Puerto Rico: A Profile in Pictures (1940) by La Colección Puertorriqueña

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C(pB^P UNIYERSITY OF PUERTO RICO KOUNDED 1903

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COURTESy OF THE INSTITUTE OF TOURISM ENRIQUE CÂ°

IV. L. Highton

THE history of the United States began, in a sense, in Puerto Rico. Here Columbus landedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the only soil under our flag on which he set foot; from here Ponce de LeĂłn departed on the expedition in the course of which he discovered Florida. Many his torie monuments remain as "sermons in stones" for contemporary Americans. In recent

years, energetic measures of reconstruction and defense have been taken in this Caribbean outpost. Of no less interest to the visitor than historie relies are the housing

developments, rural resettlement projects, irrigation and hydro-electric power works, soil conservation measures, and the work of -a number of Insular and Federal agencies

engaged in rehabilitation.

I am happy to extend a cordial invitation to residents of continental United States to visit their fellow Americans in the tropical island of Puerto Rico. Here they will

have the unique experience of traveling under the security of the United States flag in a land that is foreign in culture and expression, American in its laws and destiny.

Governor of Puerto Rico

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IV. L. Hial'*""

Smallest link in the chain of the

Greater Antilles, the unincorporated territory of Puerto Rico, not

quite so large as Connecticut, lies in the Caribbean sea 1,400 miles southeast of New York City, 966 miles off Key West. On this West Indian island, about iio miles long

and 3 5 miles wide, live 1,800,000

Spanish-speaking people, owing allegiance to the United States since 1898, our fellow-citizens since 1917,

You may order an arroz valen ciana in your best Castillian, or a double fudge marshmallow nut sundae in your worst American at

the fuente de soda, and be equally understood. If you are historically minded, there are buildings and monuments that were a century oíd when Plymouth Rock was an un-

distinguished stone on the beach. If you are socially minded, there are the second-unit schools where boys

and girls learn for living, the housing developments, the resettlement

projects, the health and social service centers: visible evidences of the

rehabilitation of a people who have known depression for 400 years. There are the roads, the mountains, the plains, the sea, the swimming

and fishing, the tropical fruits and ílowers. And the climate! a tem-

íF. L. Highton

pered air, brisked by trade winds (the thermometer averages 80° in summer, 75° in winter), that makes a Puerto Rican stare when

you remark, "It's a fine day." ^ Meet Puerto Rico.

THINGS

SEE

Puerto Rican News Bureau

Visitors arrive either by clipper plañe (ahove), or by passenger steamer. The plana journey takes a day from Miami, the leisurely boat trip four days from New York. Nearly 20,000 travelers visit Puerto Rico every year—not counting sailors. Hotel accommodations are being increased and improved to cara for them. Each year visitors are staying for longer periods—two weeks or more. Many take furnished apart-

ments ahd hire Puerto Rican servants to cook and incidentally to serve as willing teachers of Spanish. Most servants have had sufficient grade-school English to shame their mistresses in the use of a foreign tongue.

At the entrance to the harbor of the capital city of San Juan, El Morro Fort

(below) reminds the visitor of Puerto Rico's strategic position—a major factor in its destiny 400 years ago and today. Pan American Airways

Puerto Rican lustitute of Tourism

La Fortaleza (above) has been the residence of the Governor of

Puerto Rico since 1639. Begun in

1533, completed in 1J40, partially burned by the Dutch in 1625, rebuilt in 1639, restored and fitted ■with modern plumbing in 1939-40,

the Royal Fortress of Saint Catherine looks today much as it did in the days when Boston was a rude frontier town. Its exterior is dis-

tinctly Moorish in appearance. Its

long interior corridors {below) have well-proportioned lonic columns, the space between them ñlled by shutters with insets of oíd Spanish stained glass the color of which tinges the tiled floor.

Puerto Rican Insiitute of Tourism

W. L. Highton

Above, San JosĂŠ Church, built in IJ23. In the same year was erected a monument to the island's

first family, Casa Blanca {below), the residence of the descendants

of Juan Ponce de LeĂłn for over 250 years. Constructed two years after Ponce's death, for his minor son Luis, it remained in the Ponce fam

ily untii 1779, when it became the property of the state. Today it is the official residence of the Com-

manding Officer of the U. S. troops in Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rican Ncws Bureau

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ÂĄV. L. Hiyhton

Above, the Capitel. Hete meets the Puerto Rico Legislature, composed of a Senate and a House of Representatives, elected by popular vote. The Governor of Puerto Rico is not elected, but appointed by the President of the United States with the consent of the U. S. Senate. The Commissioner of Education, the Attorney General, and the Auditor are appointed by the President of the United States. Other Insular department heads are appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of the Puerto Rico Senate. A Resident Commissioner to the United States, who sits in the House at Wash

ington with a voice but no vote, is elected every four years by popular vote of the Puerto Ricans, who were granted citizenship in 1917. (Puerto Ricans play the game of politics with passion, intensity, and skill.)

