How the States Got Their Shapes Too

by Mark Stein

  During this same period, Berry also sought to have bookstores in Jersey City voluntarily cease selling James Jones’s popular novel From Here to Eternity. The novel’s language was more explicit than the Academy Award—winning film, which was currently in release.

  While these actions may sound outrageous today (and were controversial and derided at the time), they shared a common denominator with Berry’s other efforts, and in particular with his adventure on Ellis Island. They all bespoke a desire to preserve Jersey City as it was—or as Berry believed or wished it was. Ironically, Jersey City had been one of the most politically corrupt cities in America when ruled by Mayor Frank Hague and his nephew, Mayor Frank Hague Egger, from 1917 to 1949. But that was not the Jersey City Berry longed to preserve. His vision, real or imagined, was captured in the town’s Hudson Reporter in 2007, forty-five years after his death. “Prior to the large malls, there were many neighborhood stores,” a letter to the editor remembered. “Totaro Hardware, Stegman Tavern, Stanley Bakery.… The candy stores on Jackson Avenue would remain open until after 10 PM.… The City, under Bernard J. Berry, conducted nightly basketball games at Audubon Park (starring Vinny Ernst), art shows, handball games and an open playground with outdoor showers for the children in the summertime.”

  Bernard Berry was unable to stop the cultural and economic forces of the 1950s. But one effort that succeeded was his Ellis Island raid. It raised awareness of New Jersey’s ownership claim, thereby helping prepare the way for the state’s subsequent legal efforts. The legal challenge, far less theatrical and far more time-consuming, culminated in 1998, when the U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled that the landfill acres of the island were indeed in New Jersey. Today Ellis Island is officially Ellis Island, New York/New Jersey.

  But Berry’s publicity stunt achieved even more. His vision of an ethnic museum and park—yet another of his efforts to preserve and respect the past—prevailed when Ellis Island became part of the National Park Service’s Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965. Since 1990, following a $150 million restoration effort, its main buildings have served as a tremendously successful immigration museum and records center.

  · · · THE ALMOST STATES OF AMERICA · · ·

  LUIS FERRÉ

  Puerto Rico: The Fifty-First State?

  Puerto Ricans have served with distinction in all the wars in which the U.S. has been involved [since 1898].… Several, such as Fernando Luis Garcia … have been decorated with the Congressional Medal of Honor. Among other distinguished leaders is Admiral Horacio Rivero, in 1968 the Chief of NATO Forces in Southern Europe.… Our great actors, like José Ferrer and Raul Julia, have been American favorites.… Roberto Clemente has been included in the Hall of Fame.… The time has come for Congress … to do justice to more than 3.6 million disenfranchised American citizens.

  —LUIS FERRÉ1

  Puerto Rico became an American possession during the Spanish-American War when, in 1898, U.S. troops landed on the island and met the welcoming arms of its residents, delighted to be liberated from Spain. Congress conferred citizenship on Puerto Ricans in 1917, followed one month later by draft notices. In 1947 Congress allowed Puerto Ricans to elect their own governor. Statehood, however, repeatedly faced resistance … from the majority of Puerto Ricans.

  Luis Ferré was the leading voice of those Puerto Ricans who sought statehood. He founded and led the New Progressive Party, whose central platform was Puerto Rican statehood. This quest had commenced much earlier, dating back to the very beginning of American sovereignty and emanating from both Americans and Puerto Ricans. One month before the ceasefire that ended the Spanish-American War, a letter to the editor in the New York Times described the “triumph of democracy.” The letter stated that the United States “is capable of ruling men of different habits, religions, and modes of life; and [if] the United States is to be the exemplar of this doctrine … the time is ripe for action. It is certain that Spain must part with Cuba and Puerto Rico, the former to become, perhaps, independent … the latter to be, as indeed Cuba should be, brought ultimately into the Union.”

  Luis Ferré (1904-2003) (photo credit 42.1)

  Spanish-American War: two future states?

  With the signing of the peace treaty, the U.S. military governor of Puerto Rico called for a convention of representatives from the island’s various regions to draw up a list of concerns. The issues they raised pertained to trade with the United States, education, and voting rights. Those same issues have remained the underlying elements in Puerto Rico’s debate over statehood. They came to be joined, however, by an additional element: doubt among Puerto Ricans regarding U.S. awareness of problems in Puerto Rico and its commitment to fixing them.

  The origins of these doubts can be found in statements made by the first two presidents to follow American acquisition of the island. William McKinley, in his 1899 State of the Union message, spoke of Puerto Rico’s future solely in terms of an improved postal service. Theodore Roosevelt, in his 1901 State of the Union, contentedly declared that Puerto Rico “is thriving as never before, and it is being administered efficiently and honestly. Its people are now enjoying liberty and order under the protection of the United States, and upon this fact we congratulate them and ourselves.”

