Message to the Congress on Affairs in Porto Rico

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

An emergency has arisen in Porto Rico [See APP Note.] which makes it necessary for me to invite the attention of the Congress to the affairs of that island, and to recommend legislation at the present extra session amending the act under which the island is governed.

The regular session of the legislative assembly of Porto Rico adjourned March 11 last without passing the usual appropriation bills. A special session of the assembly was at once convened by the governor, but after three days, on March 16, it again adjourned without making the appropriations. This leaves the island government without provision for its support after June 30 next. The situation presented is, therefore, of unusual gravity.

The present government of Porto Rico was established by what is known as the Foraker Act, passed April 12, 1900, and taking effect May 1, 1900. Under that act the chief executive is a governor appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. A secretary, attorney-general, treasurer, auditor, commissioner of the interior, and commissioner of education, together with five other appointees of the President, constitute the executive council. The executive council must have in its membership not less than five native Porto Ricans. The legislative power is vested in the legislative assembly, which has two coordinate branches. The first of these is the executive council just described, and the second is the house of delegates, a popular and representative body, with members elected by the qualified electors of the seven districts into which the island is divided.

The statute directing how the expenses of government are to be provided leaves some doubt whether this function is not committed solely to the executive council, but in practice the legislative assembly has made appropriations for all the expenses other than for salaries fixed by Congress, and it is too late to reverse that construction.

Ever since the institution of the present assembly, the house of delegates has uniformly held up the appropriation bills until the last minute of the regular session, and has sought to use the power to do so as a means of compelling the concurrence of the executive council in legislation which the house desired.

In the last regular legislative assembly, the house of delegates passed a bill dividing the island into several counties and providing county governments; a bill to establish manual training schools; a bill for the establishment of an agricultural bank; a bill providing that vacancies in the offices of mayors and councilmen be filled by a vote of the municipal councils instead of by the governor, and a bill putting in the control of the largest taxpayers in each municipal district the selection in great part of the assessors of property.

The executive council declined to concur in these bills. It objected to the agricultural bank bill on the ground that the revenues of the island were not sufficient to carry out the plan proposed, and to the manual training school bill because in plain violation of the Foraker Act. It objected to the change in the law concerning the appraisement of property on the ground that the law was intended to put too much power, in respect of the appraisement of property for taxation, in the hands of those having the most property to tax. The chief issue was a bill making all the judges in municipalities elective. Under previous legislation there are 26 municipal judges who are elected to office. By this bill it was proposed to increase the elective judges from 26 to 66 in number, and at the same time to abolish the justices of the peace. The change was objected to on the ground that the election of municipal judges had already interfered with the efficient and impartial administration of justice, had made the judges all of one political faith and mere political instruments in the hands of the central committee of the Unionist or dominant party. The attitude of the executive council in refusing to pass these bills led the house of delegates to refuse to pass the necessary appropriation bills.

The facts recited demonstrate the willingness of the representatives of the people in the house of delegates to subvert the government in order to secure the passage of certain legislation. The question whether the proposed legislation should be enacted into law was left by the fundamental act to the joint action of the executive council and the house of delegates as the legislative assembly. The house of delegates proposes itself to secure this legislation without respect to the opposition of the executive council, or else to pull down the whole government. This spirit, which has been growing from year to year in Porto Rico, shows that too great power has been vested in the house of delegates and that its members are not sufficiently alive to their oath-taken responsibility, for the maintenance of the government, to justify Congress in further reposing in them absolute power to withhold appropriations necessary for the government's life.

For these reasons I recommend an amendment to the Foraker Act providing that whenever the legislative assembly shall adjourn without making the appropriations necessary to carry on the government, sums equal to the appropriations made in the previous year for the respective purposes shall be available from the current revenues and shall be drawn by the warrant of the auditor on the treasurer and countersigned by the governor. Such a provision applies to the legislatures of the Philippines and Hawaii, and it has prevented in those two countries any misuse of the power of appropriation.

The house of delegates sent a committee of three to Washington, while the executive council was represented by the secretary and a committee consisting of the attorney-general and the auditor. I referred both committees to the Secretary of the Interior, whose report, with a letter from Governor Post, and the written statements of both committees, accompany this message.

