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Prohibition in Puerto Rico,1917–1933*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Truman R. Clark
Truman R. Clark
Affiliation:
Professor of History at Tomball College, Tomball, Texas.
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Abstract

With the passage of the Jones Act (1917), the United States expanded Puerto Rican autonomy, made Puerto Ricans citizens of the USA, and gave the island prohibition of alcohol. The Puerto Rican people overwhelmingly ratified prohibition in a referendum in July 1917. Prohibition won because it was emotionally linked to patriotism and morality. Prohibition enforcement was almost impossible, compounded by the colonial status of the island. It was that status which brought an immediate end to prohibition in Puerto Rico with the demise of prohibition in the United States in 1933.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , February 1995 , pp. 77 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1 U.S., Congressional Record, 12 02 1917, p. 3072Google Scholar.

2 U.S., War Department, Report of the Governor of Porto Rico to the Secretary of War: 1914, p. 36.

3 La Democracia (San Juan), 27 March 1917, p. 3.

4 Reverend A. F. Beard, corresponding secretary of the American Mission Association, had visited Puerto Rico twice by 1900, and wrote that drunkenness was virtually introduced to the island by North Americans, who were the only people he saw drinking to excess and who opened US-style saloons all over the island. ‘Porto Rico’, in Cherrington, Ernest Hurst (ed.), Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem (Westerville, Ohio, 1929), Vol. V, pp. 2186, 2188Google Scholar.

5 Well before Congress sent the Eighteenth Amendment to the states for ratification on 22 December 1917, at least 27 states and perhaps thousands of counties and cities were already ‘dry’. Many others had a variety of local restrictive ordinances upon taverns. Clark, Norman H., Deliver Us From Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition (New York, 1976), pp. 101–12Google Scholar.

6 Yager to Wilson, 29 March 1916, Arthur Yager Papers (in possession of Mrs Diana Yager Eskew, Louisville, Kentucky).

7 Wilson to Yager, 5 April 1916, Woodrow Wilson Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Series 3, Letterbook 28, p. 364. The Jones bill was particularly important at this time, as the United States was potentially heading into participation in the European war, and an island of loyal American citizens seemed the sort of Puerto Rico with which to face possible German naval forays into the Caribbean and towards the Panama Canal.

8 U.S., Congressional Record, 12 02 1917, p. 3073Google Scholar. In all quotations and organisational names, I have left ‘Porto Rico’ as it was incorrectly used by the United States from shortly after the island was taken from Spain until 1932, when the US Congress passed a bill restoring the original name. See Clark, Truman R., Puerto Rico and the United States, 1917–1933 (Pittsburgh, 1975), pp. 155–6Google Scholar.

9 U.S., Congressional Record, 12 02 1917, p. 3074Google Scholar.

10 Blocker, Jack S. Jr, Retreat From Reform: The Prohibition Movement in the United States, 1890–1913 (Westport, Connecticut, 1976), p. 143Google Scholar. Crafts, Wilbur was listed in the first dozen volumes of Who's Who in America (Chicago, 1899–1923)Google Scholar. His wife, Sara Jane Crafts, also had an entry in most of them, as a teacher, author and lecturer. She co-authored several books with her husband and wrote many others, nearly all on the Sunday school movement; she lectured on the Chautauqua circuit, and was credited with beginning Sunday schools in Iceland. In those Who's Who listings, the Crafts' addresses were from 1899 through 1922 only three different homes, all in Washington, D.C., within just a few blocks of each other; the final address, 206 Pennsylvania Avenue, S.E., was where they resided from 1908 until his death in 1922. In his petition to Congress, or ‘Memorial of the International Reform Bureau for Porto Rico prohibition’, Crafts cited the Puerto Rican sources for the appeal as ‘the native churches, Masons, labor unions, and other bodies representing the good citizenship of Porto Rico,’ and a pair of sisters, the Misses Mary and Margaret Leitch of Garrochales, who are identified as the Puerto Rican ‘secretaries’ of the International Reform Bureau. Those two women, interestingly, are also cited as co-authors (with Mr and Mrs Crafts) of the book Protection of Native Races Against Intoxicants and Opium (1900). It would appear that they might have been Crafts's Puerto Rican connections. U.S., Congressional Record, 12 02 1917, p. 3072Google Scholar; Lender, Mark Edward, Dictionary of American Temperance Biography (Westport, Connecticut, 1984), p. 113Google Scholar.

11 U.S., Congressional Record, 12 02 1917, p. 3074Google Scholar. Senator Gronna saw this amendment to his prohibition brainchild coming when a few minutes earlier, Senator George Sutherland of Utah cleverly asked, ‘What objection is there to letting the people of Porto Rico determine the question for themselves by a referendum?’ Because Gronna had just stated that ‘every intelligent man or woman from Porto Rico’ wanted prohibition, he was hardly in a position to deny Senator Sutherland's suggestion, yet neither was he anxious to see prohibition subjected to a vote on the island. He therefore did not answer Sutherland directly, but rather tried to side-step the referendum issue by repeating some of his previous arguments for prohibition in Puerto Rico, and asking that the Senate vote on his amendment immediately. Senator Lodge managed to offer his referendum amendment before the Senate's vote.