SD ÂĄV. L. Highton

Puerto Rico is Spanish in tradition and feeling, North American in purpose and

destiny. San Juan's only skyscraper, the Banco Popular {above), completad in 1939, is, oĂ course, air-conditioned. Equally as a matter of course, the building was consecrated by the Bishop of San Juan in an impressive ceremony before being opened to the public. Sixteenth-century fortress walls overlook modern golf courses; ancient churches, in which Spaniards worshipped centurias ago, are jostled by modern office buildings.

W. L. Highton

Almost exactly in the center of the Americas is the University of Puerto Rico. Founded in 1903, it has today a student body of about j,ooo. Soma day it may become a great Pan-American institution of learning, an important cultural link between North

and South AmĂŠrica. Both Spanish and English are usad in classrooms. In 1935 the PRRA (Puertb Rico Reconstruction Administration) bagan to enlarge and beautify the insti tution, which with its handsome buildings set in tropical foliage is one of the most imposing in the Americas. Above, the dock tower from the campus.

l Ponce, on the southwest coast, is

the island's second city. At right, characteristic house of well-to-do PonceĂąo.

Below,Ponce Plaza or city square fV. L. Highion W. L. Highion

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W. L. Highton

W. L, Highton

Roadside sights and smells. Above, right, washer-woman (one-quarter of the islanders are of Negro stock); above, left, orange vendor; bclow, wayside vendor of roast pig. W''. L. Highton

The Caribbean Nacional Forest is in two

units—Luquillo and Toro Negro. In the Lu-

quillo Unit, easily accessible by motor road from San Juan, grows a tropical forest {above) Here more than 300 species of crees have been identified, and new ones are continually being added to the list. Giant trees spread immense

crowns hung with vines and lianas, and every trunk, crotch, or limb supports its fringe of

junglc epiphytes (little non-parasitical planes). Beneath these forest giants grows a tangled un-

derstory of smaller trees and shrubs that in turn shade a bewildering mass of flowers, herbs, and mosses, and more than half a hundred varieties of graceful ferns, some extremely small, others 30 feet high. Orchids grow wild; shell-

pink begonias cover the forest floor.

Puerto Rican Institute of Tourism

Below, El Yunque (the anvil), a peak in the Luquillo Unit. A foot-trail leads to its summit, 3,483 feet above sea level. Many peaks in the Cordillera Central are over 4,000 feet. Puntita (little peak), south of Jayuya, belies its diminutive—its 4,399 feet make it the

highest on the island. The aborigines thought that El Yunque was the home of the spirit of evil—^Juracán (hurricane). Sometimes disastrous West Indian

hurricanes strike

the

island, but never in any month other than

July, August, September, or October. They are called after the saints'-days on which they occur—San Ciprián, San Ciriaco, etc. These storms move so slowly that ampie warning can

always be given. Puerto Rican í^ews Bureau

Ă?V, L. Highton

In the Caribbean National Forest are almost the only relies of the great primeval forest that once covered the whole island. The Forest Service of the U. S. Department of Agriculture is busily engagcd in reseeding timber lands. Above, cutting timber in the Luquillo Unit.

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Puerto Rican Ncvjs Burean

More than 1,300 miles of exceilent roads iíke the one above iead into the interior and along the coast. Busses or "public cars" (a kind of interurban taxi identified by a

capital P on the license píate), or prívate automobiles carry visitors to the principal cities and towns. The Puerto Rico Institute of Tourism, Rockefeller Center, New

York City, or San Juan, Puerto Rico, helps visitors plan trips, making no charge for this service.

SOME PLACES AND THINGS WORTH SEEING

San Juan (founded ijai, pop. 169,255) Casa Blanca (1523) San José Church (1523-1528) Hospital of La Concepción (i524-1541) La Fortaleza (1533-1540)

Columbus Plaza and Statue (1893) Market Needlework factories

El Morro Fort and Castle (1539-1608)

Mayagüez Vicinity

Santa Ana Church (159—) San Cristóbal Fort (1631-1771)

Federal Agricultural Experiment Station College of Agriculture and Mechanic

San Juan Gate (1641) San Francisco Chapel (1753) San Gerónimo Fort (1771)

Industrial Reform School for Boys

Cathedral of San Juan Bautista (1802) Municipal Market (1852) Statue of Ponce de León (1882) Statue of Columbus (1898)

Lottery on drawing day Casino

Atheneum

Casa de España

School of Tropical Medicine Naval Station

Falansterio and nearby Miranda slums Notre Dame Industrial School San Juan Vicinity

