TERRITORIES: The Will of Munoz Marin

Luis Muñoz Marin swept across Puerto Rico like a political hurricane. In two years he organized a new party, beat a coalition of old parties, won control of the territorial government, became president of the Senate. Two weeks ago Muñoz Marin fell ill with severe myositis (in flammation of the muscles). He could not attend Senate sessions — though without him the Senate might be deadlocked. Last week the fear spread in Puerto Rico that the victorious politician might be defeated at the moment of victory.

All last year Luis Muñoz Marin urged Puerto Ricans to distrust all politicians, including himself. There are 786 election districts in Puerto Rico, and he preached that inspiring message in more than 500 of them. Some of these districts are high in the mountains, and he had to travel on foot or by mule to ask the poverty-stricken natives, the jibaros, to vote for him but also to watch him like a hawk. A masterly stump speaker with a square frame and a black mustache which makes him look like an amiable desperado, Muñoz Marin would tell cheering crowds not to get enthusiastic, would say: “Watch the pot on your own stove.” If conditions got better, keep Muñoz Marin and his party in office; if not, throw them out.

Muñoz Marin would be a remarkable figure in any country. In Puerto Rico of 1941 he is unique. Son of a Puerto Rican hero, he spent most of his life in the U. S., learned English on New York City streets. He also acquired a sardonic, down-to-earth way of looking at things.Consequently he became the rarest type of reformer, coupling a taxi driver’s view of human nature with his idealism. Muñoz Marin studied at Georgetown University, wrote for the Baltimore Sun, The Nation and Henry Louis Mencken’s old Smart Set magazine, sold articles on Carl Sandburg and Edgar Lee Masters to South American papers. He married Muna Lee, distinguished poetess, speaker at Pan-American conferences, contributor to The New Yorker, onetime book reviewer for the New York Times.

Two years ago he decided that the coalition of Republicans and Socialists who had been running Puerto Rico’s territorial government should go, organized the Popular Democratic Party to oust them —though he also said that, if he could teach voters disrespect for parties, he would consider his job done. When his followers tried to have a celebration at the party’s first anniversary, he stopped them, said there could be a celebration after four years if they kept their campaign promises, a day of mourning if they did not. In Puerto Rico the jibaro family income is about $120, and jibaros often sell their votes (usual price: $2). Said Muñoz Marin: “If you want to sell your vote, go ahead; it’s a free country. But be sure you get something for it.” Then he would tell them what they were selling, and wind up: “You can’t get both justice and the two dollars.”

As he became more deeply involved in his crusade, Muñoz Marin became increasingly ironic about politicians. Once some social service workers asked him about the prevalence of homosexuality in Puerto Rico. “Can’t be very popular,” snorted the reformer, “or some political party would make it a plank in its platform.” Program of the Popular Democratic Party includes abolition of the 1¢-a-pound salt tax, the 2% sales tax, tax exemption for homes valued at $1,000 or less, restrictions on mortgage foreclosures, establishment of a social-security commission. Beyond that Muñoz Marin wants a reform of Puerto Rico’s bilingual educational system, under which children study all classes in English one day, in Spanish the next, remain “illiterate in two languages.” Question of Puerto Rico’s future Statehood or independence he sets aside as irrelevant in a world where Hitler is raging.

Last November the Populares won ten of the 19 Senate seats, tied with the Coalition in the lower house. Last month Muñoz Marin’s party took office and he was elected president of the Senate. Also on hand was the new Governor, Pennsylvania’s Guy Swope. There was no doubt of the immensity of Muñoz Marin’s task: Puerto Rico’s sugar industry is depressed, her coffee trade war-killed, her population problem acute, her living costs high, labor restless (although the U. S. is spending $40,000,000 for defense in Puerto Rico). One of Muñoz Marin’s first tasks was to listen to complaints of 700 workmen about a row with U. S. Marines at their work on a new airfield.

Last week, in a night session, the nine Coalitionist Senators walked out, left Popular Democratic Party Senators without a quorum. Muñoz Marin staggered from his sickbed to the Senate chamber. Doors and windows were closed to protect him from pneumonia. The crowded galleries set up a cheer. Muñoz Marin could not take the chair, sat wearing an overcoat and muffler, stifling his coughing in a handkerchief. The hall grew silent. With great difficulty, an expression of profound sadness on his features, he began: “Nothing, nothing, nothing can paralyze the Populares’ task. I will be here while I have an ounce of energy. . . .” He said that if he could not attend, his mother could take his place. If anything happened to her, he said, the humblest countryman in the island could step forward and carry on the task. But Muñoz Marin could not assign to anybody else the promise that his followers found in him while he was warning them to have no faith in the promises of politicians, including himself.