Puerto Rico: The Demi-Developed Society

For nearly a quarter of a century, Puerto Rico’s “Operation Bootstrap” has served as a model of what a backward economy can accomplish under honest, imaginative leadership. Since 1942, when the island’s development program got under way, per capita income has risen from $120 to $905, il literacy has been largely eliminated, life expectancy has jumped from 46 years to 70.

Yet success has brought problems that Puerto Ricans never thought would worry them. Emigration to the main land, their traditional answer to chronic overpopulation, has slowed as jobs have become more plentiful at home. Vigorous opposition from the Roman Catho ic Church has all but wrecked any ef ective government birth control program. Population is now increasing at an average 2.3% a year (v. 1.5% in the 50 states), and at this rate — with no marked rise in emigration — will nearly double in the next 30 years. Today the island occupies a unique but not entirely comfortable economic status. Not yet developed, yet no longer underdeveloped, it stands betwixt and between, a demi-developed society.

The man who plans to push Puerto Rico out of its halfway house is Governor Roberto Sanchez Vilella, a long time protégé of the legendary Luis Munoz Marin, who retired as chief executive in January 1965. A quiet, pipe-smoking administrator, Sanchez last week sent to his legislature no fewer than 34 pro osals, the first part of a dynamic and demanding 85-point program designed to reorient Bootstrap to the island’s new problems.

Not Enough. During his first year, Sánchez maintained the principal lines of Munoz’s development program. He scored a far-reaching triumph in concluding an agreement with Washington and Phillips Petroleum for construction of a major petrochemical complex that will export petroleum and petroleum-based products (TIME, Jan. 7). Economic growth has been held at nearly 10% a year, one of the highest rates in the world. Politically, Sánchez chose innovation. He elevated dozens of young, energetic officials to high posts. For the first time, the legislature was called into three special sessions. At his behest, it created a permanent civil rights commission and reformed electoral procedures in order to stimulate political activity.

In the last year, Fomento, Puerto Rico’s economic-development agency, helped create 10,000 new jobs. Yet even that was not enough. The labor force grew even faster, pushing unemployment to 11.6%, nearly three times the mainland rate. Development projects, mostly in light industry, have not generated enough jobs for men, and though there has been some improvement, 60% of the Fomento-produced jobs still go to women. The average wage in manufacturing is only $1.26 an hour—half that of the mainland.

Problems & Solutions. Tourism pumps $120 million a year into Puerto Rico’s economy and is the fourth-ranking industry. Yet the luxury hotels on San Juan’s beach front, towering not far from the fetid slum of La Perla, symbolize the island’s problems. With 2,600,000 inhabitants (686 persons per sq. mi.), Puerto Rico is one of the world’s most densely populated countries. Merely to keep up with the increase in population will require a giant jump in job openings—some 200,000 more in ten years—and Governor Sanchez has made employment the core of his 85-point program. He envisages a heavy-industry zone on the undeveloped southeast coast, with the Phillips complex as its nucleus. For the western region, he wants a scientific center to redress Puerto Rico’s lack of research facilities. He also plans a modernized fishing industry to compete in rich home waters now exploited primarily by the Japanese.

Sánchez proposes a public corporation to raise investment capital at home. He aims to check inflationary land speculation, carry on large-scale road-construction projects, build new schools and hospitals, double teacher training, reform the fragmented housing program and—to help pay for it all—boost taxes. The only conspicuous initiative absent from his 85 points is an attempt to start a meaningful birth-control campaign, the one sure solution to the island’s spiraling population.

“Illustrious Conscience.” Sánchez Vilella does not propose to change the island’s unique and somewhat vague relationship with the U.S. as a “free associated state.” Although there is still some academic discussion over the alternative of full statehood or independence, Puerto Ricans are understandably wedded to the economic benefits of their present status, most notably exemption from federal income tax. Many feel, nonetheless, that this relationship tends to perpetuate the island’s role as a passive dependency of the U.S.

Munoz used to thunder at the jibaros (peasants): “Be strong, have faith!”—and that sufficed. Sánchez, whom Munoz once called a “man of illustrious conscience,” demands their participation in government, tirelessly urges Puerto Ricans to send their advice, criticisms and suggestions to La Fortaleza, the Governor’s stately white mansion in Old San Juan. “We cannot maintain even for one more year the collective indifference toward the daily task of government,” he pleads. “Let this be the year of the people’s expression.”