U.S. Government and its people, but it is more the fault of those who today sit in the local government, call themselves a free associated state, known as a Commonwealth, and accept this second-class citizenship.

Undoubtedly, the primary motive and possibly the only motive that you have in conducting a hearing of this nature in Puerto Rico is really to find out how the people of Puerto Rico feel toward the Fernós bill (we have to assume both Fernós bills, H.R. 5926 and H.R. 9234), and the present free associated state.

If today a plebiscite were to be conducted in the proper form without the interference of the government of the free associated state, there is no doubt in our minds that the people of Puerto Rico would vote to become part of the United States of America as a State. The majority of the people of Puerto Rico feel that we have truthfully earned the right to statehood.

To prove that Puerto Rico is qualified for statehood the best criteria should be taken from a Senate Report No. 1029, which gives the following three tests to a prospective State:

1. The inhabitants of the proposed new State are imbued with and are sympathetic toward the principles of democracy exemplified in the American form of government.

2. The proposed new State has sufficient population and resources to support State government and carry its share of the cost of the Federal Government.

3. A majority of the electorate wish statehood.

There is no doubt in our group that Puerto Rico fully satisfies these three requirements. As a matter of fact, it should have been Puerto Rico that led the way into the Union; yet since the present political party of Governor Luis Muñoz-Marin came into power almost two decades ago, there has been utter confusion in the minds of our generation, not only in the political field but also in the economic field. The participation of the youth of Puerto Rico in actual combat, as mentioned above, shows beyond any doubt that loyalty and devotion in the American citizens of Puerto Rico is second to none. Our cultural heritage is rich in many ways. The ability to live and let live regardless of social, religious, or racial creeds is ever-present in Puerto Rico, and this has not been present during the last two decades only; it has been present for the last 61 years.

The government of the "free associated state" of Puerto Rico continually manifests publicly that the present relationship between the United States of America and Puerto Rico brings about a better understanding of Latin America, other people, and their forms of government. This is just plain propaganda. It is a known fact that the relations between the United States, Cuba, Venezuela, Panama, and the Dominican Republic have deteriorated to an extent beyond compre hension, and this has happened while there has been in existence the free associated state of Puerto Rico.

How has this unique political form of government helped to solve this miasma of deteriorating international relations in our geopolitical era? Certainly not by waving a magic wand from the terraces of Fortaleza, but by actually finding out the pulse of the Puerto Ricans and the real feeling of the Latin American people toward the United States and its relations to Puerto Rico. We believe that the continua

tion of the "free associated state" form of government will continue to give lip service to all anti-American groups wherever they may be, either in this area, Europe or Asia.

As a Federal State, as an integrated segment of that great democratic Nation known as the United States of America, Puerto Rico can accomplish in Latin America what Hawaii has accomplished in the eyes of the Orient.

As Mr. Mike Masaoka of the Japanese-American Citizens League recently stated in the hearings on Hawaii:

I think that the war record of Japanese-Americans illustrates that Americanism is a matter of the mind and heart and not of race and ancestry.

We, the youth of Puerto Rico say to you: that the war record of Puerto Ricans illustrates that Americanism is a matter of mind and heart in the people of Puerto Rico and not of race, ancestry or cultural heritage.

The present status has been responsible for two trends which are rapidly developing in Puerto Rico: discontent and uncertainty.

The economic arguments to the effect that Puerto Rico economically cannot support statehood is again a fallacy. Continuous statements like these distort the true value of the meaning of statehood and by this we mean that statehood cannot be measured in dollars and cents. Statehood can only be measured in one specific sense, that of obtaining the highest rights, duties and privileges within the American democracy. As a matter of fact, those who repudiate statehood on an economic basis always forget that the Thirteen Original Colonies fought against tyranny because they were paying taxes without representation. We realize that we are not paying taxes, but we would like to share in the cost of the operation of the Federal Government if this means that we would be properly represented in that august body, the Congress of the United States, where we would have a voice and a vote in our destiny.

To us, it is undignified to live in a community where the government brags about the Federal aid that it receives without reciprocal obligations. Yes, not only undignified but detrimental to the spirit of all Puerto Ricans with definite aspirations for statehood.

