Law 53 of 1948 better known as the Gag Law,[1] (Spanish: Ley de La Mordaza) was an act enacted by the Puerto Rico legislature[lower-alpha 1] of 1948, with the purpose of suppressing the independence movement in Puerto Rico. The act made it a crime to own or display a Puerto Rican flag, to sing a patriotic tune, to speak or write of independence, or to meet with anyone or hold any assembly in favor of Puerto Rican independence.[2] It was passed by a legislature that was overwhelmingly dominated by members of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD), which supported developing an alternative political status for the island. The bill was signed into law on June 10, 1948 by Jesús T. Piñero, the United States-appointed governor.[3] Opponents tried but failed to have the law declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court.
After the United States invaded Puerto Rico in 1898 during the Spanish–American War, some leaders, such as José de Diego and Eugenio María de Hostos, expected the United States to grant the island its independence.[4][5] Instead, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris of 1898 ratified on December 10, 1898, the U.S. annexed Puerto Rico. Spain lost its American territories, and the United States gained imperial strength and global presence.[6]
In 1914, the entire Puerto Rican House of Delegates demanded independence from the U.S. Instead, the U.S. imposed the Jones Act of 1917, which mandated U.S. citizenship on the entire island.[8] The passage of the Jones Act coincided with America's entry unto World War I, and it allowed the U.S. to conscript Puerto Ricans into the U.S. military.[9] The Jones Act was passed over the unanimous objection of the entire Puerto Rican House of Delegates, which was the legislature of Puerto Rico at that time.[8]
In addition to subjecting Puerto Ricans to the military draft, and sending them into World War I,[9] the Jones Act created a bicameral, popularly elected legislature in Puerto Rico (following ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1913 providing for popular election of senators), a bill of rights, and executive functions similar to those in most states. Because Puerto Rico was not a state, it did not have electoral status for U.S. presidential elections. The Act authorized popular election of the Resident Commissioner, previously appointed by the President of the U.S.
Don Pedro Albizu Campos, leader of the Nationalist Party, 1936
In the 1930s, leaders of the Nationalist Party split as differences arose between José Coll y Cuchí and his deputy, Pedro Albizu Campos, a Harvard-educated attorney. Coll y Cuchí left the party and Albizu Campos became president in 1931. He retained this post for the rest of his life, including terms in prison. In the 1930s, social unrest rose during the harsh conditions of the Great Depression. The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, then presided over by Albizu Campos, had some confrontations with the established government of the U.S. in the island, during which people were killed by police.
In 1938, Luis Muñoz Marín, son of Luis Muñoz Rivera and at first a member of the Liberal Party, founded the Partido Liberal, Neto, Auténtico y Completo (the "Clear, Authentic and Complete Liberal Party") in the town of Arecibo. He and his followers Felisa Rincon de Gautier and Ernesto Ramos Antonini claimed to have founded the "true" Liberal Party. His group renamed itself as the Popular Democratic Party (PPD). According to the historian Delma S. Arrigoitia, it abandoned its quest for independence and, by 1950, settled for a new political status for Puerto Rico called the Estado Libre Associado (Free Associated State), which opponents likened to continued colonialism.[10]
In the 1940 election, the PPD finished in a dead heat with Barceló's Liberal Party. In order to secure his position as Senate president, Muñoz Marin brokered an alliance with minor Puerto Rican factions, which was possible in such a multi-party system. In the elections of 1944 and 1948, the PPD gained a majority in the Senate and increasing victory margins. In addition, its candidates won almost all legislative posts and mayoral races. The Nationalist Party did not gain much electoral support.
By the late 1940s, the PPD fostered the idea of the creation of a "new" political status for the island. Under this hybrid political status as an Estado Libre Associado, or Associate Free State, the people of Puerto Rico would be allowed to elect their own governor, rather than having to accept a US appointee. In exchange, the United States would continue to control the island's monetary system, provide defense, and collect custom duties. It reserved the exclusive right to enter into treaties with foreign nations.
