Dubbed “Puerto Rico’s best-read man” by the New
York Times, Bolívar Pagán was highly educated
and a prolific writer.1 Pagán married a daughter
of his mentor, labor leader and political giant Santiago Iglesias, and upon the older man’s sudden death, filled his
seat as Puerto Rico’s Resident Commissioner in the U.S.
House of Representatives. Pagán pursued his father-in-law’s
economic initiatives in Congress, particularly the
defense of the island’s sugar industry against strict quotas.
However, Puerto Rico’s strategic location during the
Second World War and the appointment of a controversial
governor eventually consumed Pagán’s congressional career.
Bolívar Pagán was born in Guayanilla, a suburb of Ponce
in southwestern Puerto Rico, on May 16, 1897, to Emilio
Pagán and Elisa Lucca.2 Pagán received his early education
in Adjuntas, before moving to Ponce for secondary school,
where he excelled at writing, winning the Insular School
literary prize in 1915. After graduating from Ponce High
School in 1916, he worked as a journalist for several local
newspapers: El día de Ponce, Nosotros, Renacimiento, and
Puerto Rico ilustrado. He eventually edited La idea and La
aurora. In 1919, under the tutelage of Puerto Rican Partido
Socialista (Socialist Party) founder Santiago Iglesias, he
became vice president of the party. Pagán received his law
degree at the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras in
1921, was accepted to the bar, and set up practice in San
Juan. In 1922 he served as a judge in Fajardo, Puerto Rico,
on the island’s eastern coast. Frequently part of a team of
politicians lobbying Washington, Pagán was particularly
active in efforts to obtain statehood for the island.3
Pagán made two unsuccessful bids as a Partido Socialista
candidate, for the Puerto Rican house of representatives in
1924, and for the Puerto Rican senate in 1928; however,
in 1925 he began a four-year term as the San Juan city
treasurer.4 Pagán finally attained a seat in the insular senate
as a Coalición (Coalition) candidate in 1932 and served
from 1933 to 1939, rising to president pro tempore and
majority floor leader. In 1936 and 1937, he was also the
city manager for San Juan. Personally and politically allied
to Iglesias, then the island’s Resident Commissioner in the
U.S. Congress, Pagán married Iglesias’s daughter Igualdad
in 1933.5
After Iglesias’s unexpected death on December 5, 1939,
the Jones Act permitted Governor William B. Leahy to
appoint a successor to serve out Iglesias’s elected term,
which ended in January 1941.6 Since Iglesias belonged to
the Coalición, Leahy asked each of the two parties that
formed the pact—the Socialistas, led by Pagán, and the
Partido Unión Republicana (Republican Union Party)—to submit the name of a candidate. However, the Unión
Republicana leaders honored the terms of the Coalición,
which called for a Socialista member to fill the Resident
Commissioner post. On December 26, Leahy officially
named Pagán to the post.7 He was sworn in on January 3,
1940, and inherited his late father-in-law’s assignments
on the Agriculture, Insular Affairs, and Territories
Committees.8
Much of Pagán’s work continued his father-in-law’s
legacy, including the advocacy of Puerto Rico’s economic
and political interests in various New Deal relief and
employment programs. Pagán fought to increase Puerto
Rican quotas for sugar exports to the continental United
States, an issue Iglesias pursued when Congress passed
emergency regulations on domestic production in 1934
and 1937. Pagán’s request to increase Puerto Rico’s sugar
quota by nearly two-thirds went unheeded, despite
restrictions on the industry, whose production exceeded its
1938 quota by nearly one-third.9
Pagán also continued Iglesias’s quest for Puerto Rican
statehood and greater local control over the government,
but he considered calls for the island’s independence
tantamount to “economic suicide.”10 On April 12, 1940,
Pagán submitted two bills. The first called for the local
election of the island’s governor starting the following
November; the governor would appoint his own cabinet,
the island’s auditor, and seven of the island’s positions
on the supreme court (an increase from five). Pagán
also called for the popular election of a vice president,
who would serve as the island’s president of the senate.