  Soon, however, Roosevelt was obliged to recognize that Puerto Rico’s economy was not, in fact, “thriving as never before.” Federal government policies aimed at thwarting exploitation of Puerto Rican workers turned out also to thwart U.S. business investments. “We cannot afford to put our people at a disadvantage,” Roosevelt declared in his 1905 State of the Union. “We have been paying all possible heed to the political and educational interests of the island but, important though these objects are, it is not less important that we should favor their industrial development.” Puerto Ricans were finding such statements difficult to decipher. One element, however, remained consistent in all of Roosevelt’s remarks on Puerto Rico: he repeatedly urged Congress to grant its residents U.S. citizenship.

  It was into this Puerto Rico that Luis Ferré was born in 1904. His father, Antonio Ferré, had emigrated from Cuba in 1894 and founded the Puerto Rico Iron Works, which became highly profitable.2 Between the First and Second World Wars, Puerto Rico, like the United States, was affected by the aftershocks of the Russian Revolution, the rise of organized labor, and the Great Depression. Puerto Rico, however, was far more profoundly affected, because of its greater disparity between rich and poor. During this era, Luis Ferré earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from MIT. Returning to Puerto Rico to help run the family’s iron works, he witnessed social and political conflicts intensifying to the point of violence.

  In October 1935 four people were killed and many more injured in a melee between police and members of the Nationalist Party, which sought independence from the United States. Four months later, members of the Nationalist Party assassinated the American in charge of the Puerto Rican police. The assassins were arrested and, during interrogation, shot dead. For the United States, Puerto Rico was becoming an unpleasant possession.

  Two months after the assassination of the police chief and the assassination of his assassins, a bill to provide independence for Puerto Rico was unsuccessfully introduced in Congress. The New York Times noted in its coverage that “Luis Munoz Marin, leader of the Liberal Party in Puerto Rico, which has consistently advocated independence, has been in Washington for some time.” Muñoz Marín soon became Puerto Rico’s foremost politician. His foremost rival was Luis Ferré.

  Luis Muñoz Marín (1898-1980) (photo credit 42.2)

  The rivalry between Ferré and Muñoz Marín commenced in the years following World War II. With the war’s end, Puerto Rican leaders resumed their efforts to get the attention of Congress. Violence had, for the time being, been replaced by flight. “Puerto Ricans are swelling this city’s population by 1,500 new arrivals a week,” the New York Times reported in January 1947. “The migration of Puerto Rican natives to New
York is a ‘bloodletting’ of the 2,200,000 residents of the overcrowded island.” Economic studies showed that emigration alone would help, but not solve, the problem of poverty in Puerto Rico.3

  Ferré believed the solution was statehood. The statehood option was supported primarily by wealthy Puerto Ricans and those professionals who perceived themselves as easily adaptable to becoming American.4 Socially, for example, one would be hard-pressed to imagine anything more American than membership in a businessmen’s club—which is where one could find Ferré in 1947. “The International Association of Lions Clubs closed it four-day annual convention today,” California’s Oakland Tribune reported. “Members of the new executive board of governors elected during this week’s convention were: Jack Peddycord … Luis A. Ferre …”

  The following year President Harry Truman set aside his authority to appoint Puerto Rico’s governor and permitted Puerto Ricans to elect the candidate of their choice. They chose Muñoz Marín. He was now a member of the Popular Democratic Party, which did not support independence but instead sought a uniquely defined status. In that election, Ferré’s prostatehood party finished second and the independence party third.

  In the United States, the greater autonomy that President Truman had granted to Puerto Rico and the gubernatorial election that followed cloaked the intensity of the island’s conflicting visions for its future. On November 1, 1950, that cloak was removed, right across the street from the White House. “Two members of the revolutionary Puerto Rican National party were shot down this afternoon while attempting to blast their way with pistol fire … with the expressed purpose of shooting President Truman,” the Chicago Tribune reported. “One of the assassins was slain. The other was wounded. One White House policeman was wounded fatally.… The gunman who was killed … carried in his pocket a letter from Pedro Albizu Campos, Harvard educated leader of the Puerto Rican revolution.”

  Four years later, with Puerto Rico now having written and ratified its own Constitution, syndicated columnist John Dixon wrote that “the party for independence … isn’t taken too seriously, except for a fanatical few.” The day after this column appeared on March 1, 1954, the “fanatical few” were front-page news:

  Five members of [the United States] Congress were shot today, one of them wounded critically, when three Puerto Rican men and a Puerto Rican woman whipped out pistols and sprayed the assembled House [of Representatives] with bullets.… When it ended, the automatic pistols empty, five members of the House were left sprawled on the floor. First aid was administered … first by physician members [as] … members shouted to the press gallery to summon other physicians.… The gunmen were part of the same group which attempted to assassinate President Truman.5

  Columnist Dixon next focused on Ferré:

  The main fight now is between the statehood forces led by Luis Ferre … and the leave-well-enough-alone forces headed by Gov. Munoz Marin.… I spent an exceedingly entertaining, if not informative, couple of hours with each of the two leaders. I wound up as confused, undecided, and dizzy with contradictory notions as nearly every U.S. legislator and bureaucrat who has poked into Puerto Rico’s problem.