Under this status, the laws of Puerto Rico would continue to be subject to the approval of the Federal government of the United States.[11] The status of Estado Libre Associado displeased many advocates of Puerto Rican independence, as well as those who favored the island's being admitted as a state of the U.S.[7][pageneeded]
Passage
In 1948, the Senate passed a bill that restricted expressions of ideas related to the nationalist movement. The Senate at the time was controlled by the PPD and presided over by Luis Muñoz Marín.[12]
The bill, known as Law 53 and the Ley de la Mordaza (Gag Law), passed the legislature was signed into law on June 10, 1948, by the U.S.-appointed governor of Puerto Rico Jesús T. Piñero. It closely resembled the anti-communist Smith Law passed in the United States.[13]
The law prohibited owning or displaying a Puerto Rican flag anywhere, even in one's own home. It also became a crime to speak against the U.S. government; to speak in favor of Puerto Rican independence; to print, publish, sell or exhibit any material intended to paralyze or destroy the insular government; or to organize any society, group or assembly of people with a similar destructive intent. Anyone accused and found guilty of disobeying the law could be sentenced to ten years imprisonment, a fine of $10,000 (US), or both.[14]
Dr. Leopoldo Figueroa, a member of the Partido Estadista Puertorriqueño (Puerto Rican Statehood Party) and the only non-PPD member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, said the law was repressive and in direct violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees Freedom of Speech.[15] He noted that Puerto Ricans had been granted US citizenship and were covered by its constitutional guarantees.[16]
Reaction
Among those who opposed the "Gag Law" was Santos Primo Amadeo Semidey, a.k.a. "The Champion of Habeas Corpus." Amadeo Semidey was an educator, lawyer and former Senator in the Puerto Rico legislature [17] who confronted the government of Puerto Rico when the government approved and executed the laws of La Mordaza.[18] Amadeo Semidey, an expert in Constitutional Law, immediately filed a habeas corpus action with the U.S. Supreme Court which questioned the constitutionality of Law 53, and demanded the release of Enrique Ayoroa Abreu, arrested in Ponce. Amadeo Semidey and other lawyers also defended 15 members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, who were accused of breaking Gag Law 53.[19]
Revolts
External videos
To view live-action Newsreel scenes and photos of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Revolts of the 1950s (with commentary in Spanish), click here
On June 21, 1948, Pedro Albizu Campos, president of the Nationalist Party since 1931, gave a speech in the town of Manati where Nationalists from all over the island had gathered, in case the police attempted to arrest him. Later that month Campos visited Blanca Canales and her cousins Elio and Griselio Torresola, the Nationalist leaders of the town of Jayuya. Griselio soon moved to New York City where he met and befriended Oscar Collazo. From 1949 to 1950, the Nationalists in the island began to plan and prepare an armed revolution. The revolution was to take place in 1952, on the date the United States Congress was to approve the creation of the political status of the Commonwealth (Estado Libre Associado) for Puerto Rico. Albizu Campos called for an armed revolution because he considered the "new" status to be a colonial farce. He picked the town of Jayuya as the headquarters of the revolution because of its location. Weapons were stored in the Canales' residence.[20]
Police take down Puerto Rican flag after the 1950 Jayuya Uprising
The uprisings, which became known as the "Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Revolts of the 1950s," began on October 30, 1950. Albizu Campos ordered them after learning about his potential imminent arrest. Uprisings occurred in various towns, amongst them Peñuelas, Mayagüez, Naranjito, Arecibo and Ponce. Most notable were the Utuado Uprising, where the insurgents were massacred, and the Jayuya Uprising, in the town of the same name, where Nationalists attacked the police station, killing officers. The government sent in the Puerto Rican National Guard to take back control and used its planes to bomb the town.
By the end of the local revolts, 28 were dead - 7 police officers, 1 National Guardsman, and 16 Nationalists. There were also 49 wounded - 23 police officers, 6 National Guardsmen, 9 Nationalists and 11 non-participating bystanders.[21]
The revolts were not limited to Puerto Rico. They included a plot to assassinate United States President Harry S. Truman in Washington, D.C. On November 1, 1950, two Nationalists from New York City attacked the Blair House, where Truman was staying while renovations were being made to the White House. They did not harm him.