The second bill called for a constitutional convention to
consider the island’s statehood. Both bills, however, died in
committee.11 The following month, Pagán was a signatory
to a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt claiming
that Governor Leahy had assumed extraconstitutional
powers by appointing two cabinet ministers without the
advice or consent of the insular senate. Deeming the move
an “embarrassing situation,” the letter stated that the
governor’s arbitrary exercise of power gave “no credit to the
United States as a champion and safeguard of democracy,”
at a time when “absolute dictatorship in Europe had put
democracy and modern civilization in actual jeopardy.”12
Pagán faced a changed political landscape in his first
election as the incumbent. Two new political entities,
the Partido Popular Democrático (Popular Democratic
Party, or PPD) and the Partido Unificación Tripartita
(Tripartite Unification Party)—dissident factions of the
former Coalición and Partido Liberal—petitioned to be
on the ballot. The PPD, led by Luis Muñoz Marín, had
broken with Partido Liberal allies in 1937 over the issue
of immediate independence. As a result, Muñoz Marín
tabled the independence issue to focus on social reform
and began campaigning in force for the 1940 election.
The PPD nominated Dr. Antonio Fernós-Isern, a local
physician. The Unificación Tripartita, backed by laborers,
chose Puerto Rican speaker Miguel Angel García Méndez
as its candidate.13 Pagán’s Coalición stood by its desire for
statehood; the incumbent “expresses himself as vigorously
pro American,” noted Governor Leahy.14
The political upheaval and continued economic
depression translated into a violent campaign. In a July
31 telegram to Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, Governor
Leahy noted, “The political controversy here is getting
hotter from day to day. We hope it will not explode into
violence although there has already been reported some
scattered bombing without any casualties more serious
than shaken nerves.”15 Although three people were killed
and 15 were injured during the polling, federal observers
considered the violence an improvement over the status
quo.16 “Our local election here is reported as the most
peaceful election of recent years,” Governor Leahy told
Secretary Ickes. “Only two persons were assassinated,” he
reported erroneously, “and only three ballot boxes were
burned.”17 The PPD was confident of victory leading up
to Election Day. However, surprisingly, the Coalición held
together. As a result of the continued and largely pragmatic
alliance of the Unión Republicanas and the Socialistas
under the Coalición banner, Pagán prevailed; official
returns put the Coalición on top with 222,423 votes (39
percent), barely edging out the PPD’s 214,857 votes (38
percent). Unificación Tripartita and a minor political
entity—the Partido Agrícola Pura (Pure Agriculture Party),
which polled just over 1,000 votes—garnered a combined
total of 131,571 votes (23 percent).18
From his perch on the House Committee on Labor
in the 77th Congress (1941–1943), Pagán addressed the
issue of sugar quotas.19 He rallied against a lopsided vote
to raise quotas for mainland producers and refiners of
beet and cane sugar that would further restrict quotas for
the territories and other producers of cane sugar.20 The
vote took place after only 40 minutes of debate, without
committee hearings, and despite the warnings of President
Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and Secretary
of Agriculture Claude Wickard. Though Agriculture
Committee chairman Hampton Fulmer of South Carolina
assured his colleagues the new quotas would not raise
sugar prices, opponents of the proposal disagreed. The
Florida delegation was among the groups that lobbied the
hardest against the proposal, to protect its burgeoning
production of cane sugar. Texas and Louisiana beet
producers opposed Florida and the sugarcane-producing
territories.21 Pagán read a letter from the President into
the Congressional Record: “The Administration has not
recommended sugar legislation,” the letter said. “It must
also be recognized that a quota and allotment structure
may, under conditions now current, conflict with national
and defense requirements,” continued the letter, alluding
to the growing threat to the United States from the Second
World War and to its interest in protecting U.S. territories.
Moreover, unstable foreign areas in Cuba and the British
West Indies would be under a “virtual embargo,” Secretary
Hull had noted. Recognizing the need for stability in sugar-producing
regions after the United States entered World
War II on December 8, 1941, the Senate amended the
legislation on December 15, striking the quota reductions
but lowering the price for raw sugar for three years.22
Pagán initially approved of Roosevelt’s foreign policy
toward Latin America, praising the President’s “iron
pact” speech, in which FDR proclaimed his intention to
defend South America against Nazi incursion and pledged
“whole hearted and faithful support of your leadership
of this nation and the whole democratic world.”23 In the
78th Congress (1943–1945), Pagán gained additional
assignments on the Military Affairs and Naval Affairs
Committees, reflecting Puerto Rico’s selection before the
war as the site for a $30 million army and naval base.24
The committee assignments recognized Puerto Rico’s
strategic importance to the U.S. war effort. Dubbed the
“Pearl Harbor of the Caribbean,” Puerto Rico became a
key location for combating Nazi submarines believed to be
roaming the sea.25
A food shortage caused by German U-boat attacks
on Caribbean shipping drew national attention to the
antipathy between Pagán and Puerto Rico’s appointed
governor, Rexford Tugwell. Pagán first aired local
dissatisfaction with Tugwell, a former member of
Roosevelt’s “Brains Trust,” when Tugwell was appointed
chancellor of the University of Puerto Rico in July 1941.
