Abstract

Porto Rico's Workers Awake

The article discusses the range and bitterness of partisanship in Porto Rico, where political ties are admittedly stronger than religious affiliations. Indeed there is a suggestion that old-time religious fanaticism has been carried over into insular politics in the fact that a person of one's own party is habitually referred to as a correligionano. Even more than elsewhere polities is the bane of the country, and even as in the United States the issues are insincere or trivial. The only real issue is the division of the public offices. The Unionist Party, it is conceded, has in its membership the greater share of the brains of the island, and its declaration in favor of independence for Porto Rico may sound like a great principle. But, in fact, few of those who control the organization have ever regarded independence seriously except as a vote getter, and a year ago they modified the demand in favor of an associated free state.