One of the few Members to be appointed to the
U.S. House of Representatives, rather than
elected, José Pesquera served nearly a year as a
nominally nonpartisan Resident Commissioner during
a period of political and economic upheaval in Puerto
Rico and the United States.1 Trained as a lawyer, Pesquera
was passionate about farming, and he spent his short
congressional career attempting to bolster Puerto Rican
agricultural and economic interests in the midst of the
Great Depression. “I must give special recognition to the
good farmers … who, regardless of their political affiliations
were the driving force behind the idea of my candidacy,”
Pesquera declared upon his nomination. “I will make every
effort to be capable of being worthy of the honor conferred
on me and of the trust that everyone has placed in me.”2
José Lorenzo Pesquera was born in Bayamón, Puerto
Rico, just southwest of San Juan, on August 10, 1882, to
José J. Pesquera and Inés Dávila.3 He attended a primary
and secondary school run by his maternal uncle and
graduated from the Provincial Institute of Puerto Rico with
a degree in secondary education in 1897. He subsequently
studied English at Keystone State Normal School, in
Kutztown, Pennsylvania, from 1901 to 1902. In 1904 he
earned his law degree from West Virginia University in
Morgantown and was admitted to the state’s bar. Shortly
afterward, Pesquera returned to Puerto Rico, where he was
admitted to the territory’s bar and opened a law practice.
He also engaged in dairy farming. On December 25, 1908,
he married Encarnación López del Valle from Toa Alta.4
In 1917 Pesquera won election as a Partido Republicano
(Puerto Rican Republican) to the territorial house of
representatives, where he served until 1920. The Partido
Republicano was generally aligned with small-business
interests on the island and sympathized with, but had no
official ties to, the mainland GOP.5 In 1927 Pesquera was
appointed director of the Agricultural Association of Puerto
Rico, a powerful advocacy group for the territory’s landowning
farmers. Throughout his tenure, he served on several
economic commissions to the United States, and he was
frequently in contact with Members of the U.S. Congress.6
On April 11, 1932, Puerto Rican Resident
Commissioner Félix Córdova Dávila resigned to become
an associate justice on the territory’s supreme court. His
departure came amid a series of political realignments—primarily related to Puerto Rico’s relationship with
the United States—leading into the November 1932
elections.7 Tasked with appointing Dávila’s replacement,
Puerto Rican governor James R. Beverley, a recent Herbert C. Hoover
administration appointee and a former U.S. Attorney
General, navigated the volatile political landscape by
soliciting suggestions for nominees from the island’s
political parties.8 The ensuing political scramble sparked
protests against the partisan nature of the nomination
process. Editorials in major newspapers confirmed the
widespread belief that, because Resident Commissioners
were elected every four years as part of a party slate, the
governor should appoint a representative of the former
Alianza (Alliance), which had been absorbed by the Partido
Unión Republicano (Union Republican Party), out of
respect for Dávila’s former affiliation. “In my opinion,”
Rafael Cuevas Zequeira wrote Governor Beverley, removing
his name from the list of nominees, “the function of the
Governor of Puerto Rico, in good government ethics and
considering the political nature of the position of resident
commissioner, consists of filling the ministerial duty to fill
the vacancy created through the resignation of the office
that the people elected and appointing the candidate chosen
by the majority party.”9
As the Unión Republicano loyalist considered the
“least political” among the front-runners, Pesquera soon
emerged as the leading candidate and received support
from influential business groups on the island. Telegrams
supporting him began trickling into Governor Beverley’s
office.10 On the afternoon of April 15, just before the
Puerto Rican senate prepared to adjourn indefinitely, the
governor submitted Pesquera’s name for consideration.11
Early in the evening, the senate appointments committee
ruled in Pesquera’s favor. When the full senate took up
the appointment in the early-morning hours of April
16, Santiago Iglesias and the Partido Socialista (Socialist
Party) launched the strongest opposition to Pesquera’s
nomination. At a quarter past two in the morning, a packed
gallery listened to Iglesias’s lengthy speech opposing the
nominee.12 He rejected the appointment based on political
attacks Pesquera had made as president of the Alianza
Agricultural (Agricultural Alliance) against the territory’s
house and senate leaders. Pesquera’s supporters included
Unión Republicano president Rafael Martínez Nadal, who
defended him against charges that he represented only
large international conglomerations on the island, noting
that his organization also defended small farmers. “As of
this time he will no longer be president of the Farmers
Association and will become the defender of all the country’s
interests in the U.S. Congress,” La correspondencia wrote,
paraphrasing Martínez Nadal: “There he will defend farmers’
interests with the same energy as he will defend the interest
of laborers and all other interests of Puerto Rico.”13 The
senate overwhelmingly approved Pesquera’s nomination
at three o’clock in the morning by a vote of 11 to 3; all
the Socialista senators opposed it, and the Partido Liberal
(Liberal Party) members abstained from voting.14 Pesquera
left for Washington a day later, telling La correspondencia,
“My dearest wish is to negotiate the legislation most
advantageous to the country and I will direct all my
activities in the north to achieving that goal.”15 He was