I have had one personal interview with the committee representing the house of delegates and suggested to them that if the house of delegates would pass the appropriation bill without insisting upon the passage of the other bills by the executive council, I would send a representative of the Government to Porto Rico to make an investigation and report in respect to the proposed legislation. Their answer, which shows them not to be in a compromising mood, was as follows:

"If the legislative assembly of Porto Rico would be called to an extraordinary session exclusively to pass an appropriation bill, taking into consideration the state of affairs down the island and the high dissatisfaction produced by the intolerant attitude of the executive council, and also taking into consideration the absolute resistance of the house to do any act against its own dignity and the dignity of the country, it is the opinion of these commissioners that no agreement would be attained unless the council feel disposed to accept the amendments of the house of delegates.

"However, if in the proclamation calling for an extraordinary session the judicial and municipal reforms would be mentioned, and if the executive council would accept that the present justices of the peace be abolished and municipal judges created in every municipality, and that vacancies occurring in mayorships and judgeships be filled by the municipal councils, as provided in the so-called "municipal bills" passed by the house in its last session, then the commissioners believe that the appropriation bills will be passed in the house as introduced in the council without delay."

Porto Rico has been the favored daughter of the United States. The sovereignty of the island in 1899 passed to the United States with the full consent of the people of the island.

Under the law all the customs and internal-revenue taxes are turned into the treasury of Porto Rico for the maintenance of the island government, while the United States pays out of its own Treasury the cost of the local army--i. e., a full Porto Rican regiment--the revenue vessels, the light-house service, the coast surveys, the harbor improvements, the marine-hospital support, the post-office deficit, the weather bureau, and the upkeep of the agricultural experiment stations.

Very soon after the change of sovereignty a cyclone destroyed a large part of Porto Rican coffee culture; $200,000 was expended from the United States Treasury to buy rations for those left in distress. The island is policed by 700 men, and complete tranquillity reigns.

Before American control 87 per cent of the Porto Ricans were unable to read or write, and there was not in this island, containing a million people, a single building constructed for public instruction, while the enrollment of pupils in such schools as there were, 551 in number, was but 21,000. To-day in the island there are 160 such buildings, and the enrollment of pupils in 2,400 schools has reached the number of 87,000. The year before American sovereignty there was expended $35,000 in gold for public education. Under the present government there is expended for this purpose a total of a million dollars a year.

When the Americans took control there were 172 miles of macadamized road. Since then there have been constructed 452 miles more, mostly in the mountains, making in all now a total of 624 miles of finely planned and admirably constructed macadamized roads--as good roads as there are in the world.

In the course of the administration of this island, the United States medical authorities discovered a disease of tropical anaemia which was epidemic and was produced by a microbe called the "hook worm." It so much impaired the energy of those who suffered from it, and so often led to complete prostration and death, that it became necessary to undertake its cure by widespread governmental effort. I am glad to say that 225,000 natives, or one-fourth of the entire population, have been treated at government expense, and the effect has been much to reduce the extent and severity of the disease and to bring it under control. Substantially every person in the island has been vaccinated and smallpox has practically disappeared.

There is complete free trade between Porto Rico and the United States, and all customs duties collected in the United States on Porto Rican products subsequent to the date of Spanish evacuation, amounting to nearly $3,000,000, have been refunded to the island treasury. The loss to the revenues of the United States from the free admission of Porto Rican products is $15,000,000 annually. The wealth of the island is directly dependent upon the cultivation of the soil, to cane, tobacco, coffee, and fruit, for which we in America provide the market. Without our fostering benevolence the business of Porto Rico would be as prostrate as are some of the neighboring West Indian islands. Before American control the trade balance against the island was over $12,500,000, while the present balance of trade in favor of the island is $2,500,000. The total of exports and imports has increased from about $22,000,000 before American sovereignty to $56,000,000 at the present day. At the date of the American occupation the estimated value of all agricultural land was about $30,000,000. Now the appraised value of the real property in the island reaches $100,000,000. The expenses of government before American control were $2,969,000, while the receipts were $3,644,000. For the year 1906 the receipts were $4,250,000, and the expenditures were $4,084,000. Of the civil servants in the central government, 343 are Americans and 2,548 are native Porto Ricans. There never was a time in the history of the island when the average prosperity of the Porto Rican has been higher, when his opportunity has been greater, when his liberty of thought and action was more secure.