Site of Caparra (1508)

Insular Cement Plant JCataño) Boca de Cangrejos (submarino gardens) University of Puerto Rico

Eleanor Roosevelt Housing Development Insular Experiment Station

Arts

Along Highways

Caribbean National Forest

El Yunque, La Mina (Luquillo Unit) Doña Juana Recreational Area (Toro Negro Unit)

One of the island's 40-odd centrales (sugar milis) Jájome (Governor's summer house and highway) Great Caves (Aguas Buenas)

Treasure Island Camps (Cidra) Coamo Springs (Coamo)

Church of San Patricio (Loiza Vieja) Porta Coeli (San Germán) Polytechnic Institute (San Germán) Salt works (Cabo Rojo)

El Ojo del Agua (Aguadilla) One of PRRA's Resettlement Projects: La Plata, San Just, Castañer, etc.

Gallera Borinquen (cockpit)

One of the rural (second unit) schools (ask Department of Education, San

Ponce (founded 1752, pop. includ. sub-

Dos Bocas Hydro-electric Dam (Are-

urbs 105,110) Plaza

Cathedral (1839) Municipal Market

Juan)

cibo)

Las Corzas Hydro-electric Dam (Adjun tas)

Ceiba tree

Juan Morell Campos Housing Develop ment

Nearby Islands, Part of Puerto Rico Mona (pop. varying)

Vieques (pop. 10,363)

Mayagüez (founded 1760, pop. ind. suburb 76,482)

Culebra (pop. 860)

Santiago ("Monkey Island")

Visitors may play golf in the shadow of El Morro (above), or swim at one oí many protected beaches (below). ¡V. L. Highton

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IV. L. Highton

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,.;ai.^ Puerto Rican Netos Burcau

There is good sailing (above) and fishing (below) in the Atlantic on the north and the Caribbean on the scuth. Puerto Rican News Burcau.

Or, boarding a plañe or boat, fishermen can visit the tiny island o£ Mona, which has com-

fortable camp houses and fuii equipment for big-game fishing. Mona, part of the territory of Puerto Rico, rises sharply from the sea some 50 miles off the southwest coast of the larger island. Halfway between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, it is haunted by the

ghosts of pirates who once plundered the mainland and stored their booty in its caves. Occasionally an exhausted fugitive from Devil's

Island shows up in an open boat with a patchwork sail.

Puerto Rican Ncws Burcau

Puerto Ricau Ncws Burean

Thrill-seekers can try goggle-fishing, attacking lish in their own element with a spear. . ,.

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Puerto Rican lustitutc of Tourism

. . . or put on a diver's helmet and descend to the incredible submarine gardens at Boca de Cangrejos (above), a few miles by highway from San Juan, or explore subterranean depths in the Great Caves at Aguas Buenas, many of them still uncharted

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Most of the larger towns have

cock-pits, where larga sums are wagered on the merits of Englishbred fighting birds. A game-cock with bis trainer.

A cock-pit near San Juan, the Gallera Borinquen. Other popular spectator sports are baseball, boxing, and horse racing.

W. L. Highton

rnHk Puerto Rican Institute of Tourism

All over the island vendors sell tickets of the Insular lottery. Most Puerto Ricans and many visitors buy a few tickets of the current drawing, in the hope of winning hundreds or thousands of doliars on a ticket worth a few cents. ^o

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The large brass cage contains thousands of little balls, among which is one with the num-

ber of your ticket; the smalier cage contains fewer balls with amounts of prizes stamped on them. After the balls have been thoroughly mixed, a boy from the Orphan Asylum picks up a hall with the number of a ticket (yours?!) and his companion matches it with another hall stating the amount of the prize. This goes on until all the prize balls have been drawn. The

cages and other equipment date from Spanish days; the lottery was made legal again in 1934. Drawings are open to the public. Proceeds of the lottery are used for medical services and municipal relief.

IV. L. Highton

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Puerto Ricav News Bureau

Annually in February is held the Fiesta (^above), largely for the benefit of visitors. Shopping is fun in Puerto Rico, whether for strange fruits and gourds in the market and from pushbarrows, or for specimens of Puerto Rican handicraft. Articles frequently taken back by visitors (duty free, except for tax on alcohol and tobรกceo) are hats and basketwork, jars or boxes or bowls of native woods, embroidery and needlework, swagger sticks of shark bone or native wood, furniture, linen suits and dresses, coffee, rum, and cigars. Below, a seller of gay pellizas (saddle rugs) made of flour sacks and tobรกceo twine, that splash color in many a city apartment. Puerto Rican News Burean

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Puerto Rican Instituto of Tourism

Resting can be fun ¡n Puerto Rico. In the Luquillo Unit of the Caribbean National

Forest is the recreational atea of La Mina (ahove), at the base of El Yunque, operated by the Forest Service, and equipped with picnic shelters, swimming pools with shallow wading places for children, diving boards, fireplaces, a community building, and summer-home sites. Another such is the Doña Juana Recreational Area in the Toro Negro Unit. Among prívate resting spots are Coamo Springs, a mineral bath and health

resort popular since Spanish days, and Treasure Island Camps, high in the hills, run by a continental American fruit planter.

