PUERTO RICO: Statehood Tree

Governor Luis Muñoz Marin likes to think that Puerto Rico's commonwealth relationship to the U.S. is "like a tree; it may grow, but not into any other kind of tree." Last week the signs were that, despite Muñoz Marin's eloquent opposition. the kind of tree into which the commonwealth will one day grow is statehood.

Muñoz has an author's pride in commonwealth, which since 1952 has given Puerto Rico (pop. 2,400,000) local self-government plus exemption from Federal income taxes. He fears that statehood would be fatal both to the Hispanic culture he prizes and to Operation Bootstrap, an industrialization program...

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