Pagán called the move “the most anti-Puerto Rican
manoeuvre ever attempted,” noting that no small state
university—let alone “the little university of the small and
hungry Puerto Rico”—paid its chancellor the exorbitant
annual salary of $15,000 that was offered to Tugwell.
The selection of a “continental American” as chancellor
was also insulting, Pagán said, because it implied that
the island could not oversee its own institutions. Pagán’s
political opponent Luis Muñoz Marín supported Tugwell’s
appointment, partly because of a campaign promise to
isolate the university from politics.26 Pagán claimed their
alliance benefitted the PPD and Tugwell at Puerto Ricans’
expense. In return, Pagán was frequently accused of
attacking Tugwell strictly for political purposes.27
Shortly after Tugwell accepted his appointment as
university chancellor in August 1941, Puerto Rican governor
Guy Swope resigned, and President Roosevelt quickly
tapped Tugwell for the vacancy. Muñoz Marín spoke at
Tugwell’s nomination hearing, and Pagán vocally opposed
the appointment.28 As early as January 1942, he called for
Tugwell’s removal from the post, writing that the governor
was “disregarding in Puerto Rico all the principles that the
United States forces and democratic peoples are fighting for
thruout the world.” He accused Tugwell of aligning with
the minority PPD to create despotic political rule and of
collecting two federal salaries because he received $10,000
annually as governor while retaining his pay as university
chancellor.29 Pagán requested Tugwell’s recall several times
throughout the next year, but the Roosevelt administration,
advertising itself as sympathetic to the plight of Latin
American governments, ignored him.30 Noting that Tugwell
threatened to impose martial law to squelch protest against
him, Pagán again described his rule as anti-American: “In
this way Tugwell is an American Quisling, [he] is doing a
good job for the axis powers.”31
Pagán’s battle against the Tugwell administration
eventually led to a showdown over a proposed $15 million
emergency food program for Puerto Rico. The package
stipulated a reduction in sugar production, long anathema
to Puerto Rican politicians, along with seeds for food
crops to displace cane fields. Pagán was incensed that local
politicians were never consulted about the program, a
course he claimed was typical of Tugwell. Pagán supported
the food aid legislation, observing that the submarine
attacks had decimated ships carrying more than two-thirds
of the island’s food supplies from the mainland.32 However,
he opposed the initial proposal, promising to introduce
another $15 million food program, without stipulations,
that would include “safeguards for its administration so
that the economic structure of Puerto Rico will not be
unnecessarily affected.”33
The committee eventually approved an aid bill
introduced by Pagán as promised, but in a blow to
Tugwell added an amendment offered by Representative
William Poage of Texas stipulating that the money
would not be appropriated while the governor was in
office.34 Despite his opposition to Tugwell’s regime,
Pagán expressed doubt about the amendment, fearing it
would delay the approval of the desperately needed food
aid. Yet, following the committee’s nearly unanimous
vote, Pagán expressed satisfaction with the outcome.35
“The members of the agriculture committee do not have
confidence in Tugwell and the proviso approved with the
bill is merely a declaration against Tugwell,” he noted. “I
hope that Tugwell will interpret the proviso as a request
of the committee on agriculture that he be withdrawn
from the governorship of Puerto Rico.”36 Angered by the
amendment, Interior Secretary Ickes accused Pagán of
seeking publicity instead of the relief of his constituents,
beginning several rounds of public hostility between the
two. “The Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico has
again demonstrated that he is more concerned with politics
than with the feeding of the people of Puerto Rico,”
Ickes told reporters. Pagán responded by saying, Ickes
“demonstrat[ed] that he doesn’t know what he is talking
about.”37 When Ickes was called before the House Insular
Affairs Committee to testify on Tugwell’s rule, committee
members ended up serving as “volunteer referees.” Pagán’s
questioning of the Interior Secretary degraded into a
shouting match as Ickes, professing to misunderstand
Pagán’s accent and accusing him of “playing politics,”
frequently asked Pagán to repeat himself. Representative
Ed Gossett of Texas eventually moved to close the hearing,
noting, “I don’t want to sit here and listen to the secretary
and Mr. Pagan argue.”38
Part of Pagán’s fight to dismiss Tugwell included the
submission of several bills for the direct election of the
Puerto Rican governor, requiring an amendment to the
Jones Act, which established the island’s local government.