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Columbus discovered on his second voyage an island called Boriquén by the peacefuí Indiana who inhabited it. The Admiral dedicated the island to Their Catholic Majesties of Spain on November 14, 1493. calling it San Juan Bautista (St. John the Baptist). Historians disagree as to the exact spot on the northwest coast where Columbus landed. Above, naonument in Columbus Park at Aguadilla, commemorating the event.

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Puerto Ricau Instituto of Tourism

With Columbus voyaged a poor foot-soldier, Juan Ponce, of the ancient kingdom of León in Spain. A veteran of the Moor wats in Granada, Ponce sought his fortune in the New World. He secured permission from the governor of Hispaniola (Santo Domingo) in 1508 to return to the island, and that year founded Caparra, the first Spanish settlement. Next year he returned, and in ijio he brought to Caparra his family and cattie. He r«nained governor of the island until 1512, when Juan Cerón

was named in his place. Ponce thereupon departed in search of gold and the Fountain of Youth, and discovered Florida. He returned to Puerto Rico from Spaiñ in ijij,

and made another expedition in 1521 to Florida, where he was mortally wounded by the Indians, returning to Cuba to die the same year. In 1521, the capital city was transferred from the swamps of Caparra to the heights of San Juan, and the Island

of San Juan and the City of Puerto Rico exchanged ñames. Above, statue of Juan Ponce de León made from cannons taken from the English in the defense of the

capital in 1797. Ponce's remains lie today in the Cathedral of San Juan.

RTO RICO

Amcrican Gcographical Society

The progress of the colony was slow. The fierce Carib Indians transferred their attacks from the Boriquén. In

dians to the Spaniards. French, Dutch, English, and freehooters without nationality sacked coastal cities and at-

tacked the capital. Ensiaved

by the Spaniards, the Indians died in the mines or in revolt

against their masters. Negro slaves were brought in to

take their places. By 1570 the gold mines were exhausted, having produced in all only about $4,000,000. Sugar cañe was introduced, and cocoanut

palms, and guinea hens. Epidemics, hurricanes, and invasions harried the islanders.

They petitioned the crown for means of defense, and

slowly rose the first fortifications—La Fortaleza (iJ33), El Morro (i í 39)• An oíd Dutch print of La Fortaleza, and El Morro as it looks to-

day.

Puerto Rican News Bureau

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U. S. División of Tcrritorícs and Island Posscssious

At the beginning of the i7th century San Juan had only about 200 substantlal houses, a hundred more huts, and a cathedral without tower or bell. Only one other town—San Germán—had survived disaster, although two others, Arecibo and Coamo, were established soon after 1600. The populación of the entire island was less than 2,500 Spaniards. During two full centuries, Puerto Rico successfully fought the French, English, Dutch, and buccaneers. By the end of the i8th century, the population had grown to 155,000, forty percent of whom were whites, ten percent of whom were

slaves. (See frontispiece for Porta Coeli—Cate of Heaven—the lovely oíd Church of Santo Domingo in San Germán, built early in the lyth century.) Above, walls of the

Fort of San Cristóbal, begun in 1631, completed in 1783.

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Puerto Rican Nezvs Burcau

Soon after the declaration of the Rights of Man in France in 1789, the Negrees of Haíti rose against their masters. The Governor of Puerto Rico refused to aid the French in crushing the rebeilion. Citizens of the first French Republic helped defeiid

San Juan against the English in 1797. With this prelude the stormy i9th century opened. Revolutions against Spain broke out in México, Venezuela, Santo Domingo. In Puerto Rico the premature and poorly organized Revolt of Lares was suppressed in 1868.

A great literary and artistic movement aróse on the island—many of the artists and writers taking part in revolutionary activity, A weakened Spain alternatively strove to plácate its colonies with concessions and to terrorize them with harsh measures.

In 1873 slavery was abolished in Puerto Rico. But the people were for the most part ¡11 nourished, poorly taught, and badly informed, lacking roads and bridges and other means of communication. Coffee was the principal item of export; at the end of the

i9th century it accounted for 14 million pesos of the total export'figure of 18 million. Above, San Gerónimo Fort, built in the r8th century at the entrance of the Canal of San Antonio, San Juan.