sworn in on April 28, 1932.16 Though Pesquera claimed
no party affiliation, the New York Times described him as
“nominally a Republican.”17 Pesquera took a seat on the
Insular Affairs Committee.18
Pesquera arrived in Washington during one of the
most tumultuous periods in Puerto Rican history under
U.S. rule.19 Interconnected factors created political
instability. Absentee agricultural corporations monopolized
an industry that was overly dependent on exports of
cash crops, including sugar, tobacco, and coffee. Low
agricultural wages and poor living standards, along with
a booming population, magnified the effects of the
worldwide depression in Puerto Rico; by 1933 the island’s
unemployment rate stood at 65 percent.20 Pesquera
promised to address national issues that were pertinent to
economic recovery, including control over Puerto Rico’s
alcohol sales. An amendment to the Jones Act of 1917,
which granted Puerto Ricans U.S. citizenship, allowed
them to hold a referendum to extend Prohibition to the
island. In July 1917, they voted nearly two to one to ban
the sale and consumption of alcohol, primarily out of
loyalty to the U.S. The law frequently went unenforced,
however, and by the early 1930s, selling alcohol was
suggested as a method for raising revenue for the cash-strapped
insular government.21 “Prohibition … is a
problem with deep economic and moral implications for
our people,” Pesquera observed. “As to what Prohibition
represents to the island’s public finances, it suffices to say
that with the revenue we used to take in from income
tax and other taxes on imports and the sale of liquors, we
would have enough to balance our budget completely, to
free some of the country’s farmers and merchants from
their burdens and to continue building public works to
attest to our desire for progress and comfort.” He vowed
to request the “right to write our internal regulations
in matters of Prohibition,” noting that “[t]his would be
perfectly legal if we bear in mind that it is the Volstead Act
that governs our island, not the Eighteenth Amendment
to the Constitution.”22 With 15 percent of Puerto Rico’s
foreign trade costs going to freight alone, Pesquera also
promised to amend shipping laws to prohibit all but U.S.
flag ships from transporting goods between the mainland
and Puerto Rico so as to end competition between
international freighter services. He also believed that
reducing tariffs and taxes to create “free zones” of trade in
Puerto Rico “would give an extraordinary impulse to our
economic life.”23
However, Pesquera’s first action in Congress concerned
a different goal. His first and longest speech on the House
Floor advocated a bill introduced by his predecessor,
Córdova Dávila, to change the territory’s name from “Porto
Rico,” the official U.S. government spelling since the
Foraker Act passed in 1900, back to the original “Puerto
Rico.” Pesquera was one of the final Members to speak
about the issue: “Puerto Rico is the name we have given to
our fair land. Puerto Rico is the word associated with the
tombs of our parents and the cradles of our sons. Puerto
Rico is the word we have consecrated as representative of
our patriotic sentiments,” he declared. Further, Pesquera
compared the islanders’ attachment to the traditional
spelling with a mother’s sentimental attachment to a
ribbon in her daughter’s hair. “We know that this Congress
of the United States is not willing to impose itself upon
the patriotic feelings of the people of Puerto Rico, and we
know that we are going to have the restitution that we are
asking for in this bill which is of no significance whatever
to the United States from an economic standpoint,” he
said. “But which is of immense significance to the high
feelings and patriotic sentiment of one and a half millions
of American citizens in the island of Puerto Rico.”24 The
arguments in favor of the legislation did not fall on deaf
ears, and in May 1932 the House concurred in a voice vote
with a Senate Joint Resolution that changed the territory’s
name back to “Puerto Rico.”25
Having scored a cultural victory, Pesquera spent the
majority of his truncated term seeking immediate relief for
his constituents from economic depression. He requested
an extension of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation
(RFC) benefits and loans to Puerto Rico.26 Initiated at the
request of President Herbert Hoover in January 1932, and
dubbed “a millionaire’s dole” by New York Representative
Fiorello La Guardia, the RFC funneled federal tax revenue
directly to failing banks.27 On May 10, Pesquera introduced
a bill extending the RFC’s benefits to Puerto Rico, but the
bill died in the Committee on Banking and Currency.28
On June 10, during a debate on another bill establishing
a system of federal home-loan banks to forestall a run of
foreclosures linked to the Great Depression, Republican
Representative Louis McFadden of Pennsylvania offered an
amendment extending the bill’s benefits to Puerto
Rico. Proponents accused McFadden, a former banker,
of burdening the bill with amendments to prevent its final
passage, but McFadden argued that the bill was unfair
to the island territory. “Puerto Rico is one of the best
sources of trade with the United States that there is in the
Atlantic,” he explained. “I think it would be a particular
hardship on Puerto Rico, and would be a discrimination
against it, to keep it from receiving the benefits of this
particular legislation.” Pesquera entered the debate,
noting that the 1917 Jones Act dictated the “intention
of this Congress to make Puerto Rico participate, as a
community of American citizens, in all legislation that is
contemplated to be of benefit to the rest of the American
citizens.” Fielding questions on the soundness of Puerto
Rican banks—and reassuring incredulous Members that
Puerto Ricans held home loans—Pesquera described the
