BoletiÌn mercantil de Puerto Rico. (San Juan, P.R.) 18??-1918, 1904-09-08
CRITICISMS

With the meeting Of last Saturday
night, according to the announcement
made by the speakers of tie evening,
began the electoral campaign; an ener
getic, virile, positive campaign, but
as was said, without violence, insult,
and without bloodshed.
We should not, nor do we care to,
question the importance, slgnltlcat1on
or solemnity of the occasion. There
are those obliged to concur in and to
defend the procedure to be followed
in all meetings of the Republican par
ty, the orators who may have to occu-
py the judicial bench. The chiefs of
that party did not express themselves
mines the violence of the populace
and makes them believe they have a
guarantee to conduct themselves with
the greatest impunity. The speakers
avjSed peace, order, enthusiasm and
discipline, trying more to encourage
and enthuse than to excite their fol-
lowers in the political fight.
Some mourful pages of political his
tory in Porto Rico might not be writ
Ten if the same prudence IS tha. mani
tested in the Assembly Of last Satur-
day night had always been the model
conduct of Jhe speakers who dedica-
ted themselves to the promotion Of
Of past events.
We SET this aside however, and hope
that they have buried our politics,
those inhamed aesteritieS, those ag-
egressiVe v1oltnces. those bloodly eX-
>ceSes that came to change our political
dispute into real strife to the death,
and killed the symbol of plenty; wheu
one spoke of strife and detected in the
wind the sound Of the war bugle an
nounciug that the battle was on, when
walls of armed men appeared hoping
TO enter the fray.
Then one spoke Of strife, and it was
strife in fact Strife with our corpses,
with our orphans, with pools of blood,
and furious NAL violence, and, sOneti-
mes, in order to finish the gloomy
work, elevated the gallows for some
insensate fanatic arrested by order of
the constituencies propaganda.
This appears to have been already
cured in Porto Rico, but the metaphor
is the same. Voters are invited to the
comtat. The air thundersi the fierce
echo of the war cry calling the hosts
TO battle. Bat it is a struggle which
does not unite. 1t is not a sCu1t1e; for
to prevent that tendency, order, which
is as essential to the people as air to
life, has resumed command. Thus
there is no need for provisions nor
for ammunition. 1t speaks to us in
parables, most christian-like style,
as when, enamored of the slmlie, an
orator says to us that we are a star IN
thu American armament; but that star
is not i'll our heaven, no one is able to
climb over the blue mountain peaks of
Our beautiful island in order to reach
1t and display it as dazzlieg insignia
of our native land, nor go to the natlo-
nal capital, to look for it in the Amer
lean heaven, or plant it over the huge
dome of the capital.
Beautiful is the image! That idea
was born in the brain of poet. 1t
is beautiful to finish discourse with
for grand effect, yet speaks 100 much
in SMILES to the public, still abusing
the bo autifu1 images and speaks to the
masses in parallels. If it is true that
in this manner the Savior spoke 10
the Israelites, it is also true that
when ne had spoken he simpllhsd his
symbolical phrases. No doubt that
in the concourse which filled the
theatre Saturday night last there were
distinguished people whose destiny
has not yet arrived at a crisis; friends
of the present political condition,
worlmen and employees who have
appreciated fully the beauty of the
simile uttered by the distinguished
star who is to secure from the dome
of the capitol at Washington, which
is the Thabor, from which must be
resufected Porto Kican personality,
our flag.
But IN same image reiterated in
our land, in the ears Of our distressed
country men is scene for an artist OF
such extraordinary words. 1t does
not draw forth applause, nor an ex-
araordnary ovation as the homage
paid to the sovereign orator in his
speech, unless he should carry new
woes, greater discouragement and
renewed bitterness to the already sad
mind Of our unhappy countrymen.
it7Sta al Of