U. S. Army Signal Corps

A fresh revoluciรณn broke out in Cuba in 189J, and was bloodily suppressed. Many Americans in Florida and New York had businesses in Cuba, or had intermarried with

Cubans. When the Maine blew up in Havana, a nucleus of public opiniรณn already existed in eastern United States favoring intervenciรณn. On May 12, 1898, the American fleec unsuccessfully bombarded San Juan, doing slighc damage co El Morro, La Fortaleza, and San Juan Cathedral, and killing or wounding about a hundred soldiers and civilians. After a feint at Fajardo, the Americans landed at Guรกnica, on the south coast, on

June 25, and on July 28 the unfortified city of Ponce surrendered without a shot. After a two weeks' campaign, hostilities were suspended. The American flag was run up over La Fortaleza at noon on October 18. Above, U. S. troops entering Ponce in 1898.

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Puerto Rican Ncxvs Burcau

The American occupation did not bring every Puerto Rican peasant forty acres

and a mulé. The loss of foreign markets ruined the coíFee growers, the disastrous San Ciriaco hurricane of 1898 destroyed the coffee plantations. The shift to American coinage weighed heaviiy on the majority of the people.

Energetically the Americans and Puerto Ricans built roads. In 1898 there were only 170 miles of highway in all the island; to these have been added 1,300 miles

of modern smooth-surfaced roads. Railroads, wharves, and bridges were built, electric light plants set up, telegraph and telcphone lines strung. Through the Puerto Rico Legislature the people have established a remarkable system of irrigation, especially along the dry southern coast, and appropriated funds for othef public works. Free public education was instituted, librarles and schools built, church and state separated,

laws codííied, social legislation placed on the statute books—including laws protecting workers, giving the women the right to vote, and guaranteeing civil liberty. Measures

were taken to protect public health, dating from the discovery in 1899 by Dr. Bailey Ashford of the cause of hookworm and continuing to present-day prevention and research by the Insular Department of Health and the Institute of Tropical Medicine. Above, Institute of Tropical Medicine, with Capítol in background,

Puerto Rico Rcconstructioii Administratio^

In Spanish colonial days the island afforded a safe port of cali for gold-laden galleons returning homeward from the looted Inca and Aztec empires. Today, Puerto Rico is

an important outpost of our defense system. It plays a strategic part in guarding the entrance to the Panama Canal. Some $3 j,000,000 are being expended for air and naval

bases and other means of defense. Above, the Naval Station at San Juan, built by the PRRA. Below, the ĂŠjth Infantry of Puerto Rico, parading on the grounds of El Morro. Puerto Rican Ncws Burcau

NATURAL WEALTH

\Á>*t W. L. Higbton

Withín the United States tariff walls and subject to agricultural quotas, Puerto Rico produces specialized commercial "cash" crops. The island exports agricultural products, partly or wholly processed, to the mainland, and instead of growing íts own food, imports most of it from the same source. Puerto Ricans spend 92 cents out of every dollar they can earn on the mainland. The island is one of our best customers in the world market. Above, planting cañe.

yy. L. Highton

Columbus introduced sugar cañe into Santo Domingo in 1493, and from there it

was brought to Puerto Rico in ijij. It grows lushly in coastal valleys. When mature, it is cut by hand by workers with

machetes (above), stacked in ox carts or diminutive railroad cars, and hauled to the sugar mili or "central." There it is crushed

between heavy rollers {below), the juice clarified and boiled until it crystallizes, the

molasses is extracted, and the remaining brown "raw" sugar sacked, either for fur-

ther refinement on the island, or for shipment to refineries on the mainland. The

crushed cañe is used for fuel. From the

molasses are made rum and butyl alcohol, the latter important in industry and war. Sugar accounts for more than two-thirds of

the island's total exports to the U. S.—dver $40,000,000 worth is exported every year. ¡V. L. Highton

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Puerto Rico Rccofistructioii Administration

The ripe red coffee berries hide in the shade of traes {below). Coffee growing is coníined chiefly to the uplands in the cen tral part of the island. The berries are dried

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by hand in the sun {above), and the rich savor of Puerto Rican after-dinner coÉfee

thus produced is more famous in the capitals of Europa than with us, usad as we are to milder, less full-bodied varieties. (An ex-

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celient brand, grown and marketed by is land cooperativas, can be purchased at largar grocers'.) Because it was long the mainstay

of many small farmers, coffee is sometimes

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callad the "poor man's crop." In 1899 and again in 1928 and 1932, hurricanes de'

stroyed the plantations. European tariflf barriers, economic crises, and war have added to the havoc.

