Gag Law 1948

Puerto Rican Series

War Against All Puerto Ricans by Nelson Denis, 2015, Excerpts

On March 9, 1948, J. Edgar Hoover placed the Nationalist Party on the FBI list of organizations working to subvert the US government. The passage of Public Law 53 (the Gag Law) was nearly a word-for-word translation of Section 2 of the Anti-Communist US Smith Act, and it authorized police and FBI to stop anyone on the street and to invade any Puerto Rican home. If the police found a Puerto Rican flag, the residents could all be arrested and jailed.

Albizu Returns to Puerto Rico – 1947

Puerto Rican Series

War Against All Puerto Ricans by Nelson Denis, 2015, Excerpts

On December 11, 1947, he boarded the SS Kathryn and returned to Puerto Rico. From the moment Albizu set foot in San Juan, Hoover became obsessed with following and recording his every movement. Thousands of Puerto Ricans and dozens of FBI agents met Albizu at the dock. They packed into San Juan cathedral and followed him in a heaving mass to Sixto Excobar Stadium, where he would address a standing-room only crowd of 14,000. Albizu began his speech: “My name is Pedro Albizu Campos. You are my people. And this is our island.” A roar filled the stadium, For over an hour, he thundered about independence. Every newspaper on the island reported Albizu’s dramatic return.

Juan Emilio Viguie filmed Albizu’s return on the SS Kathryn, the tumultuous crowds, the march down Calle San Augustin, the flags, the motorcades, the speech to 14,000 supporters at Sixto Escobar Stadium. He made a short newsreel of it, Recibermiento a Don Pedro (Reception of Don Pedro). 

Albizu Imprisonment – 1937 to1943

Puerto Rican Series

War Against All Puerto Ricans by Nelson Denis, 2015, Excerpts

Albizu was flown to the US penitentiary in Atlanta on June 7, 1937.

He worked in the prison library. One day in the library he encountered an unusual book, published by General Smedley Butler in 1935 – War is a Racket. Butler had been a marine for thirty-three years and was the most decorated marine in US history. He had received sixteen medals, five for heroism, and was one of only nineteen men to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor twice. He retired as major general and, for a brief period, was the highest-ranking commander in the US Marine Corps. Butler’s father had been a US congressman for thirty-one years and had chaired the House of Naval Affairs Committee.

 “I helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys. I helped in the raping of a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interest in 1916. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”

War is a Racket confirmed everything Albizu had seen in Puerto Rico. On June 3, 1943, Albizu was released on probation in New York City. He had been in prison for over seven years. 

Ponce Massacre - Photographed and Filmed

Puerto Rican Series

War Against All Puerto Ricans by Nelson Denis, 2015, Excerpts

After it was all over, Puerto Rico’s chief of police, Colonel Orbeta, arrived on the scene. Orbeta called over the El Mundo photographer and several of his men, and the choreographed a series of “live action” photos to show that the police were somehow “returning fire” from the Nationalists who were, at this point, already lying dead in the street. The photos were cynical and obviously staged. One of them appeared on the front page of El Mundo on March 23, 1937, showing Colonel Orbeta and two of his men scanning the rooftops for Nationalist snipers.

A newsreel director named Juan Emilio Viguie had heard about a Palm Sunday parade in support of Ablizu Campos. Juan found a perfect camera angle from an abandoned warehouse window that overlooked the parade ground and filmed the entire slaughter. Over the next twenty-five years, Viguie would show his thirteen-minute movie clip to private, very carefully selected audiences. It became the Zapruder film of Puerto Rican history. Those thirteen minutes made clear that, to those from the north, Puerto Ricans were not equals, or citizens, or even fully human. They were animals. And so they could be shot on Palm Sunday like rabid dogs in the street.

Of the fourteen articles that the discussed the massacre in the New York Times in 1937, eleven used the work “riot” to describe the incident. The largest and most authoritative US press organizations merely regurgitated an established narrative that Puerto Ricans had rioted on Palm Sunday and somehow shot, killed, maimed, and wounded themselves. No police officer was fired, demoted, suspended, convicted, jailed, or otherwise punished.