We have also heard the argumentation that Puerto Rico was not contiguous territory in the geographical sense, but neither is Hawaii or Alaska. Yet in terms of sentiment and allegiance to the United States, Puerto Rico is certainly contiguous.

The Fernós bill definitely sidetracks the primary issue. It is a measure conceived in the mind of an individual who was leading exponent in the community of independence ideals, ideals not only shared by the present Resident Commissioner but by almost every single important official of the present government of the "free associated state" of Puerto Rico, including the Governor. It is the intention of the Fernós bill to continue and increase, if possible, the trend of separation and the continuance of the "independence game" without asking the people of Puerto Rico in a democratic way their true feelings.

This so-called free associated state group has found that independence is not the best solution to the political and economic problems of Puerto Rico but in their hearts what they are actually doing is toying

around with separatists ideas without coming out in a forthright manner and stating what they actually desire. However, the people of Puerto Rico will repudiate independence as they will repudiate the "free associated state" of Puerto Rico in a democratic plebiscite, not a "free associated state" government-sponsored plebiscite. The dispositions of the Fernós bill in regard to the "compact agreement," external trade, and similar dispositions, show only in effect their continued desire to enjoy a free type of government for personal gainpolitically or economically-notwithstanding the end results insofar as the people of Puerto Rico are concerned.

If this group studied the political aspirations of the people of Puerto Rico and went back to the statement of General Davis in an official communique issued August 15, 1899, in regard to the future of Puerto Rico and which stated as follows:

The changes that have taken place and those which are now proposed should afford the island, until Congress proposes another thing, a form of government which should resemble, insofar as its main organs are concerned, the territorial government up to now applied in the United States to those portions of the national domain which are in a state of transition, or preparatory to full statehood, as a full fledged member of the National Union

there would be no doubt that by now we would have obtained statehood.

In the economic field a psychological warfare campaign is being waged against the uneducated masses of the island that cannot measure or conceive statehood in the economic sense by advertising in the local newspapers that if we are granted statehood we would lose $188 million and that this would signify complete ruin of the island's economy, subsequently lowering the standard of living; that it will mean the total abandonment of public services; that there would be no money to match Federal funds granted, and that these grants would disappear and, as a consequence, there would be no aid to the aged and infirm; that the industrialization program would collapse and there would be mass unemployment; and that there would only be sufficient money to pay the police force and one fourth of school expenditures. Never in history have people as a group been so grossly misled by their own government, except in the days of Hitler and Stalin.

Even though the present Puerto Rican government has constantly maintained an open warfare against the statehood aspirations of the Puerto Rican people, we, the youth of Puerto Rico, no matter how they have tried to mislead us, due to the fact that we were born American citizens which most of them were not, we have resisted and will continue to resist their cheap propaganda.

The University Students Pro-Statehood Association visualizes the probable dynamic changes in the economic structure of Puerto Rico when statehood is granted. To use the "free associated state" of Puerto is analogous to inefficiency because of its type of bureaucratic setup; on the other hand, statehood means efficiency and that is why we sincerely believe that Puerto Rico can carry the load of statehood, whatever this load may mean politically or economically. In conclusion we strongly recommend a plebiscite held under Federal supervision as soon as it is feasible, also to defeat bills H.R. 5926 and H.R. 9234 on the grounds that the bill is designed to confuse and separate our community from the United States of America.

We want to thank you for your time and patience in hearing our exposition that comes from the heart of the youth of Puerto Rico, one and all, American citizens of the first class.

[Applause.]

Mr. O'BRIEN. Under our understanding, Mr. Iglesias will speak before there is any questioning and we can address questions we have to either or both. Is that correct?

Mr. CORDOVA. Yes, sir.

Mr. O'BRIEN. Mr. Iglesias represents the Georgetown University Alumni Association. Is that correct?

Mr. IGLESIAS. Yes; that is correct.

STATEMENT OF MANUEL IGLESIAS, REPRESENTING THE
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

Mr. Chairman and distinguished Congressmen, I know time is limited; therefore, the group of the University of Puerto Rico and my group have decided to agree on a particular field. I am going to take up economics for the next 5 minutes.