* Puerto Rican Ncws Burcau

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Puerto Rico Reconstructiov Admiuistration

Tobáceo, like cofifee, is grown in the uplands. It is second to sugar in importance as an export crop, with an annual producción valued at over $5,000,000. Puerto Rican tobáceo rivals Cuban for the manufacture of fine cigars. Above, tobáceo plantación,

beloiv, workers hanging tobáceo leaves to dry. Workers in the growing and processing of Puerto Rico's crops of sugar, tobáceo, and coffee are poorly paid. In spite of low wages, they have to buy most of their food

from the mainland at mainland prices. These workers have a saying that they produce after-dinner luxuries—and go without dinner. Puerto Rico Rcconstruction Administraiioñ

iV. L. Highton

Citrus fruits are, like sugar caĂąe,

grown mainly on che coastal plains. Pineapples {above) and grapefruit (below) are grown for export, and oranges are consumed on the island. The citrus fruir industry was started by American soldiers who remained on the island after 1898, and today most of the plantations are owned by North Americans.

Puerto Rican Instituto of Tourtsm * A --'V-

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Vanilla, ginger, citrón, cocoa, cocoanuts, and sea-island cotton are crops of varying importance for export. Except for head lettuce, which won't "head" in Puerto Rico, all the important vegetables of the températe zone grow very well. Above, drying vanilla.

Puerto Rico Rcconstructiou Admiuisiration

The Puerto Rican Jíbaro, or peasant, may grow in his backyard (i£ he has one) bananas (above), breadfruit (below, left), yams (below, right), corn, beans, pigeon

peas. These plus rice (imported, aithough it grows well on the island) and dried codfish (imported, aithough nearby waters teem with fish) are far too frequently his solé diet. IV. L. Hightou

U. S. Dcpartmcnt of Agriculturn

Puerto Rico Rcconstruction Administration

U. S. Dcpartmcnt of Affriculture

Frora the delicious papaya {above, left) is extractad papain, a vegetable pepsin. Experiments are being made in developing and improving plants from which are extractad oils, essences, and medicines that can be exportad proñtábly in small bulk, or that are essentiai to our welfare and comfort but can be produced oniy in the tropics: vaniila, cacao (the chocolate bean), cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, curry, bay (bay trae; above, right), ylang-ylang {below, left), used in making perfume, and quinina {below, right). U. S. Departmcnt of Aúriculturc

U. S. Dcpartmcnt of Agriculturc

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The U. S. Agricultural Experiment Station {above), near Mayagüez, is helping to reconstruct island agricultura, performing important experimental work with the help of the i2-month growing season, and studying crops essential to the welfare of the United States that can be produced only in the tropics. It is working on the probiem

of soil erosión, and developing new varieties of both températe and tropical vegetables and fruits. Experts say that a trip through the Station is equivalent to observation in a dozen tropical and sub-tropical countries, in variety of plants seen.

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IV. L. Highton

Above, the director of the Insular Agricultura! Experiment Station at Río Piedras examining a variety of sugar cañe. Work in developing varieties of cañe resistant to disease has saved the sugar industry from ruin.

Depression in Puerto Rico dates from the early ijoo's. What raiders, pestilence, and hurricanes left to the early colonists, the usurers took. The first report on "the problem of Puerto Rico" was made by Governor Lando in 1534 in a letter to the Emperor in which he describes measures taken to prevent colonists from abandoning the island and hurrying off to Perú in search of gold. When the island gold mines gave out, the government began to subsidize sugar milis. Of the sugar industry Juan Ponce de León, grandson of the conqueror, wrote in 1582, "Nowadays it supports the whole island, and only because of it the island is not completely deserted." Father Damián López de Haro wrote of San Juan in 1644, "The city is very poor; the money spent in it is

RECONSTRU

Puerto Rico Rceonstruction Administration

poor people's money, for it is copper. ... As tithe I am given each week for my

household and the poor some cassava, which is the bread of this country, that necessity

has taught them to eat. . . . Everything bought and sold is very dear . . . At the Court when I asked if there were a doctor and apothecary here, they told me that such were not needed, as everybody was healthy and died of oíd age. . . . But last month we buried more than fifty and there were many sick. I am convinced that there died not so many ill cared for as ill nourished." Compelled by the Spanish Crown to sell all their produce to the homeland and to buy all their important goods there,.the islanders resorted to smuggling. A governor of Puerto Rico, Matias de Abadia, officially encouraged contraband commerce, directing it from La Fortaleza from 1731 to 1742.

In 1765, Alejandro O'ReyIly, commissioned by the Spanish Crown to investigare conditions in Puerto Rico, made what might be called the island's first reconstruction

plan. He recommended the encouragement of agriculture, the taking over by the government of all land not in use or populated and its divisiรณn among the farmers, vocational education with emphasis on farming, arid the operation of a sugar mili by the government. In 18 ij a royal decree provided measures for promoting the welfare of the people, industry, cominerce, and agriculture, and slowly the island began to prosper. Lack of roads and insufficient capital greatly slowed down economic development. A commercial treaty was signed with the U. S. in 1819.

