Speech #610110119

We are allowed a senate of 13 members. 5 by election and 8 by presidential appointment. which actually. Implies a still smaller minority in the higher house. It is also true that we are granted the right of naturalization as a means of acquiring citizenship. this being an absolute requisite for the filling of public offices and suffrage. thus attaching a shade of mercenariness and concupiscence to the acquisition of citizenship. which should be considered for its sacred purity a national sacrament. Thus a new absurdity appears in the division of the Porto Ricans into two classes of citizens. one of the United States. the other of Porto Rico like two castes. one enjoys political rights. the other does not. and while the naturalized citizens of the United States have the exclusive right to public office. the real citizens of Porto Rico remain as strangers In their own land. and notwithstanding their citizenship are deprived of all civic prerogatives. One by one the Olmsted bill searches out. erases. and restringes in the Foraker Act all those precepts which conferred a small participation in the insular affairs upon the natives of the island . it goes still further. penetrating into our local statutes and depriving us of all our rights so patiently obtained by incessant effort for the past ten years. during which time native capacity. striking against our hard regimen. like the iron against the stone. produced a few sparks of liberty. The franchises belong to the legislative branch of the federal system. yet the Foraker Act. while not recognizing the right. confides the concession of all franchises or privileges of a public character to the executive council. thus permitting the intervention of the Porto Ricans numbered among its members . the Olmsted bill confers this delicate faculty upon five department heads. who have not been Porto Ricans under our present regimen and will not be probably under the new one. thus eliminating from the legislature a legislative matter and depriving the Porto Ricans of their legitimate intervention in the distribution of benefits which properly belong to the people of Porte Rico.