Puerto Rico History - 1881 Baldorioty Responds
Despite the attacks from the Boletin, Baldorioty did not cease his campaign, convinced that only a radical change of doctrine could give new life and cohesion to the dispersed liberal forces. The Boletin, a jealous defender of the vast power which conservatism had enjoyed since 1871, refused to remain on the sidelines. Alert to the possible gains to be obtained by a skillful application of the motto "divide and rule," El Boletin challenged Baldorioty on the similarities between his concept of autonomy and that which appeared in the Cuban paper El Triunfo entitled "Our Doctrine," on May 22, 1881, by don Antonio Gavin Torres.
"If this is the type of autonomy envisioned by La Cronica and its followers, if they aspire only to propose the general budget of the island with no executive voice, since the governor may or may not accept a project, we could achieve autonomy as defined by the Cubans by authorizing the Provincial Assembly of Puerto Rico to make up a budget proposal. But this in reality is not autonomy as enjoyed by Canada, so often spoken of in La Cronica, nor is it in any way similar to it. Again we inquire, [he concluded,] is it a different kind of autonomy which our adversaries claim? What kind of autonomy do the people here want?"
Baldorioty de Castro faced the issue squarely in a later edition of La Cronica, asserting that the type of autonomy he advocated was not that espoused by the Cubans, but that which the Canadians possessed. Baldorioty's formula thus represented an affirmation of the growing sense of a Puerto Rican identity, as well as a great step forward as regards the actual program of the Liberal party. In contesting the latter's proposed goal of assimilation, Baldorioty emphasized the desirability of autonomy, or decentralization, as the prime objective - in other words, the pursuit of local control in the areas of individual rights and economic and administrative affairs, within the overall framework of Spanish national unity.
The result was a more advanced concept than either the Quinones-Varela project of 1823 or the Ruiz Belvis-Quinones-Acosta project of the Commission of 1867, reaching down to the very roots of the potential strength of the liberals on the island.
Nevertheless, the clear definition of the terms of his formula touched off a predictably intense resistance from the opposition. Among the opposition to a Canadian type of autonomy was don Manual Fernandez Juncos, a leading figure who advocated support for the doctrine espoused in the aforementioned Cuban article "Our Doctrine," which had since been adopted as the program of the Cuban Autonomist Party.
"Our firm purpose is to strengthen the ties of nationality between this province and the rest of the provinces by means of assimilation or identity with fundamental laws and organs as well as political traditions ; it is this message, these patriotic aspirations, which El Agente, as a Puerto Rican newspaper, desires to convey. As for the economic question, we advocate the greatest degree of decentralization possible within the framework of national unity."
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