This is the same particular government to whom Mr. Cordova referred that has received from the Federal Government in 1959 over $313 million; the same government that maintains that the economy has increased from a level of $226 million in 1940 to over $1,148 million in 1959; the same government that measured the labor force in 1950 as 686,000 and 7 years later measured it as 651,000, a decrease of 35,000; the same government that is responsible for unemployment increase in 8 years from 89,000 to 96,000 even with migration; the same government that in 1950 stated that there were 596,000 gainfully employed in Puerto Rico but in 1958, with all the Federal aid, the great industrialization program and the magical name of the "free associated state of Puerto Rico" only statistically showed 555,000 gainfully employed, a decrease of 41,000. Yes, this is the same government that ruined agricultural employment, dropping from 216,000 in 1950 to 144,000 in 1958, while at the same time manufacturing employment, with the millions of dollars poured into economic development, increased only 26,000 in the same period or an average yearly increase of over 3,000. Yet, during this same period the government bureaucracy increased 28,000 and private enterprise and construction with little aid from the government increased 8,000 and 9,000 respectively.

I would like to make an observation at this time, gentlemen, that the entire employment of the government of Puerto Rico as of 1958 is over 185,000 employees in the government. The entire complete vote received by the Statehood Party in the last election was 172,000. In other words, all government employees could destroy the plebiscite very easily if it was government-sponsored.

This reflects a form of government that is a colossal flop when properly analyzed in the economic sense. Our contention is that the government could have done much more with the money received.

There is no doubt that if the Congress of the United States and Bureau of the Budget had studied further into the formation of the government of the free associated state of Puerto Rico, especially the socialistic aspects of the public corporations, such as the Puerto Rico Water Resources, the port authority, the communications authority, the government bank, the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Corporation, the Puerto Rico Housing Authority, the land au

thority, the government radio and TV stations, et cetera, they would have found out that these corporations today have total assets of over $700 million, almost three quarters of a billion dollars.

None of these public corporations pay taxes. However, they all act as if they were private corporations, quite frequently that they do not require any aid from the government, that they are self-sufficient. Yet, up to June 30, 1958, these public corporations have received contributions from the government of the "free associated state" to the tune of over $234 million and at the same time incurring liabilities amounting to over $398 million.

Our economic contention is as follows: It has been proven economically that many services can be rendered more efficiently to the public by private commercial and industrial entities.

Due to our limitation in time we can only bring to you one example of the many. The Puerto Rico Water Resources Authority today has total assets of over $261 million with total liabilities of over $213 million and, of these, long-term liabilities of over $160 million, the majority of them have bonds issued at an average of an estimated 3 percent interest and representing a debt on the people of Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rico Water Resources Authority continually receives financial aid from the "free associated government" and other contributors to the tune of over $29 million up to June 30, 1958.

Under statehood, with an efficient government running it for the people of Puerto Rico, not for a group, why could not this public corporation be sold to private entities and in this manner the people of Puerto Rico would be released from a continuous debt, could pour the money received into other services such as education and health and at the same time would receive the benefits of incoming taxes from this same private entity to aid further in the economic betterment of the people of Puerto Rico.

It is our belief that the Congressmen sitting here today are aware of the Brownlee power dam project on the Snake River between Idaho and Oregon, which was built by a local independent electric company, the Idaho Power Co. This project embraces the Oxbow Dam and the Hells Canyon Dam. This project almost cost the U.S. taxpayers half a billion dollars because of the pressure groups that constantly promote Federal Government electricity.

At this point, we are not trying to prove or disprove the merits of the Federal electrical projects against non-Federal projects, but it has been calculated that the Brownlee power dam will pay to the Federal Government in a 25-year period over $150 million plus about $100 million in taxes to the State and local communities. We are trying in this short exposition to make an analogy as to what is happening in a State of the Union and what could happen in Puerto Rico if we really decided to govern Puerto Rico as a State and not as the Free and Associated State of Puerto Rico.

The same analysis could be applied to the ports authority and the metropolitan buses that could really change hands and by changing hands become more efficient and effective operations. Also the communications authority, which is rather unique, since we believe that Western Union is a fairly efficient system. Several of these public corporations are constantly losing money.

It has already been proven that the government of the Free Associated State of Puerto Rico cannot run efficiently complicated indus