Truman acknowledged that it was important to settle Puerto Rico's status, and supported the plebiscite in 1952 in which voters had a chance to choose whether or not they wanted the constitution that had been drafted for the Estado Libre Associado. Nearly 82% of the voters on the island approved the new constitution.[22]
Francisco Matos Paoli, a poet and member of the Nationalist Party, was arrested and imprisoned under the Gag Law. For writing four Nationalist speeches and owning a Puerto Rican flag, Paoli was imprisoned for ten years.[24][25]
A wounded Vidal Santiago Díaz is carried out of his barbershop by the police
Olga Viscal Garriga was a student leader at the University of Puerto Rico. She was known for her skills as an orator and an active political activist. She was arrested in 1950 for participating in a demonstration that turned deadly in Old San Juan when U.S. forces opened fire and killed one of the demonstrators. Viscal Garriga was held without bail in La Princesa prison. During her trial in federal court, she was uncooperative with the U. S. Government prosecution, and refused to recognize the authority of the U.S. over Puerto Rico. She was sentenced to eight years for contempt of court (not for the initial charges regarding the demonstration), and released after serving five years.[26]Isabel Rosado was accused of participating in the revolts. Police arrested her at her job.[27] Rosado was convicted at trial and sentenced to fifteen months in jail; she was fired from her job.[27]
Vidal Santiago Díaz was Albizu Campos' barber. On October 31, he offered to serve as an intermediary if the government arrested Albizu Campos. That afternoon, while waiting alone in his barbershop Salon Boricua for an answer from the attorney general, he saw that his shop was surrounded by 15 police officers and 25 National Guardsmen. A gunfight ensued between Santiago Díaz and the police. It happened to be transmitted live via radio to the Puerto Rican public in general. The battle lasted 3 hours and came to an end after Santiago Díaz received five bullet wounds. Although Santiago Díaz had not been involved in the Nationalist revolts, he was sentenced to 17 years of prison after recovering from his wounds. He served two years before he was set free on a conditioned parole.[28][citation needed]
Repeal
Law 53 (the Gag Law) or La Ley de la Mordaza as it is known in Puerto Rico, was repealed in 1957. In 1964, David M. Helfeld wrote in his article Discrimination for Political Beliefs and Associations that Law 53 was written with the explicit intent of eliminating the leaders of the Nationalist and other pro-independence movements, and to intimidate anyone who might follow them - even if their speeches were reasonable and orderly, and their activities were peaceful.[23]
Notes
↑ By 1948, the Puerto Rico legislature was not called the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico.
Further reading
"War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America’s Colony"; Author: Nelson Antonio Denis; Publisher: Nation Books (April 7, 2015); ISBN978-1568585017.
Pedro Albizu Campos was a Puerto Rican attorney and politician, and a leading figure in the Puerto Rican independence movement. He was the president and spokesperson of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico from 1930 until his death. He led the nationalist revolts of October 1950 against the United States government in Puerto Rico. Albizu Campos spent a total of twenty-six years in prison at various times for his Puerto Rican independence activities.
The 1954 United States Capitol shooting was an attack on March 1, 1954, by four Puerto Rican nationalists seeking to promote Puerto Rican independence from the United States. They fired 30 rounds from semi-automatic pistols onto the legislative floor from the Ladies' Gallery of the House of Representatives chamber within the United States Capitol.
Juan Antonio Corretjer Montes was a Puerto Rican poet, journalist and pro-independence political activist opposing United States rule in Puerto Rico.
The Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico is a Puerto Rican political party founded on September 17, 1922, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Its primary goal is to work for Puerto Rico's independence. The Party's selection in 1930 of Pedro Albizu Campos as its president brought a radical change to the organization and its tactics.
Olga Isabel Viscal Garriga was a public orator and political activist. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she moved to Puerto Rico, where she was a student leader and spokesperson of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party's branch in Rio Piedras. As an advocate for Puerto Rican independence, she was sentenced to eight years in a U.S. federal penitentiary, for refusing to recognize the sovereign authority of the United States over Puerto Rico.
Blanca Canales was an educator and a Puerto Rican Nationalist. Canales joined the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party in 1931 and helped organize the Daughters of Freedom, the women's branch of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.
The Jayuya Uprising, also known as Jayuya Revolt or Cry of Jayuya, was a Nationalist insurrection that took place on October 30, 1950, in the town of Jayuya, Puerto Rico. The insurrection, led by Blanca Canales, was one of the multiple insurrections that occurred throughout Puerto Rico on that day against the Puerto Rican government supported by the United States. The insurrectionists were opposed to US sovereignty over Puerto Rico.
Carlos Vélez Rieckehoff was the President of the New York chapter of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party in the 1930s. In the 1990s Rieckehoff was among the protesters against the United States Navy's use of his birthplace, the island of Vieques, as a bombing range. He stood in front of the committee of the U.S. House of Representatives investigating the situation in Vieques and pleaded for the return of Vieques to the people of Puerto Rico.