  Ferré challenged Muñoz Marín for the governorship in Puerto Rico’s 1956 election. He lost. In 1960 he challenged him and lost again. One key factor contributed significantly to the victories of Muñoz Marín: he had been navigating Puerto Rico’s relationship with the United States in ways that, over time, had made Puerto Rico more prosperous than any independent island in the Caribbean. Still, it remained poorer than any of the fifty states.6

  A separate key factor worked against Ferré: Puerto Ricans feared that statehood would cost them their culture. Ferré learned this in no uncertain terms when he testified before a Senate committee in 1966. “The unity of our federal-state structure requires a common tongue,” Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson told him. “A condition precedent to statehood must be the recognition and acceptance of English as the official language.”

  Ferré disagreed. “To be an American does not mean to speak English,” he stated at a later time. “For Puerto Ricans, to be American … is to be true to the principles of democracy which are set forth in the Constitution, and to feel one with other American citizens in the protection of our freedoms.”7

  Congress voted to let Puerto Ricans decide their political status for themselves. In 1967 a plebiscite was held in which they could choose independence, statehood, or commonwealth status. Commonwealth meant, in this instance, having the same autonomy (and constitutional limitations) as a state. Commonwealth residents could not, however, vote in presidential elections or have voting representation in Congress.

  Ferré knew that the opportunity for Puerto Ricans to choose their political status would not come again in his lifetime, and he urged his compatriots to take a frightening but important step:

  During the last twenty years, there has been a revolution in communications media.… But in spite of this easier communication, we have made precious little progress in comprehension and understanding. That is the new dimension which we must add to progress.… The Puerto Rican, because of his understanding of the two cultures of America, has the ability and also the obligation to serve in achieving the … dream of a united America.… History has proven … that diversity, not assimilation, is the nerve and essence of the new American culture.… This is the moment for diversity within the unity of the great American nation. Let us make our contribution at this precious moment in history!8

  More than 65 percent of Puerto Rico’s voters came to the polls. Emerging from the years of confusion, complexity, mismanagement, and violence, they made their wishes clear. Statehood received 273,315 votes, compared to only 4,205 for independence. Commonwealth status, with 425,081 votes, surpassed the other two choices combined.

  Clearly the majority of Puerto Ricans did not want statehood. But they did want Luis Ferré. The year after the plebiscite, he was elected governor of Puerto Rico.

  · · · GEORGIA, TENNESSEE · · ·

  DAVID SHAFER

  When the Grass Is Greener on the Other Side

  In the spring of 1818 the States of Georgia and Tennessee, by their commissioners, ascertained and marked the dividing line.… The 35th parallel of north latitude constitutes that boundary and there was nothing more to do than to trace and mark that parallel on the surface of the earth.… The result of the observations made on that occasion differs from that of those contained in this report.

  —JAMES CAMAK, REPORT TO THE GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE, 1827

  On February 10, 2008, members of the Georgia State Senate sang “This land is your land, this land is my land” as Senator David Shafer stood to propose a bill authorizing the governor “to initiate negotiations with the Governors of Tennessee and North Carolina for the purpose of correcting the flawed 1818 survey erroneously marking the 35th parallel south of its actual location and to officially recognize the State of Georgia’s northern border with the States of Tennessee and North Carolina as the precise 35th parallel as was intended when both states were created.” The Senate passed the resolution unanimously. Georgia’s House of Representatives followed suit, and the governor signed.

  “I would offer to settle this dispute over a friendly game of football,” one Tennessee state senator replied, “but that would be unfair to the state of Georgia.” “I think they’re embarrassing themselves,” said another. “Absurd and laughable,” said a third. One Tennessee official went before the press in a coonskin hat as a colleague proclaimed, “Davy Crockett is not going to give up the fight.” David Shafer was not amused. When a prominent member of the Tennessee legislature joked (or half joked), “I think we need to have our militia down there,” Georgia’s Senator Shafer replied that they were welcome, so long as the troops didn’t go below the 35th parallel.1

  David Shafer (1965-) (photo credit 43.1)

  Emotions were turning serious on both sides of the line. Fingers began to be pointed, and not just across the state
line. When, in proposing a resolution rejecting Georgia’s call for a boundary commission, a Tennessee legislator included the phrase “legal precedent favors the Volunteer State, just as good fortune often smiles upon the righteous,” he was criticized by a fellow legislator who declared, “I don’t take this as a tongue-in-cheek matter.”2 The language regarding the righteous was dropped.

  In Georgia, too, the debate regarding the state line was causing other lines to surface. A February 2008 editorial in the Athens Banner-Herald began, “As one man’s quixotic quest, the effort to get Georgia’s northern border moved one mile farther north was an entertaining diversion from the more routine motifs of pettifoggery and pandering that dominate the annual sessions of the Georgia legislature. But now that the whole Senate has bought into Sen. David Shafer’s legislative proposal, it has crossed the line from the merely entertaining to the more than mildly troubling.”