Rocking-Chair Patriot

In Baldorioty Plaza, chief square of San Juan, Puerto Rico, in a comfortable rocking chair, last week sat Professor Clemente Pereda enjoying his Easter vacation from the University of Puerto Rico. There he received the homage of the populace, the visits of Puerto Rican notables. Policemen protected him from the crowds and a street was roped off for his benefit. Professor Pereda was engaged in a patriotic project, a seven-day hunger strike: 1) Against a proposal to make Puerto Rico one of the United States, 2) for Puerto Rican independence.

Every day he went down to his rocking chair in the square; every night he went home to bed. After three days his attending physician reported his pulse and temperature normal but forbade him to speak to the Press. He was presented with two bottles of blessed water from the fountain of Santa Rosa de Lima and a flag which had been borne in the unsuccessful Lares Rebellion of 1867-68.

On his third day of fasting he overheard a woman from the U. S. remark to her companion: ''He ought to starve."

"You damned woman!" shrilled the professor.

That night he issued a bulletin to the Press: "I have had a terrible day."

As the days wore on Professor Pereda received more gifts--images of the Virgin, jigsaw puzzles. A former woman student, now a teacher, gave him (at his request) a manicure, and one patriotic young admirer took an oath not to shave until Puerto Rico was independent. As the professor grew weaker, he was moved to a cot in the reading room of the City Hall, facing the square. Too weak to speak, he read by the hour in Dante's Inferno. As the clock struck six one morning, the hour that ended his fast, Pereda sat up, crossed himself, bowed his head in silent prayer, then swallowed two teaspoonfuls of grapefruit juice. He was carried out of the reading room to an ambulance around which a silent crowd was waiting. From a hospital he announced:

"With a crucifix in hand, and my country at heart, I give thanks it is over."

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