Ironically, Tugwell was the first to suggest the idea to
Roosevelt, who approved of his plan on July 4, 1942.
However, in an effort to maintain some control over the
strategically located island, the Tugwell plan kept the
appointed governor in place until the 1944 election cycle.
Secretary Ickes supported the plan, but two days later
Pagán introduced a bill that allowed the direct election
of the governor in the upcoming 1942 election, calling
for Tugwell’s immediate resignation and for election
plans to move forward.39 New York Representative Vito Marcantonio, a radical member of Congress whose East
Harlem district included a large Puerto Rican population,
opposed both plans, arguing that neither went far enough
and he called for the “immediate, unconditional freedom”
of Puerto Rico. Citing the large number of absentee
corporate landowners on the island, Marcantonio claimed
that only Puerto Rico’s independence would satisfy the
requirements of the Atlantic Charter and secure the full
cooperation of Latin American nations.40 Ignoring both
Pagán and Marcantonio, Roosevelt officially endorsed the
Tugwell plan in a message to Congress on March 9, 1943,
in which he appointed to a committee headed by Ickes an
equal number of Puerto Rican and “continental” residents
to recommend the changes in the Jones Act to require the
direct election of the island’s governor.41 Pagán was not
selected to serve on the committee, but supported its final
plan to allow Puerto Rico to elect its own governor.42
Pagán called one last time for Tugwell’s resignation. On
May 1, 1944, he declared that Puerto Ricans were on the
brink of revolution.“If the American flag had not been
waving over Puerto Rico, the people would have already
gone into open revolt by arms,” he told reporters. He
also charged the governor with living in a plush mansion
despite the island’s poverty. “Tugwell’s dictatorial attitude
can be matched only by Hitler’s and Mussolini’s,” he
said.43 Pagán was more diplomatic in a letter to Roosevelt,
writing, “Many Congressmen, who are acquainted with
the Puerto Rican situation, argue that the reform measure
[proposed by Tugwell] would be fake if Puerto Ricans do
not have since now a new governor, respected and trusted
by all.”44 Tugwell called Pagán’s assertions “irresponsible,”
declaring, “We in Puerto Rico are as peaceful as other
Americans who happen to live in Wichita or Seattle.”45
“Mr. Pagán has perhaps lost touch with the real Puerto
Rico,” Tugwell spat. “His return from Washington [last
year], triumphant over thousands of hungry fellow-citizens,
evidently went to his head a little. That’s the only way I can
account for his delusions of revolution.”46 In September,
Pagán threatened in a letter to the President to boycott the
election if he did not remove Tugwell, a move the White
House strongly denounced.47
Pagán decided not to run for re-election in 1944
because of another political realignment. A new coalition
of the Partidos Unión Republicana and Socialista, and
dissident factions of the former Partido Liberal allied to
combat the growing strength of the PPD. The agreement
included putting forward a former Liberal for Resident
Commissioner, and Colonel Manuel Font topped the
new Coalición ticket.48 Early predictions boasted a PPD
victory in the fall of 1944, partly as a vindication of the
policies of Tugwell, who according to the minority party,
was maligned strictly for political purposes.49 In an election
watched closely by mainland observers, including New
Mexico Senator Dennis Chavez, the PPD, which was
headlined by the candidate for Resident Commissioner,
Jesús T. Piñero, won 65 percent of the votes, handily
defeating the Coalición’s 35 percent.50 The issue of Puerto
Rico’s status crept back into the campaign. Leading the
victorious party, Luis Muñoz Marín declared he would call
for a plebiscite to vote on independence.51
Pagán served in the island senate until the PPD absorbed
his Partido Socialista in the late 1940s, after which he
resumed his law practice on the island.52 He also wrote a
two-volume political history of Puerto Rico, from the U.S.
invasion in 1898 through 1953. After completing a draft of
his manuscript in 1960, he was diagnosed with cancer. He
underwent an operation but died 17 months later in San
Juan on February 9, 1961.53
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
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