I visited the Ponce Massacre Museum Dec 2016. Fantastic little museum, wandered through the well-thought-out exhibits. At the end of the tour, the museum curator gave a great synopsis of the events of that tragically fateful day. He mentioned that Viguie’s film still hasn’t been released to the public. The film that shows up in searches is an old movie remake. I wish I had gotten the curator’s name; he was passionate about this bit of history, and he sees this next year as a pivotal year. I told him we’d be looking for him on the news, and he said you never know.

The Ponce Massacre – Palm Sunday March 21,1937

Puerto Rican Series

War Against All Puerto Ricans by Nelson Denis, 2015, Excerpts

In support of jailed Albizu, the Nationalists had obtained parade permits. The street was full with nearly three hundred men, women, and children in their Sunday best, the men in straw hats and white linen suits, the ladies in flowery print dresses, and children playing all around. It looked like a festive afternoon in the park. The crowd cheered when eighty Cadets of the Republic, twelve Nurses, and a five-piece marching band arrived in support of the Republic of Puerto Rico.

Suddenly, the mayor of Ponce and the police captain jumped into the street and told everyone to go home; the parade was over. The permit had been revoked on the governor’s orders. The governor had also instructed to increase the police presence and prevent the demonstration by whatever means necessary.

Everyone started to march – permit or no permit. Then a shot rang out. Ivan Rodriguez Figueras crumpled like a rag doll, blood spurting from his throat with each dying heartbeat. Panicked screams and curses erupted as people ran in all directions, but they couldn’t escape. Two hundred men with rifles and Tommy guns were stationed all around them. They blocked every route and created a killing zone. They started firing.

A boy was shot on a bicycle. A father tried to shield his dying son and was shot in the back. In a contagion of panic and savagery, the police kept firing. They shot into several corpses again and again. They fired over the corpses. Bullets flew everywhere. The police climbed onto cars and running boards and chased people down the side streets, shooting and clubbing anyone they could find. They shot men, women, and children in the back as they tried to escape.

By the time they finished, nineteen men, one woman, and seven-year-old girl lay dead; over two hundred more were gravely wounded – moaning, crawling, bleeding, and begging for mercy in the street.

Ponce Massacre - Pedro Bull

Female Sterilization 1937

Puerto Rican Series

War Against All Puerto Ricans by Nelson Denis, 2015, Excerpt

In 1927, the US Supreme Court ruled that the state of Virginia could sterilize those it thought unfit, particularly when the mother was “feeble-minded” and “promiscuous.”

Ten years later, US Public Law 136 legalized all sterilization in Puerto Rico, even for “non-medical” reasons. Every year, more than 1000 women walked into the Hospital Municipal de Barceloneta. Each woman would talk to a doctor, fill out a few forms, and be assigned a bed. Two days later she’d walk out with her tiny newborn. She didn’t know, however, that her tubes had been cut and that she would never have another baby. For decades, the doctors in Barceloneta sterilized Puerto Rican women without their knowledge or consent. Over 20,000 women were sterilized in this one town.

This scenario was repeated throughout Puerto Rico until – at its high point – one-third of the women on the island had been sterilized and Puerto Rico had the highest incidence of female sterilization in the world.

 

Police Chief Riggs Assassinated 1935

Puerto Rican Series

War Against All Puerto Ricans by Nelson Denis, 2015, Excerpts

Police Chief Riggs, stated in several major newspapers that he was ready to wage “war to the death against all Puerto Ricans.” As he returned home, two young men approached him, shot and killed him.

After the assassination of Police Chief Riggs, General Winship unleashed a reign of terror across the island. He hired more Insular Police and instructed them to raid Nationalist homes and offices and to arrest Nationalist throughout the island. Albizu received death threats, he posted a round-the-clock guard and repelled four assaults by police and FBI agents.

Officers with blackjacks, tear gas, rifles, and Thompson submachine guns barricaded entire sections of San Juan. He prohibited all public demonstrations, including speeches at funerals. At his discretion and without notice, Winship would declare martial law in random areas; the police would lay siege to those areas, conduct warrantless searches, break into people’s homes, and prevent other residents form entering or leaving the zone. He established the complete militarization of Puerto Rico with a police state that could control the population.

Albizu and six Nationalists were convicted of conspiracy to overthrow the US government. The jury delivered its verdict: ten years’ imprisonment for Albizu. Albizu was jailed in La Princesa prison in San Juan.