Puerto Rico Rccoustruction Admiinsiration

United States sovereignty .after 1898 brought roads and other means of communication, and enormous capital, largely invested in sugar lands and milis. The best lands

carne to be concentrated inte large holdings, absentee-owned; agriculture became highly specialized; the population doubled in a generation; urban and rural slums appeared; the labor movement developed and gathered strength. After the World War, during which fortunes were made and lost by entreprcneurs, carne a long period of unemployment and uncertainty, deepened by the 1929 crisis into something that approached economic and social chaos.

k-k:.^ Puerto Rico Rcconstruction Adminisiratxon

Most Puerto Ricans liv^ in the country. The land must support more than joo persons per square mile, but the great mass oí people is landless. The landless peasant or Jibaro {above) is hospitable and courteous, preserving many relies oí colonial Spain in his speech and folklore, Catholic in religious affiliation, superstitious in daily living. He has suffered greatly from natural, social, and economic forces beyond his control.

Over-population and land concentration have crowded him ofií the soil. (If Puerto Rico were merely .as densely populated as the United States as a whole, it would have only 140,000 people. If the United States were as densely populated as Puerto Rico, it would have one and a third bíllion inhabitants!)

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Puerto Rico Rcconstructiou Adminisiration

Having no land, the Jíbaro enters the labor market. Unemploynient is variously estimated at from 20 to J5 percent of the island's population of 1,800,000. Most jobs

are highiy seasonai, and all are miserably underpaid. From 80 to 90 percent of the average worker's wages ¡s spent on food. The average consumption of meat is approximately

pounds per person per year; of milk, about a pint per person per year.

Industry is less important than agriculture, but various enterprises furnish subsistence to a large number of workers. Needlework and embroidery products are vaiued

annually at over $20,000,000, and this industry alone furnishes employment to some yo,ooo women. Like agriculturai workers, industrial workers are poorly paid. Thousands of Puerto Rican workers live under conditions of poverty and bad

housing found nowhere else beneath the U. S. flag. Above, La Perla slums, below, Miranda slums, both in San Juan. Puerto Rico Rcconstruction Adniinistration

In June, 1934, the President created the División of Territories and Island Possessions in

the U. S. Department o£ the Interior and transferred to it supervisión of Puerto Rican affairs from the Bureau of Insular Affairs in the War

Department. The President, Mrs. Roosevelt, and members of the oBicial family visited Puerto Rico and obtained first-hand knowledge

of its growing need. The U. S. Congress became intent on improving the conditions of Puerto Ricans and in cooperating with the Insular Government in an approach toward' a solution of the Island's problems.

The President set up an agency designated as the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration in May, 1935» along the lines recommended to him in the Report of the Puerto Rico Policy Commission. Locally known as la PRRA, its main purpose

has been to carry out a comprehensive program of reconstruction and rehabilitation along many fronts—rural rehabilitation, resettlement, education, health, housing and slum clearance, the founding of cooperatives, social service, construction, aids to munici-

palities, land reclamation and malaria control, employment, relief, the laying out of demonstration programs for sugar, coffee, and tobáceo growing, the eradication of fruit, cocoanut, and cattle pests, soil conservation, reforestation, hydro-electric power, irrigation. All these activities are carried on in cooperation with other Federal and Insular agencies. Since 1939 the emphasis has somewhat shifted, toward rural rehabilitation of needy persons and away from work relief as such.

Puerto Rico Reconstruction AdministraHon

Social workers interviewed slum families {above), mothers brought their children

for medical examination (bclow). Rural dispensaries, functioning as regional clinics, were established in 51 municipalities and later were turned over for operation by the Insular Department of Health. Twenty-four urban dispensaries were constructed for the Health Department, additions built to existing hospitals, and the equipment of

the School of Tropical Medicine expanded. Hygiene instruction was given through the Social Service Section of the PRRA, coordinated with Insular agencies. Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration

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Puerto Rico Rccoustructio^^ jAdministration

The appalling housing conditions were tackled. Above, the Falansterio apartment San Juan, built by the PRRA at a cost of $679,000. Thís dwelling, in an area otherwise occupied by the overcrowded Miranda slum, houses more than 1,000 persona ¡n 216 apartments. It covers a

city block, and has a completely stafifed social service center with recreation rooms, reading

room, a nursery, a kindergarten, an auditorium, and a first-grade schoolroom.