Representatives of the house of delegates insist in their appeals to Congress and to the public that from the standpoint of a free people the Porto Ricans are now subjected under American control to political oppression and to a much less liberal government than under that of Spain. To prove this they refer to the provisions of a royal decree of 1897, promulgated in November of that year. The decree related to the government of Porto Rico and Cuba and was undoubtedly a great step forward in granting a certain sort of autonomy to the people of the two islands. The war followed within a few months after its promulgation, and it is impossible to say what its practical operation would have been. It was a tentative arrangement, revocable at the pleasure of the Crown, and had, in its provisions, authority for the governor-general to suspend all of the laws of the legislature of the islands until approved or disapproved at home, and to suspend at will all constitutional guaranties of life, liberty, and property, supposed to be the basis of civil liberty and free institutions. The insular legislature bad no power to enact new laws or to amend existing laws governing property rights or the life and liberty of the people. The jurisdiction to pass these remained in the hands of the National Cortes and included the mass of code laws governing the descent and distribution and transfer of property and contracts, and torts, land laws, notarial laws, laws of waters and mines, penal statutes, civil, criminal, and administrative procedure, organic laws of the municipalities, election laws, the code of commerce, etc.

In contrast with this, under its present form of government the island legislature possesses practically all the powers of an American commonwealth, and the constitutional guaranties of its inhabitants, instead of being subject to suspension by executive discretion, are absolutely guaranteed by act of Congress. The great body of substantive law now in force in the island--political, civil, and criminal code, codes of political, civil, and criminal procedure, the revenue, municipal, electoral, franchise, educational, police, and public works laws, and the like--has been enacted by the people of the island themselves, as no law can be put upon the statute books unless it has received the approval of the representative lower house of the legislature. In no single case has the Congress of the United States intervened to annul or control acts of the legislative assembly. For the first time in the history of Porto Rico the island is living under laws enacted by its own legislature.

It is idle, however, to compare political power of the Porto Ricans under the royal decree of 1897, when their capacity to exercise it with benefit to themselves was never in fact tested, with that which they have under the Foraker Act. The question we have before us is whether their course since the adoption of the Foraker Act does not show the necessity for withholding from them the absolute power given by that act to the legislative assembly over appropriations, when the house of delegates, as a coordinate branch of that assembly, shows itself willing and anxious to use such absolute power, not to support and maintain the government, but to render it helpless. If the Porto Ricans desire a change in the form of the Foraker Act, this is a matter for congressional consideration dependent on the effect of such a change on the real political progress in the island.

Such a change should be sought in an orderly way and not brought to the attention of Congress by paralyzing the arm of the existing government. I do not doubt that the terms of the existing fundamental act might be improved, certainly in qualifying some of its provisions as to the respective jurdisdictions of the executive council and the legislative assembly; and I suggest to Congress the wisdom of submitting to the appropriate committees this question of revision. But no action of this kind should be begun until after, by special amendment of the Foraker Act, the absolute power of appropriation is taken away from those who have shown themselves too irresponsible to enjoy it.

In the desire of certain of their leaders for political power Porto Ricans have forgotten the generosity of the United States in its dealings with them. This should not be an occasion for surprise, nor in dealing with a whole people can it be made the basis of a charge of ingratitude. When we, with the consent of the people of Porto Rico, assumed guardianship over them and the guidance of their destinies, we must have been conscious that a people that had enjoyed so little opportunity for education could not be expected safely for themselves to exercise the full power of self-government; and the present development is only an indication that we have gone somewhat too fast in the extension of political power to them for their own good.

The change recommended may not immediately convince those controlling the house of delegates of the mistake they have made in the extremity to which they have been willing to resort for political purposes, but in the long run it will secure more careful and responsible exercise of the power they have.

There is not the slightest evidence that there has been on the part of the governor or of any member of the executive council a disposition to usurp authority, or to withhold approval of such legislation as was for the best interests of the island, or a lack of sympathy with the best aspirations of the Porto Rican people.

WILLIAM H. TAFT.