Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-01-14 | Page 40 | New Government Planned for Porto Rico Natives

New Government Planned ' for Porto . Rico Natives PORTO IUCO and her troubles had been in the news so little of late years that when President Wilson, in his I recent address to Congress, made a very brief reference to those troubles as something some-thing demanding immediate redress it served as a reminder to the hundred millions mil-lions of us in continental United States of the almost forgotten fact that there are another an-other million of us on that small rectangular rectangu-lar island a few miles off shore. The troubles which the Present had chiefly in mind are lack of citizenship of the islanders in the United States and lack of any adequate form of home rule. The citizenship and a much fuller measure of home rule than Porto Bico now has are both provided for In a bill before the Senate Sen-ate at Washington. Of course the Porto Ricans themselves will have no official voice as to whether tills bill shall become their constitution. If Congress passes it Porto Bico must take it The proposed charter begins with the bill of rights affording full protection to the individual in his person and property under the law. There is -a clause forbidding forbid-ding slavery, put in for the express purpose of getting rid of peonage. Absolute freedom free-dom itr the matter of religion Is assured, eight hours is to constitute a legal day's work for public employes and children under 14 cannot be employed in occupations injurious to hea"th or morals. The chief executive of the island gov-ernment, gov-ernment, as now, will be a governor appointed ap-pointed by the President of the United States, and he will have a veto power over the native legislature, but his veto may be overridden by a two-thirds vote. The long drawn-out citizenship muddle is settled by the new organic law proposed for the government of the island by making every Porto Rican a citizen of the United States automatically without effort on tie part of the Islander.