The Urbanización Eleanor Roosevelt (below) in Hato Rey, a suburb of Río Piedras cióse

to San Juan, is a new type of urban community with comfortable, hurricane-proof houses, wide streets, playgrounds, community centers, and school. Designed to contain eventualiy 2,000 houses at an average monthiy rental of $8.jo, this development is setting a new trend in low-cost hous ing in Puerto Rico. Similar urban developments are the Juan Morell Campos development in Ponce, named for the famous Puerto Rican composer; Mirapalmeras in Santurce and La Granja in Caguas, these last two built by PWA and later transferred to PRRA.

íf. L. Highton

To avoid over-concentration of population in cities and to help workers in semi-rural areas, the PRRA has initiated a new type of small homestead. These rural houses, built

by tbe PRRA of brick, concrete, or tamped eartb, at an average cost of $850, wiih approximately one acre of land valued at $ioo, are rented for $3 a montb. Hotnesteaders employed part-time on cañe plantations or in nearby towns are taugbt to grow vegetables and to raise poultry. Above, bouse of tamped eartb.

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IV. L. Highton

The PRRA acquired 4,322 acres of land in rích La Plata valley (above), formerly devoted to the growing of tobáceo under absentee ownersbip. Tbis land has been divided

into about 500 farms, ranging from j to 10 acres eacb, and bere new farmers have been settled and are growing tobáceo and vegetables under careful direction. Otber resettlement projects bave been esiablisbed: a diversified crop program in tbe coffee

región of Castañer, a similar prdject in Luquillo, and on tbe adjoining island of Vieques.

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Puerto Rico Rcconstructxon Admitvsiralion

More than 40,000 acres in different parts of the island are being directly utilized ín the rural rehabilitation program, aimed at checking land concentration, slum crowding, and, to the extent feasibie, importation of foodstuffs. The program aims at completing homes for families who wiU be producing a good part of their own food while living under standards unknown to them before. "Central service farms" provide fertilizer, seeds, livestock, poultry, etc., to resettled farmers, and schools admin¡stered by the Department of Education of the Insular Government give instruction in agriculture, domestic science, and manual arts. Above, community center at La Plata.

Puerto Rico Rcccnstruction Administration

The PRRA loaned funds in 1936 to newly organized cooperatives for the purchase of Central Lafayette. This modern raw sugar factory has a cane-grinding capacity of i,500 tons daily.

Puerto Rico Rcconstruction Administration

Other cooperatives organized and given íinancial aid by the PRRA are Los Caños, a sugar mili owned and operated by individual farmers, a cooperative for vegetable packing and marketing, one óf vegetable growers, and one for producing and marketing handicrafts. The Puerto Rico Self-Help Corporation, an Insular agency, has organized

the Primus Potteries Cooperative, for the production and marketing of ceramics, and the Corn Growers Cooperative. Above, handicraft cooperative, below. Insular cement works. Puerto Rican Isícws Burean

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}V. L. Highion

Long ago the rich and valuable forests that covered Puerto Rico disappeared, ex-

cept in tiny areas. The Federal and Insular Forest Services, in cooperation with the PRRA, have planted millions of trees and grown millions more young trees for future planting in the half-million acres that are suitable only for forest land. Soil erosión has been going on almost unchecked for generations, and many areas in the hilly regions have been abandoned. The Soil Conservation

Service of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, in cooperation with the PRRA and the Federal and Insular Experiment Stations, is demonstrating methods of soil conservation —terracing, strip planting, and contour plowing.

U. S. Department of Agrievltnre i;',

Above, erosión tests. Federal Agricultural

Experiment Station, Mayagüez. Below, bench terracing restores former waste land.

Fuerto Rico Rccoivstruction Adminislraiion

Puerto Rico is fortúnate among islands of the West Indies, for it has an abun-

dance of water. Another undeveloped source of wealth is water power. The PRRA has constructed several hydro-electric projects, turning them ovér to the Insular Government as they are íinished. Above, Patillas spillway.

Many other Federal agencies are cooperating with Insular agencies in the job of preserving and developing the natural and human resources of Puerto Rico—the Work Projects Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the National Youth Adminis-

tration, the Extensión Service of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, among others.

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W. L. Hightoñ

Huge sums are being spent by the United States on armored monsters to ride the Caribbean and the air above it, harbors and hangars to house thetn, the training of men to serve them. But democracy ¡s not defended by these monsters alone—^it has a way of vanishing like a whiff of powder-smoke when such means become the end. Our way of living and believing has to be defended in the minds and bodies of island boys and girls in city and rural schools {above, rural school; opposite, pupil in rural school). Puerto Ricans now growing up can preserve for us part of the centuries-long tradition of Latin América. They and their island can be our best interpreters—or our worst— to citizens of the southern half of our hemisphere.

W. L. Hiffhton

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