hoped to bring about a change relationship with the United States and this early became the commonwealth status that the island still enjoys having been elected in 1948. He was elected again in one thousand fifty two. He was re-elected governor for a third time in one thousand fifty six. He was re-elected

for a fourth time in 1960 and so one might easily gather the collusion that he became Mr indispensable. He did not however in this which appears to smack of political dictatorship take on any of the trappings. Of the military. He was looking for the economic improvement the social improvement of the land. Indeed he was hoping for the political education of people of the island at large as well as of his own party. And so when in 1964 there were those who urged him to accept a fifth term as governor. He declined and said it was time for someone else to take over. He did however run and was elected a senator and he still is in the limelight and the continuing relationship that we have with the

island because last autumn there was a vote taken and once again the island confirmed its identification as a commonwealth related to the United States. A friend of liberty a friend of the island foremost in the development of democracy in the island is this man Louis Munoz Marine. He is a noble son of a noble father and the pair father and son for freedom are the subjects of the volume by Marianna Norris published by Dodd mead and company. This was Latin American perspectives with Dr. C. Harvey Gardner research professor of history at Southern Illinois University. Join us for our next program when Dr. Gardner will examine another aspect of life in Latin America Latin American perspectives is produced and recorded by station ws IUF Pham at Southern Illinois University and is distributed by the national

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