INVESTIGATION OF POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN PUERTO RICO TUESDAY, JUNE 1, 1943 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON INSULAR AFFAIRS, San Juan, P. R. The subcommittee met at 10:30 a. m., at the Condado Hotel, Hon. C. Jasper Bell (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will please come to order. Gentlemen, we are assembled here at a meeting of the investigation authorized by House Resolution 159 under date of March 10, 1943. Mr. Reporter, I will hand you a copy of that resolution and ask you to put it into the record. (H. Res. 159 is as follows:) [H. Res. 159, 78th Cong., 1st Sess.] RESOLUTION Whereas various and sundry legislation has been submitted to the House of Representatives and particularly that embodied in H. J. Res. 47, H. R. 784, H. R. 1018, H. R. 1019, H. R. 1248, and H. R. 1393, with special reference to the political, economic, and social conditions in Puerto Rico; and Whereas the President has submitted a recommendation to Congress embodied in House Report Numbered 126, Seventy-eighth Congress, and relating to political affairs affecting Puerto Rico; and Whereas an inquiry and investigation into and a study of the political, economic, and social conditions in Puerto Rico are material and necessary to the proper performance by Congress of its legislative functions and duty relative to the legislation herein before mentioned and for the purpose of guiding and assisting Congress in the introduction and passage of such other or further legislation as may be found necessary or advisable: Therefore be it Resolved, That the Committee on Insular Affairs, acting as a whole, or by a subcommittee or subcommittees, appointed by the chairman, is authorized and directed to conduct a study and investigation of political, economic, and social conditions in Puerto Rico. The committee shall have the right to report to the House at any time the results of its studies and investigations together with such recommendations for legislation as it may deem advisable. For the purpose of this resolution, the committee, or any subcommittee or subcommittees thereof, is authorized to hold such hearings, to sit and act during the present Congress at such times and places as it deems necessary whether or not the House is in session, has recessed, or has adjourned, and to require the attendance of such witnesses and the production of such books, papers, and documents by subpena or otherwise, and to take such testimony as it deems necessary. Subpenas may be issued under the signature of the chairman of the committee and shall be served by any person designated by such chairman. The chairman of the committee or any member thereof may administer oaths to witnesses. In the event the committee transmits its report to the Speaker at a time when the House is not in session, as authorized herein, a record of such transmittal shall be entered in the proceedings of the Journal and Congressional Record of the House on the opening day of the next session of Congress and shall be numbered and printed as a report of such Congress. 233 The CHAIRMAN. We have as our first witness Governor Tugwell, the chief executive of the island. Governor, will you be kind enough to give your name and title to the reporter for the benefit of the record? STATEMENT OF HON. R. G. TUGWELL, GOVERNOR OF PUERTO RICO Governor TUGWELL. R. G. Tugwell, Governor of Puerto Rico. The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, if it is satisfactory with the members. of the committee I would suggest that the Governor be given an opportunity to make his statement without interruptions from any of you. Will you proceed, Governor. Governor TUGWELL. Mr. Chairman and members, I have not prepared any written statement. I would, however, like to talk to you for a little bit about the basic problems of Puerto Rico as I have come to know them in the time that I have been here because I know that you will be interested in them on account of the legislation which comes before you and you need to have all the information you can get concerning the affairs of the island. I should like the privilege, after a little bit, of submitting another more carefully prepared memorandum, if you have no objection. The CHAIRMAN. Certainly. Governor TUGWELL. And I perhaps may have to call on one of my assistants for some help as I go on and I hope you will bear with me if I do that. Perhaps my statement will be somewhat rambling because it was not prepared; but I would like to talk some about the economic, social, and political conditions in Puerto Rico, because your terms of reference included all three of those, as I understood them. I should like also to make some distinction between those problems which seem to be long-run and those which seem to be short-run, because there is a distinction between the two and they have to be treated in this way. First, as to the economic situation of Puerto Rico, I will not go into any length about the basic conditions and figures because I know you have information yourselves from many sources. Just briefly, Puerto Rico is an island 100 miles long and 35 miles wide, almost a rectangle, with about 2,000,000 people and the amount of good land is estimated at anywhere from one to two million acres, certainly not more than that of arable land-which, of course, makes a dense population for the amount of arable land. It is a peculiar thing that Puerto Rico being an island in the Caribbean should be in a different situation than most other islands in the Caribbean in that respect. Consider Santo Domingo, for instance. San Domingo is an island whose arable surface, especially agricultural land, is probably six times as much as Puerto Rico, and yet it has a smaller population. The CHAIRMAN. About a million and a half. Excuse me, I did not intend to interrupt. Governor TUGWELL. I do not object to that kind of interruption at at all. Yes; I think so; and that makes a different kind of problem. The Puerto Rican population has doubled twice within the last 100 years and, so far as we have been able to determine by very careful studies of the figures, the trends are not changing. Apparently the population is increasing just as fast as it was, we will say, 5 years ago, |