SPAN: June 1963

MORGUE, USIS, DELHI. ~-~~-

the peaceful

revolution

In Puerto Rico

Something

of Importance F

OR THE people of Puerto Rico democracy has been an experiment that began with their freedom from Spanish rule in 18g8 and could culminate soon with their island's independence as a separate nation from the on one condition, United States-but that the people themselves approve.

It is on these terms that Puerto Rican Governor Luis Munoz Marin has called for a plebiscite to decide. whether the little island on the eastern end of the Caribbean Sea should have independence, become a state in the United States or remain an American commonwealth. President Kennedy fully endorsed the proposal a year ago on the tenth anniversary of Puerto Rico's elevation to commonwealth status. All that remains before the eligible voters among the island's 2,500,000 population go to the polls to make their final decision is that the American Congress should pass a bill also approving the plebiscite.

Something of Importance Is Happening

Here

The instrument through which the Puerto Rican government has carried out its economic policies is "Fomento," a stirring up-short for the Spanish Administracion de Fomento Economico, or Economic Development Administration. "Fomento really began in 1942," explained Mariano Ramirez, its general counsel. "Tugwell, who was governor at the time, had already picked Ted Moscoso as a brilliant assistant. Moscoso immediately began to look for ways of improving industry on the island. We had laws then that gave tax exemption. But they worked against us. They protected the infant

industries that we had and they kept other industries out. Moscoso asked stateside economists to make a study.

They all pointed out what industries we Puerto Ricans could create ourselves. But nobody thought of attracting industries from the mainland or abroad."

As soon as World War II was over Fomento began selling the advantages of Puerto Rico to American businessmen and providing inducements for more American companies to build on the island. "We went to Munoz in 1946 with the idea of offering industry some tax exemption," said Ramirez.

Leader of the opposition Luis Ferre, left in top left photo, is a Puerto Rican industrialist. In the last election 250,000 Puerto Ricans voted for him. Under their self-created constitution, the citizens of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico elect their own governor and their House of Representatives and Senate, the latter shown in session above. All of Puerto Rico's children are in school, lower left, with a third of the island's budget appropriated for education of both young and old.

Something

their business. In 1958, Fomento factories employed some 33,000 people, ninety-one stateside companies signed contracts and forty-seven Puerto Rican companies opened or expanded.

Average wages in Fomento plants increased from eighty-six cents an hour in 1958 to ninety cents in 1959.

Basically, Fomento is not interested in whether a new business is American or Puerto Rican-owned, as long as its success will benefit Puerto Rico.

One key to Fomento's success is that it knows no doctrine, adheres to no ideological line-whether socialist, capitalist or otherwise-and believes implicitly in the pragmatic adage, "Nothing succeeds like success." Thus Fomento can organize and run a business of its own, as it did when it built bottle and carton factories for the rum industry in World War II, can invest in needy corporations, can loan money-can do anything as long as there's a better than even chance of success. A dr~matic example of Fomento's. ability to combine socialist and capitalist principles is San Juan's luxury Caribe-Hilton Hotel. Fomento spent $7,200,000 to build it and Conrad Hilton, the hotel tycoon, paid $300,000 for silverware, china, uniforms and food. Hilton, operating the hotel and paying for its upkeep, gets one-third of the profits.

Since the opening in 1949 he has made a IOO per cent profit each year, while the Puerto Rican government

of Importance

has already earned more than its initial investment.

The results of Fomento in Puerto Rico are all the more striking when one realizes that the island has virtually no natural resources such as coal, oil, iron ore or silver or gold on which to form an industrial base.

For its resources Puerto Rico must depend entirely on what it can growsugar and pineapples are the main agricultural products-and what it can get from the mainland and elsewhere. Factories built since 1940 make everything from gloves to carpets and sell their goods both in Puerto Rico and in the United States. The survival rate for new industry is higher than that in the United States. The factories, besides providing employment for the island's inhabitants, generate revenues that have enabled the government to expand its public health and education programmes, build new highways and power projects and raise living standards to a level appreciably higher than the world's average.

If the results of Fomento's policies betoken a bright future for Puerto Rico, whether as a state, a commonwealth or an independent nation, they also reveal how much remains to be done. "Where do you go from here," a reporter asked Munoz.

"We're not here yet," was Munoz's candid reply. The factories, including those owned by Puerto Rican interests,

Jim Bridger:

Mountain

Man

At this science of trapping Bridger became the greatest expert in the West. And it seemed, in those days, that the market could never get enough of beaver hats. So year after year Jim led his fur brigade into ever remoter fastnesses.

During the trip he would bury the furs in water-tight "caches" so cleverly concealed that not even a wolverine could find them. Then on the way to the summer rendezvous he would lift his caches as he went, having completed, sometimes, a circuit of a thousand miles.

The rendezvous, fixed on the previous year for some pleasant spot-for choice the headwaters of the Green River in Wyoming, just south of what today is Grand Teton National Park-was the point where the trappers gathered from hundreds of wilderness miles around, there to wait for the company's annual supply train from St. Louis.