The Utuado uprising, also known as the Utuado revolt or El Grito de Utuado, refers to the revolt against the United States government in Puerto Rico which occurred on October 30, 1950, in the town of Utuado. There were simultaneous revolts in various other towns in Puerto Rico, including the capital of San Juan and the cities of Mayaguez and Arecibo, plus major confrontations in the city of Ponce and the towns of Peñuelas and Jayuya.
The San Juan Nationalist revolt was one of many uprisings against United States Government rule which occurred in Puerto Rico on October 30, 1950 during the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party revolts. Amongst the uprising's main objectives were an attack on La Fortaleza, and the U.S. Federal Court House Building in Old San Juan.
The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party insurgency was a series of coordinated insurrections for the secession of Puerto Rico led by the president of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, Don Pedro Albizu Campos, against the United States government's rule over the islands of Puerto Rico. The party repudiated the "Free Associated State" status that had been enacted in 1950 and which the Nationalists considered a continuation of colonialism.
Francisco Matos Paoli, was a Puerto Rican poet, critic, and essayist who in 1977 was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. His books were rooted in three major literary movements in Latin America: Romanticism, Modernism, and Postmodernism.
Hugo Margenat, was a Puerto Rican poet and Puerto Rican Independence advocate. His art was committed to serving a militant nationalistic agenda. He was the founder of the political youth pro-independence organizations "Acción Juventud Independentista" and the "Federación de Universitarios Pro Independencia".
Isolina Rondón was a political activist. She was one of the few witnesses of the killing of four Nationalists committed by local police officers in Puerto Rico during a confrontation with the supporters of the Nationalist Party that occurred on October 24, 1935, and which is known as the Río Piedras massacre. Rondón joined the political movement and became the Treasurer of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party which staged various uprisings in Puerto Rico against the colonial Government of the United States in 1950.
Isabel Freire de Matos was a writer, educator, journalist, and activist for Puerto Rican independence. Freire de Matos was the author of several children's books and the wife of Francisco Matos Paoli, a high-ranking member of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.
Isabel Rosado, also known as Doña Isabelita, was an educator, social worker, activist and member of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. Influenced by the events of the Ponce massacre, Rosado became a believer of the Puerto Rican independence movement and was imprisoned because of her commitment to the cause.
Vidal Santiago Díaz was a member of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and served as president of the Santurce Municipal Board of officers of the party. He was also the personal barber of Nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos. Though not involved in the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Revolts of the 1950s, Santiago Díaz's barbershop was attacked by forty armed police officers and U.S. National Guardsmen. The attack was historic in Puerto Rico—the first time an event of that magnitude had ever been transmitted live via radio and heard all over the island.
Ruth Mary Reynolds was an American educator, political and civil rights activist who embraced the ideals of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. She was incarcerated in La Princesa Prison for sedition during the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Revolts of the 1950s. As one of the founders of the organization known as the "American League for Puerto Rico's Independence," she devoted many years of her life to the cause of Puerto Rico's independence from the United States after her release from prison.
Raimundo Díaz Pacheco was a political activist and the Treasurer General of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. He was also commander-in-chief of the Cadets of the Republic, the official youth organization within the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. This quasi-military organization was also known as the Ejército Libertador de Puerto Rico.
Cadets of the Republic, known in Spanish as Cadetes de la República, was the paramilitary wing of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party in the twentieth century. The organization was also referred to as the Liberation Army of Puerto Rico(Ejército Libertador de Puerto Rico)
References
↑ Pariser, Harry (1987). Explore Puerto Rico (5thed.). Moon Publications. p.23. ISBN9781893643529. Retrieved January 5, 2013. The Puerto Rican legislature under U.S. mandate passed la mordaza (the "gag law") in May 1948.
↑ Dr. Delma S. Arrigoitia, Puerto Rico Por Encima de Todo: Vida y Obra de Antonio R. Barcelo, 1868-1938, Page 292; Publisher: Ediciones Puerto (January 2008); ISBN978-1-934461-69-3
↑ Public Law 600, Art. 3, 81st Congress of the United States of America, July 3, 1950
Puerto Rico Under Colonial Rule: Political Persecution And The Quest For Human Rights; By: Ramon Bosque-Perez (Editor) and Jose Javier Colon Morera (Editor); Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr; ISBN0-7914-6417-2; ISBN978-0-7914-6417-5
The Puerto Rican Movement: Voices from the Diaspora (Puerto Rican Studies); By: Andres Torres; Publisher: Temple University Press; ISBN1-56639-618-2; ISBN978-1-56639-618-9
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