12 Udell, Gilman G., comp., Liquor Laws (Washington, D.C., 1978), p. 13Google Scholar.

13 U.S., Congressional Record, 11 01 1917, p. 1161Google Scholar; 23 January 1917, p. 1805; and 13 February 1917, p. 3178.

14 Ibid. 12 February 1917, p. 3073.

15 Interview with Mrs Diana Yager Eskew in Louisville, Kentucky, 21 May 1967.

16 Pagán, Bolívar, Historia de los partidos politico! Puertorriquénos, 1898–1956 (San Juan, 1959), Vol. I, p. 184Google Scholar.

17 La Democracia (San Juan), 9 April 1917, p. 4.

18 War Department Annual Reports: 1917 (Washington, 1918), p. 17.

19 Report from John T. Barrett to Lincoln C. Andrews, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, 4 May 1925, Bureau of Insular Affairs Files, National Archives, File 468–64-A.

20 Pagán, Historia de los partidos politicos, Vol. I, p. 186.

21 La Democracia (San Juan), 15 March 1917, p. 4.

22 Ibid. 13 July 1917, p. 8 and 14 July 1917, p. 5.

23 Pagán, Historia de los partidos politicos, pp. 184, 186; Córdova, Gonzalo F., Resident Commissioner Santiago Iglesias and His Times (San Juan, 1993), 141Google Scholar.

24 La Democracia (San Juan), 16 March 1917, p. 5; 17 March 1917, p. 7; 19 March 1917, p. 6.

25 Ibid.5 April 1917, pp. 3 and 6; 26 March 1917, pp. 3 and 6; 28 June 1917, p. 7; 21 March 1917, p. 7; 9 April 1917, p. 2; 27 March 1917, p. 6. Spiritism has always been a relatively large religious feature of Puerto Rico, either as a separate religion or as a personal set of beliefs and practices which the individual carries on without feeling a contradiction to his Catholicism. Wagenheim, Kal, Puerto Rico: A Profile (New York, 1970). pp. 164–5Google Scholar.

26 La Democracia (San Juan), 20 March 1917, p. 3; 27 March 1917, pp. 2 and 6; 14 March 1917, p. 2.

27 Cuesta, J. E., ‘Prohibition in Porto Rico’, Current History, vol. 26, no. 2 (05 1922), p. 256Google Scholar.

28 La Democracta (San Juan), 26 March 1917, p. 6; 5 April 1917, p. 3.

29 Ibid. 17 July 1924, p. 1.

30 Ibid. 26 March 1917, p. 6; 27 March 1917, p. 4; 9 April 1917, p. 4; 6 June 1917, p. 6; 16 June 1917, p. 2.

31 Ibid. 9 April 1917, p. 1; 3 May 1917, p. 1; 12 May 1917, p. 1; 15 May 1917, p. 1; 16 May 1917, p. 1; 21 May 1917, p. 1; 3 June 1917, p. 1. The 903 Puerto Rican soldiers who went to guard Uncle Sam's canal were shipped there on an old Army vessel, the Buford – the ship that would get its place in history in December 1919 when it was used to deport Emma Goldman and 248 other people from the United States in the ‘Great Red Scare’.

32 Lewis, Gordon K., Puerto Rico: Freedom and Power in the Caribbean (New York, 1963), p. 105Google Scholar.

33 See the advertisement, ‘E l Prohibicionismo en Actión’, in La Democracia, 20 March 1917, and reprinted on many other days.

34 Ibid. 22 March 1917, p. 4.

35 35Ibid. 5 April 1917, p. 3; 28 June 1917, p. 4; 22 June 1917, p. 8; 13 Juy 1917, p. 6.

36 Ibid. 17 July 1917, p. 1.

37 U.S., War Department, Report of be Governor of Porto Rico to the Secretary of War:1918 (Washington, D.C., 1919), pp. 25, 570Google Scholar.

38 Wilson to Governor Yager, 2 April 1918, Woodrow Wilson Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Series 3, Letterbook 49, p. 175.

39 See, for example, a successful seizure of 42 bags of fine wines and six boxes of other alcoholic beverages, all being smuggled from a freighter in San Juan harbour. La Democracia (San Juan), 22 February 1929, p. 2.

40 New York Times, 19 Jul y 1921, p. 21; 22 July 1928, 11, p. 10.

41 U.S., War Department, Report of the Governor of Porto Rico to the Secretary of War: 1923 (Washington, D.C., 1924), p. 39Google Scholar; New York Times, 25 August 1929, in, p. 1.

42 Cuesta, ‘Prohibition in Porto Rico’, p. 257; New York Times, 18 January 1931, III, p. 8.

43 John T. Barrett to Lincoln C. Andrews, 4 May 1925, Bureau of Insular Affairs Files, National Archives, File 468-64-A.

44 New York Times, 30 August 1931, in, p. 8.

45 Ibid. 23 December 1930, p. 8. The cases reported in newspapers seemed to involve usually one or two gallons of homemade rum, and often the address of the person is that of a poor barrio. For example, La Democracia (San Juan), 16 July 1924, p. 3; 17 July 1924, p. 5; 5 August 1924, p. 5; 12 August 1924, p. 7; 28 August 1924, p. 5.