In their fringed buckskin clothes decorated with porcupine quills, cradling rifles like babies, the Mountain Men would drift in, to be recognized in the firelight under their season's beards and greeted with shouts and laughter. To the rendezvous came friendly Red Indians also, the upstanding Nez-PerC(~s,the trustworthy Flatheads, the likable Shoshones, in their tatterdemalion finery of gorgeous furs and majestic blankets, eagle feathers and necklaces of grizzly claws-and they too had furs to sell, and daughters also.

So with dickering and courting, with bouts of marksmanship and drinking and piling of tall tale upon tall tale, the Mountain Men would while away the days of waiting. And when at last the supply train got in-bringing guns, ammunition, pack animals, camping equipment, and a year's supply of liquor and tobacco and trading goods-it was welcomed with yells and fusillades and wild riding. Then a thousand dollars worth of beaver a day was not too much fQr a trapper to spend on fresh pack animals and fancy saddles and guns. But in the great rendezvous of r835, when he was thirty-one, it was for mirrors and beads as well, for rouge and gaudy skirts that Jim blew his pile, and for a high-stepping mount fit for a chief's daughter. And so it was that he got his first bride, one of the friendly Flathead tribe. None but a Red Indian woman could have shared a life so hard as Jim Br.idzer's, and three times was he to take such a woman to wife.

And then, abruptly, the unforeseen happened. Beaver hats went out of style. Almost overnight silk toppers took their place on the streets of far-away London, Paris, New York, and in the wilderness the boom was over.

The last rendezvous, in 1840, was more like a hard times party. The old Mountain Men drifted away, some to fail, some to turn bad, some to turn tame, almost all to drop out of history. But not Jim!

LOOKING AHEAD, Bridger saw that the old West was going. But a new West was coming. Immigrants would come pouring in; they WOllidstart out, he foresaw, with plenty of grub, stock, good wagons, ammunition, and a lot of money that couldn't buy bacon off the sagebrush.

There was a place, he figured, where their horses and mules would give out, their wagon wheels would have cast their metal rims, their harnesses and whiffletrees be broken and their powder and food run low. At that spot, Jim Bridger would be ready.

That's how he came to set up Fort Bridger in the southwest corner of Wyoming. Today U.S. Highway 30South runs past its gates; then it stood at the fork of the Oregon and California trails. It was, and is, a sweet spot, on an ever-flowing stream, with lush grass, and aspens for fuel and shade. And there Bridger built what he described as thirteen log cabins including a store, a black-

smith's forge, and a carpenter shop. These formed a hollow square that in turn was enclosed by a stone wall eighteen feet high. Outside were corrals for stock, barns, stables and, further still, the tepees of friendly Red Indian tribes, usually Jim's favourites, the Shoshones, ready to trade fur and buffalo meat for flour and tools. Generally Bridger occupied his fort only in summer. In winter he made the long trek back to Missouri for supplies, bringing them west each spring.

Fort Bridger thus became a public inn and store, the first west of the Missouri. And it looked like heaven to weary immigrants who arrived, exhausted with hardships, scared by Red Indian attacks, their stock dead or raided, their wagons bJ;:okendown. Many a man owed his life to Fort Bridger, many a woman her sanity, many a child got there its first drink of milk in thirsty weeks. This way passed the Donner party, the Mormons, and untold numbers of Forty-Niners, Oregon settlers, and immigrants to all points. Over and over, early diaries say of Bridger: He was a lavish host; he guided us through the mountains; he had fresh horses for us; he mended our harness, our wagons; he talked to the Red Indians for us; he cheered my wife; he made our children laugh, he kept us from running into snow, into quicksand, into redskins.

Jim lost Fort Bridger when he and the Mormons fell out, and they ran him off. But when in r857 the Mormons and Uncle Sam also came to blows, Jim guided Albert Sidney Johnson's army. It's doubtful if they would have got through but for Jim; the soldiers were unused to western travel. Winter overtaking them before they could}, reach Utah, they were threatened with starvation. But Bridger always knew where there was open range somewhere for the stock; his friendship with the Shoshones kept the army supplied with meat; weather-wise, he could tell by what was brewing in the mountains that a storm was coming, and always found a safe place to bed down before night. When spring broke, the Army had been safely guided through the passes into a capitulated Utahbut behind them Fort Bridger lay in ashes, burned by the Mormons.

The Settling of the West rose and moved farther west.

The first significant event of this last phase of taming the frontier occurred in 1830, when a company of fur traders led by Smith, Jackson and Sublette demonstrated that the Rocky Mountains as well as the Great Plains could be traversed by regular wagons in common use. Their caravan of ten covered wagons and two light wagons returned safely to St. Louis after a successful trip to the Rocky Mountains. Of the twelve cattle and the milk cow driven along "for support," four cattle and the milk cow returned.

Apart from the overland routes, the sailing ship and steamboat also offered emigrants another means of western travel. Within two years of the remarkable achievement by the company of Smith, Jackson and Sublette, the steamboat Yellowstone ascended the Missouri to Fort Pierre on behalf of the American Fur Company.

Whether by land or water, the way was now open for the "poar" settler to find "good land on the Massura" and beyond.

