Blanton Winship Blanton C . Winship ( November 23 , 1869 — October 9 , 1947 ) was an American military law yer and veteran of both the Spanish - American war and World War I . During his long career , he served both as Judge Advocate General of the United States Army and as the Governor of Puerto Rico . Early life and education . Blanton Winship was born in Macon , Georgia and graduated from Mercer University in 1889 . He received a law degree from the University of Georgia in 1893 , where he also played football for one year . Career . Military service . During the Spanish - American War , Winship joined the 1st Georgia Infantry , a volunteer force . After the war , he elected to join the United States Army as a judge advocate . He remained in the military through 1914 , when he began to teach law at the Army Service School at Fort Leavenworth , Kansas . When World War I broke out , he fought in France and led several campaigns . For his service during that war , Winship was awarded both a Distinguished Service Cross and Silver Star . Following the war , Winship returned to military law . He was appointed to serve as a military aide to President Calvin Coolidge . Eventually he became the Judge Advocate General of the Army , a position he held from 1931 to his retirement from service in 1933 . World War II . During World War II , Winship returned to active duty . During this time , he set precedents for military tribunals in the United States during participation in the military commission ( created in July 1942 ) to try Nazi saboteurs arrested in this country . Winship retired for good in 1944 . At 75 , he was at that time the oldest Army officer on active duty . Governor of Puerto Rico . In 1934 , Winship was appointed by Franklin D . Roosevelt as military governor of Puerto Rico . This was in part due to major strikes having taken place that year , and the administration feared social unrest . Colonel Francis Riggs accompanied Winship as chief of police . Riggs had formerly assisted Nicaragua ' s dictator , Anastasio Somoza . During his time in office , Winship fought to exclude the recently passed minimum wage laws from applying to Puerto Rico , as it would have doubled the hourly wage of 12 . 5 cents which was standard for sugar plantation workers . Although this decision was unpopular , when the new minimum - wage law was applied to Puerto Rico , nearly two - thirds of the island ' s textile factories closed because they could not afford the increase in wages and remain profitable . . Winship criticized many of Secretary of the Interior Harold L . Ickes ' s policies toward the island ( Interior had responsibility for territories and insular affairs ) . Relief spending during the Great Depression for Puerto Rico was per capita far below either that of the mainland or Hawaii . This lack of spending contributed to the poverty of the island , and in turn to social unrest . In October 1935 , the Insular Police killed four Puerto Rican Nationalist Party members at the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras , a neighboring town next to San Juan . The event became known as the Rio Piedras Massacre . Ramón S . Pagan , Pedro Quiñones , Eduardo Rodríguez Vera , José Santiago Barea and a bystander were killed . On February 23 , 1936 , the nationalists Hiram Rosado and Elias Beauchamp retaliated by killing Col . Riggs in San Juan . Captured , both Rosado and Beauchamp were executed at the police headquarters without a trial . No law enforcement officer ever stood trial for the executions . Following these events , the government rounded up numerous Nationalist Party members and charged them with sedition . The party ' s president , Pedro Albizu Campos , and others were sentenced to ten years in prison by a United States federal court . The Ponce massacre . On Palm Sunday ( March 21 ) , 1937 , Governor Winship cancelled a Nationalist parade , which was to have taken place in Ponce to commemorate the end of slavery in 1873 , only an hour before it was to have begun . When the march continued anyway , the Insular police fired upon the marchers and bystanders . They killed nineteen people and wounded more than 200 . One hundred - fifty protesters were arrested . This event , called the Ponce Massacre , sparked outrage across the island and in the US Congress . The Minnesota Representative John Bernard gave a speech on April 14 denouncing the action . The full speech can be seen in the " Congressional Record " of April 14 , 1937 , page 4499 . Congressman Vito Marcantonio of New York also criticized Winship , and in 1939 , President Roosevelt eventually replaced him as governor of Puerto Rico . A Grand Jury was convened to investigate the Ponce events , but it was closed without indicting anyone . The prosecutor resigned under protest that Governor Winship was interfering with his investigation . Almost simultaneously with this investigation , the federal law which allowed public officials to be indicted was repealed , effectively granting Governor Winship immunity from further prosecution . Following these events , many of the leaders of the Nationalist party were tried for insurrection and , after a hung jury and retrial , six were sentenced to life in prison . Since the prosecutors were appointed by Governor Winship , Congressmen Vito Marcantonio and John T . Bernard have suggested that this may have contributed to a bias in Winship ' s favor . A second panel , an independent investigation led by Arthur Garfield Hays , general counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union , with Fulgencio Pinero , Emilio Belaval , Jose Davila Rice , Antonio Ayuyo Valdivieso , Manuel Diaz Garcia , and Franscisco M . Zeno , as members , concluded that the police acted as a mob , and that the events on March 21 constituted a massacre . Their report harshly criticized the repressive tactics and massive civil rights violations by the administration of Governor Winship . The following year , Governor Winship moved the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the United States invasion of Puerto Rico to Ponce , instead of the traditional location of San Juan . During this celebration , on July 25 , 1938 , Ángel Esteban Antongiorgi attempted to assassinate the governor and managed to fire several shots before being killed by the police . ( One police officer was also killed in the attempted assassination . ) President Roosevelt removed Winship from office on May 12 , 1939 , after charges were filed against him by the New York Congressman Vito Marcantonio . The president appointed William D . Leahy as the successor , although he did not take office for several months . ( During this time , José E . Colón served as Acting Governor . ) Winship ' s term had united many of the political factions of the island against him . The newly formed Popular Democratic Party ( PPD ) had strong wins in 1940 , taking a majority of seats in the Senate of Puerto Rico . It won many more seats than did the Nationalist Party , and continued to gain strength in the 1940s . By 1950 it held all but one seat in the Senate .