46 New York Times, 22 July 1928, II, p. 10.

47 John T. Barrett to Lincoln C. Andrews, 4 May 192;, Bureau of Insular Affairs Files, National Archives, File 468-64-A.

48 R. R. Lutz to Acting Governor James R. Beverley, 27 May 1931; Beverley to Governor Theodore Roosevelt, 4 June 1931, James R. Beverley Papers.

49 New York Times, 25 August 1929.

50 Ibid. 22 July 1928, n, p. 10.

51 John T. Barrett to Lincoln C. Andrews, 4 May 1925, Bureau of Insular Affairs Files, National Archives, File 468-64-A. Barrett called his nemesis Berry ‘the smartest American in Porto Rico in my opinion’

52 La Democracía (San Juan), 6 February 1929, pp. 1, 4.

53 New York Times, 15 July 1931, p. 14.

54 U.S., Congressional Record, 21 09 1922, p. 13182Google Scholar.

55 Memorandum by J. A. Hull, acting judge advocate general, 15 December 1922, Bureau of Insular Affairs Files, National Archives, File 468–58.

56 New York Times, 23 December 1930, p. 8, and 30 December 1930, p. 1.

57 Ibid. 18 January 1927, p. 27. La Democracia (San Juan), 15 January 1929, p. 7.

58 Cuesta, ‘Prohibition in Porto Rico’, pp. 257–8.

59 La Democracía (San Juan), 15 August 1924, p. 3.

60 New York Times, 25 August 1929, III, p. 8; 14 August 1931, p. 7; 30 August 1931, III, p. 8.

61 U.S., War Department, Report of the Governor of Porto Rico to the Secretary of War: 1918 (Washington, D.C., 1918), p. 30Google Scholar; Ibid.: 1920, p. 28.

62 U.S., War Department, Report of the Governor of Porto Rico to the Secretary of War: 1918 (Washington, D.C., 1919), p. 25Google Scholar.

63 Ibid.: 1923 (Washington, D.C., 1924), p. 78.

64 Clark, Victor S. et al. , Porto Rico and Its Problems (Washington, D.C., 1930), p. 221Google Scholar.

65 La Democracia (San Juan), 28 January 1929, p. 3, and 15 February 1929, pp. 3, 7, 8.

66 Inaugural Address of Hon. E. Mont. Reily, Governor of Porto Rico (San Juan, 1921), p. 13. See also Clark, Truman R., ‘Governor E. Mont. Reily's Inaugural Speech’, Caribbean Studies, vol. 11, no. 4 (01 1972), pp. 106–8Google Scholar.

67 Telegram, Edward J. Berwind of the Berwind White Coal Mining Company to Secretary of War John W. Weeks, 11 October 1922; cablegram, president of San Juan Chamber of Commerce to Bureau of Insular Affairs, 17 October 1922; letter, Governor Reily to Secretary Weeks, 25 October 1922, Bureau of Insular Affairs Files, National Archives, Files 468–52, 468–54, 468–57.

68 In the 1918–19 fiscal year 2,431 vessels entered and cleared Puerto Rican ports; in 1921–2, this number was 2,592; in 1928–9, it had risen to 3,084. U.S., War Department, Report of the Governor of Porto Rico to the Secretary ofWar: 1919 (Washington, D.C., 1920), p. 504Google Scholar;Ibid.: 1922, p. 38; Ibid.: 1929, p. 63.

69 de Hostos, Adolfo, ‘Ley Volsted’, Diccionario Histórico Bibliográfico Comentado de Puerto Rico (San Juan, 1976), p. 586Google Scholar. Interestingly, in Rico, Puerto, a prohibition violator was sometimes called an ‘Antivolstediano’. See La Democracia (San Juan), 15 01 1929, p. 7Google Scholar.

70 La Democracia (San Juan), 17 September 1924, p. 1.

71 Pagán, Historia de los partidos políticos Vol. I, pp. 227–34.

72 La Democracia (San Juan), 5 January 1929, pp. 1, 9, 15.

73 Pagán, Historia de los partídospoliticos, Vol. I, p. 281.

74 Ibid. Vol. I, p. 322; Vol. II, p. 16; Vol. II, pp. 23, 26.

75 Ibid. Vol. II, p. 49; New York Times, 16 November 1932, p. 2.

76 New York Times, 27 January 1930, p. 17; 30 December 1930, p. 1; 30 August 1931, III, p. 8.

77 Ibid. 6 August 1931, p. 4.

78 See a collection of such petitions in the Bureau of Insular Affairs Files, National Archives, File 19916–14.

79 New York Times, 23 March 1933, p. 1; 8 April 1933, p. 3; 14 April 1933, p. 5.

80 Ibid. 6 Januar y 1934, p. 4.

81 U.S., Congressional Record, 12 02 1917, p. 3073Google Scholar.