In one sense the land and water routes offered little difference, since by either mode the journey proved hazardous. And there were also the experiences. common to all emigrants penetrating the West, regardless of the size of their outfit or means of travel. After reaching their destination the first path breakers often wrote letters home and sent carefully prepared itineraries to neighbours and kin who were to follow. These letters, invariably based on personal and

tragic experiences of the writer, contained occasionally useful hints, such as: "build strong wagons, with threeinch tires held on by bolts instead of nails"; or, "obtain Illinois or Missouri oxen, as they are more adaptable to trail forage, and less likely to be objects of (Red) Indian desire"; or, "every male person should have at least one rifle gun"; or, "of all places in the world, traviling in the mountains is the most apt to breed contentions and quarrils. The only way to keep out of it is to say but little, and mind your own business exclusively."

As listed by a contemporary historian, the usual experiences of travellers, which gradually came to be recognized as symbols of the trek, were: "the ferries and fords, Chimney Rock, Devil's Gate, the first buffalo, boiling springs, the Pass, alkali deserts, and (Red) Indians. The sight of death on the trail was a universal experience-death by cholera, death in childbirth, 'mountain fever,' or a violent death in battle. The graves, quickly dug and crudely marked, were part of the price paid for the free land, and the great opportunity at the end of the trail."

And there was the fear of being captured by Red Indians. A wellknown painting by the frontier artist Henry Farny depicts a captured Army scout staked on the ground and awaiting torture. One of the bizarre methods of torture to which some savage tribes resorted was to prop open a captive's mouth and trickle sugar into it so that ants might swarm over him. Another of their ghastly

The Settling

of the West

right

bargain

coJ JectiveJy

A Long

In April in/942 ballots h e"Ighty-thousand after Ford t e first election of u~~rkers cast recognized the UAW as Ionbarga" officials " Imng agent.

A small bay in Calcutta heads homeward with a bag of u.s. grain.

(See page fifty)

call from President Kennedy. The President congratulated him on a great flight and said, "We are very proud of you."

Then followed the physical check-up by medical experts who declared that the astronaut was in excellent shape.

During the next few days Major Cooper, acclaimed as a national hero by his countrymen, was the central figure at several civic receptions and parades. On May 22nd he attended a ceremony at the White House at which President Kennedy conferred on him NASA's Distinguished Service Medal.

This outstanding achievement by Major Cooper marks the fulfilment of a long-cherished desire. As a boy he revelled in science fiction and was particularly attracted by imaginary accounts of rocket ships being piloted to remote planets. He learned flying when quite young and had his first solo flight at sixteen. Ever since, his ambition had been to fly higher and faster, and the prospect of seeing the earth from a great height had always intrigued him.

COOPER, NOW thirty-six, was born in the small town of Shawnee, Oklahoma. Passing out of secondary school, he interrupted his education to join the U.S. Marine Corps during the Second World War. After the war he attended the University of Hawaii for three years. It was there he met his future wife who, incidentally, is also a licensed pilot. They now have two teen-aged daughters.

Cooper's career as a pilot commenced with his enlistment in the U.S. Air Force in 1949. A four-year spell of service at an American base in Germany gave him valuable experience in piloting fighter planes. Returning to the United States, he attended the Air Force Institute of Technology for two years and qualified for a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering. This led to his selection as a test pilot and engineer for new fighter planes at the Experimental Flight Test School in California.

His extensive flying experience-now over 2,600 hours including more than 1,600 in jet aircraft-and his specialized knowledge of aeronautical problems, were doubtless important factors in Major Cooper's selection for Project Mercury. Youngest of the first seven men selected by NASA for intensive training as astronauts, he made his contribution to the success of previous sub-orbital and orbital flights by working in the Cape Canaveral "blockhouse" or in tracking stations on the route of the flights. He was alternate pilot for astronaut Walter Schirra who made a successful six-orbit flight in October 1962.

Actuated by the team spirit which has marked the performance of everyone participating in Project Mercury, Cooper was content to await his turn at being rocketed into space. At a press conference before his flight he referred to the "wonderful team" which has formed the nucleus of U.S. space explorers. He commented: "This is a very high-level national program, so that individual desires of accomplishing certain things should certainly fall in the background."

In a broadcast addressed to the American nation¡ shortly after the successful completion of Cooper's flight, President Kennedy expressed similar sentiments. Describing the flight as "a great achievement of the human spirit," he said: "We are proud of Major Cooper. And we are proud of all the thousands of Americans who worked with him to make this flight possible."

There is indeed every reason to be gratified with the highly organized development and excellence of American space technology. Major Cooper's extraordinary feat, with the teamwork behind it, is the best assurance to date that the U.S. programme of landing astronauts on the moon during this decade is proceeding according to plan and that before long man may well be able to fulfil his dream of re.aching and exploring new worlds .• Photo of Himalayas snapped by Cooper from Faith 7, top; crawling from capsule aboard carrier, centre, after recovery; decorated by President Kennedy, bottom, in presence of mother, wife, daughters and astronauts Grissom, Shepard, Schirra and Carpenter.