Role of Superpowers (continuation)

When the United States effectively took over the island of Puerto Rico, the governing convention was the Foraker Act, signed by President McKinley on April 2, 1900. The Act provided that the inhabitants of Puerto Rico were to be known as citizens of Puerto Rico. And, it simply meant that the United States was recognizing the evolution of the island as a State; thus, the people of Puerto Rico were to be citizens of Puerto Rico in the same manner that the people from Texas are citizens of Texas. There was no hidden or implicit meaning attached to the phrase citizens of Puerto Rico except that the inhabitants of the island, as citizens of an American territory, were provided a political possibility of becoming citizens of the United States. Surely, the phrase did not hint that Puerto Rico was a nation under the United States of America, as the same Act provided for a Governor of Puerto Rico, who was to be appointed by the President of the United States. And, Webster’s 3dCollege Ed,1991a governor is a person appointed to govern a dependency, province, or town; or the governor of any of the States. That is, in the American political jargon, a governor does not preside over a nation; therefore, with the appointment of a governor for Puerto Rico, the United States effectively declared the dependency statute of the island. The original intent of the United States toward Puerto Rico was probably more beneficent than destructive. However, it must be recognized that a significant number of Puerto Rico writers have a political agenda, which generally tries to punish the United States for past and present problems existing in the island. If the bias and animosity is pushed to one side, it could be discerned from historical documents that the United States, in its earlier days of occupation, was intent in making Puerto Rico a State as soon as it would have been feasible. There was much opposition in the island toward the idea of full annexation as a State as many felt that its culture and traditions would be abandoned.