volume 2, pages 1343-1344).

PORTO RICO: A. D. 1899 (October). Census of the Island taken under the direction of the War Department of the United States.

"The population of Porto Rico shown by the schedules of the present census taken with reference to the date of October 16, 1899, was 953,243. This was about nine-tenths of the population of Maryland in 1890, the State whose population is nearest to that of Porto Rico. … If the figures for … earlier censuses may be accepted, it appears that the population of Porto Rico has been growing through the last twelve years with greater rapidity than before since 1860. Its present rate of increase is about the same as that of Ohio, Tennessee, or the Carolinas during the decade between 1880 and 1890. … It appears that the average increase of population in the interior has been more rapid than that on the coast. If the figures for the coast cities of San Juan, Ponce, and Mayaguez had been excluded, the difference would be yet more marked. The depressed condition of sugar-cane growing in the West Indies of recent years may have played an important part in producing this difference, for the growing of sugar cane is prevalent in the coast plains of Porto Rico.

{414}

"The area of Porto Rico, including the adjacent and dependent islands of Vieques, Culebra, Mona, and Muertos, has been measured in connection with this census and found to be 3,606 square miles. But owing to the imperfect surveys on which all maps of Porto Rico are based there must be a considerable and indeterminate margin of possible error in any such measurement. The island is about three times the size of Long Island, which was in 1890 perhaps the largest insular division of the United States. It is also slightly greater than the eastern shore of Maryland (3,461 square miles). … Porto Rico has 264 persons to a square mile. This density of population is about the same as in Massachusetts, twice that in New York State, and thrice that in Ohio. It is more than seven times that of Cuba and not much less than twice that of Habana province. …

"The people of Porto Rico are, in the main, a rural community. There are no large cities in the island, the two largest being San Juan, which, regarding the entire municipal district as a city, had a population of 32,048, and Ponce, which with its port constituted practically one city, with a population of 27,952. These are the only two cities exceeding 25,000 inhabitants. The next city of magnitude is Mayaguez, on the west coast, with a population of 15,187. The only other city exceeding 8,000 inhabitants is Arecibo, with a population of 8,008. The total urban population of the island contained in cities exceeding 8,000 inhabitants each is 83,195, or only 8.7 per cent of the population of the island. This is a much smaller proportion than in Cuba, where the corresponding figures are 32.3 per cent, or in the United States, where the corresponding proportion in 1890 was 29.2 per cent. There are in Porto Rico 57 cities, each having a population of 1,000 or more. The total urban population of the island, under this definition, numbers 203,792, or 21.4 per cent of the total number of inhabitants of the island. Similar figures for Cuba show 47.1 per cent of the population of that island."

_Census of Porto Rico, Bulletin No.1._

PORTO RICO: A. D. 1899-1900. The question of the tariff treatment of its new Territory by the United States Government.

Writing in "The Forum," November, 1899, Mr. H. K. Carroll, who had investigated the conditions in Porto Rico as a Special Commissioner of the United States government, described the obligation which, in his view, they imposed on the latter as follows: "The only free market the Puertorican has for his products is the island market. All the rest of the world is closed to him. He cannot even buy in a free market; everything he buys as well as everything he sells being subject to duties. This is the penalty of independence; but Puerto Rico is not, and does not want to be, independent. She wants such commercial relations with us as Alaska, New Mexico, and Arizona have, and desires a territorial form of government. I am of the opinion that we cannot refuse these reasonable requests without doing great injustice to Puerto Rico. It must be remembered that we sought Puerto Rico; for Puerto Rico did not seek us. We wrested her from the sovereignty of Spain, without asking her if she desired to change her allegiance. We were of the opinion that she was not justly treated by Spain; that she was governed in the interests of the mother country solely; that she was oppressed and overtaxed and denied a proper measure of home rule; and that in consequence we were serving the cause of humanity in breaking the chains that bound her. This was what the Puertoricans thought also. They welcomed our troops and our control. They were glad to turn their backs on the history of the past, and begin under the glorious Republic of the North a new and more prosperous career. They are disappointed, perhaps unreasonably, that their new life has not already begun; they are eagerly expectant. They look to the President to recommend, and to Congress to adopt, a system of government which will make the island a Territory, equal in rank and rights and privileges to existing Territories. They ought not to be disappointed without the best and strongest of reasons. Three reasons are mentioned in opposition to the granting of territorial government to Puerto Rico. First, admission as a Territory implies ultimate admission to statehood; and statehood for islands separated as Hawaii and Puerto Rico are by from 1,200 to 2,500 miles from the United States is not to be thought of for a moment. Second, territorial organization involves the relinquishment of customs duties; and the cane and tobacco growers of our West India possession would have free access to the markets of the United States, and thus come into injurious competition with our own farmers. Third, the people of Puerto Rico are not competent for the measure of self-government which the territorial system provides."

This most reasonable and just view of the duty of the American people to their new fellow citizens received strong endorsement from higher official authority in the subsequent annual report of the Secretary of War, who said: "It is plain that it is essential to the prosperity of the island that she should receive substantially the same treatment at our hands as she received from Spain while a Spanish colony, and that the markets of the United States should be opened to her as were the markets of Spain and Cuba before the transfer of allegiance. Congress has the legal right to regulate the customs duties between the United States and Porto Rico as it pleases; but the highest considerations of justice and good faith demand that we should not disappoint the confident expectation of sharing in our prosperity with which the people of Porto Rico so gladly transferred their allegiance to the United States, and that we should treat the interests of this people as our own; and I wish most strongly to urge that the customs duties between Porto Rico and the United States be removed."

_Message and Documents: Abridgment, 1899-1900, volume 2, page 757._

And, finally, the President of the United States, in his Message to Congress, December 5, 1899, gave his high authority to the declaration that this duty of his government to Porto Rico was "plain": "It must be borne in mind," he said, "that since the cession Porto Rico has been denied the principal markets she had long enjoyed and our tariffs have been continued against her products as when she was under Spanish sovereignty. The markets of Spain are closed to her products except upon terms to which the commerce of all nations is subjected. The island of Cuba, which used to buy her cattle and tobacco without customs duties, now imposes the same duties upon these products as from any other country entering her ports. {415} She has therefore lost her free intercourse with Spain and Cuba, without any compensating benefits in this market. Her coffee was little known and not in use by our people, and therefore there was no demand here for this, one of her chief products. The markets of the United States should be opened up to her products. Our plain duty is to abolish all customs tariffs between the United States and Porto Rico and give her products free access to our markets."

_Message and Documents: Abridgment,