The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-03-24
VIEWS OF EDITOR ROCHE.


H1cO ADSur0.
NEW YORK, March 23-James Jeffry
Roche editor of the Boston Pilot, was a
passenger aboard the United States trans
port Mcclellan, which reached peft--te-
day from San Juan, Porto Rico, and San
tiago de Cuba. Mr.. Roche spent three
weeks on the island of Porto Rico observ-
ing the people and their condition. From
his experiences while there Mr.. Roche said
he was compelled to confess 1.-The United
States Is in the ungracious position of hav-
ing deprived the island of its foreign trade
and given 1t nothing in place of It, The
feeling he continued. lis that it is a
cumbersome. uncertain and unsatisfactory
way of doing business to collect revenue
from the people with one hand and give it
back with the other. In other countries it
has happened that some of the money ad-
hered to one or the other hand during the
process and with the best of intentions we
cannot hope for much better results here.
by the absurd and contradictory GUS
toms prevailing, goods that come from the
United States to Porto Rico must be in
American bottoms, a provision which rec
ognizes Porto Rico as part of the United
States and subject to our coasting trade
law, but when goods arrive they are not
treated as domestic goods, but purely as
foreign and the receiver must pay duty ac-
cordingly. This peculiar regulation applies
to both imports and exports
"The island is over-populated and as the
doctrine of Nautilus has never taken root
there further crowding is inevitable. There
is great deal of poverty there, due to the
results of the hurricane last August and the
want of work at present The people are
in distressing state of suspense, which
prevents all trade until the tariff question
is settled.
'The military government is we'll ad-
ministered for the most part, and under any
conditions is likely to remain necessity
for some time to come. l have little re-
spect for the hackneyed. patronizing
phrase, they are fit for self-government,
but If you should say that Porto Ricans are
not fit or ready for government such as
that of the United States, with all of it's
duties and responsibilities. while L might
agree with you. | would not like to be
called on to say how many parts of our
own country here at home are to-day in a
like condition. The Porto Ricans are not
fit for full independence, for they never
had the opportunity for qualifying for it,
but We must not treat them as the Span
iards did. and give them permission to
swim. coupled with an order not to go near
the water. The result of Spains misgov-
ernment is apparent everywhere. 1t is the
origin of all the evils in the island, ignor-
ance, poverty and whatever lawlessness
there may be.
Porto Rico is no place for Americans to
go TO with view to occupation, manual
or otherwise. Labor Is too cheap. Unless
all testimony be untrue. 1t is no place,
either for our smarter politicians, for
the native can beat them in every phase
OF the game. The work of one man in
Porto Rico appealed to me particularly
That man was Bishop Blenk. He is pru-
dent, courageous and far-seeing, a
thorough-going American i'm every way,
who will give a much-needed reorganiza-
tion to the chaos resulting from the Span
ish regime