Toward a New Relationship

Puerto Ricans took a long step toward self-rule. In a referendum authorized by a 1950 Act of the U.S. Congress, they voted this week to draw up their own constitution.

The vote was a victory for Puerto Rico's first popularly elected governor, Luis Munoz Marin, who has preached to the islanders that independence is an "obsolescent idea," that their future lies in continuing association with the U.S. Overpopulated Puerto Rico, he maintains, can not afford to cut loose from the U.S., can not survive and rehabilitate itself without protection of U.S. tariffs and subsidies.

Under the new constitution, which will be written by a constituent assembly still to be elected, Munoz expects that Puerto Rico will form a new kind of political entity under the U.S. flag. It will be neither a territory nor a state; the tax burdens of statehood would be far too heavy. A fertile maker of political phrases, the governor has not yet found the exact word to describe the system under which Puerto Rico will eventually live. "If the U.S. were the British Empire," he once said, "you might call it dominion status."

The real showdown on the Munoz plan occurred last fall, when lunatic-fringe Nationalists tried to assassinate President Truman and Governor Munoz to block registration for this week's vote. Horrified, Puerto Ricans repudiated the Nationalists. Now serving a sentence of seven to 15 years for his part in the plot, Nationalist Boss Pedro Albizu Campos was under examination by psychiatrists last week to determine whether he is sane.

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