island’s bleak financial situation. “We are not asking alms,”
he declared. Conceding that Puerto Ricans did not pay
federal taxes, Pesquera emphasized the territory’s role as a
trading partner with the mainland. “We are your sixth best
customer in the whole world,” he observed. “If it is true
that the taxpayers of this country may have to make a little
sacrifice in order to give us the benefits of this law, it is also
true that they, being the business men of this country, are
going to continue to get a benefit in their business with the
island of Puerto Rico.”29 The amendment passed moments
later, 55 to 26.30 President Hoover signed the Federal Home
Loan Bank Act into law on July 22, 1932.31
Pesquera had been in office less than six months when
the island’s ever-shifting political parties chose their
candidates for the upcoming election. With the Partido
Unión Republicano and the Partido Socialista merging
into the Coalición in response to the newly organized
Partido Liberal, the nomination of candidates for Resident
Commissioner for the 1932 election was bitter and
chaotic. A colorful editorial appeared in early September
in El mundo, a newspaper that generally supported the
Partido Unión Republicano, promoting Pesquera as the
candidate most likely to represent “the anonymous legion
of informed citizens whose political leanings do not tend
toward blind fanaticisms … whose sincere love for their
native soil does not brood in brains disturbed by hunger
or by fear and whose daily bread does not depend on
election results.” The author described him “as the logical,
unquestionable representative to Washington for the next
term, and as a person who should be sent there, not only
by one party alone, but by the entire people of Puerto
Rico united.”32 However, Pesquera did not approve of
his party’s political merger. In a dramatic move at the
Agricultural Association Convention on September 11,
Pesquera officially left the Partido Unión Republicano
and threatened to form a new, agrarian-backed party.33
Enemies and allies alike called for his resignation.34
“Pesquera has hoped to sacrifice the farmers cause to his
foolhardy, feverish ambition to hold on to the office of
Resident Commissioner,” spat Socialista vice president
Bolívar Pagán.35 Pesquera’s old ally, Rafael Martínez Nadal,
dismissed Pesquera as an unskillful representative in
Washington. If not for his aides and other Puerto Ricans
lobbying Congress, including Santiago Iglesias, Martínez
Nadal claimed, “Pesquera would probably have lost a
month in wandering the streets of Washington, looking
for the government offices.”36 Partido Liberal leaders
considered nominating Pesquera at their convention
later in September, primarily in an attempt to court
the members of the powerful Agricultural Association.
However, Pesquera declined the nomination, throwing his
support behind the eventual nominee, Fernández García.37
Pesquera’s defection allowed him to act independently
in Washington, a freedom he embraced after Puerto Rico
was devastated by the San Cipriano Hurricane, whose
eye passed over the territory on the night of September
26 and 27, 1932. Estimating winds of more than 120
miles per hour, the local National Weather Bureau office
noted that “only the heaviest construction of masonry
and concrete, with cemented tile roofs, came out of the
zone of heavy damage unscathed.” The death toll reached
225, with 3,000 more reported injured.38 Pesquera sent
President Hoover a memorandum seeking immediate relief
for the thousands of homeless residents, requesting U.S.
Army supplies including “tents, cots and blankets” and
immediate government loans to three local banks to restore
public confidence.39 Receiving a response he characterized
as “disheartening,” he visited the President on October 1.40
Failing to capture aid or attention from the Hoover
administration, Pesquera publicized the administration’s
equivocal response in a politically calculated move.
Submitting a letter he sent to Senator Robert Wagner of
New York, a frequent advocate of Puerto Rican issues, to
several Spanish-language newspapers, Pesquera outlined his
correspondence with the Hoover White House as well as
with the War Department, which was assigned to the relief
efforts. He blasted the administration’s refusal to provide
5,000 tents and 30,000 cots and blankets, despite their
“admitting they have these supplies and transport facilities
for immediate shipment.” Pesquera’s insinuation that the
U.S. government purposely neglected Puerto Rico after the
destructive storm landed on the front page of English- and
Spanish-language newspapers in New York and Puerto
Rico.41 “The Administration’s attitude is as amazing as it is
heartless,” he seethed. “[T]he War Department has always
furnished these supplies to victims of similar disasters
not only in the United States but throughout the world.”
Alluding to the upcoming 1932 election, Pesquera said,
“It seems to me that Puerto Rico is doubly unfortunate in
that the calamity has come when [the] continental United
States is engaged in a political campaign and politically
minded officials seem to think that distressed communities
on the mainland will complain if succor is afforded Puerto
Rico while denied to other American communities. Isn’t
this ‘playing politics with human misery?’” he asked.42
Pesquera’s publicity captured the attention of Hoover
officials, who were engaged in a close and highly charged
campaign against Democratic candidate Franklin Delano
Roosevelt centering on a referendum in Hoover’s approach
to economic relief in the Great Depression. Puerto Ricans
were generally unhappy with Hoover’s relief efforts, and
their sentiments were shared by the Puerto Rican diaspora
living in New York City, who increasingly were agitating
for aid.43 “The Porto Ricans are complaining,” New York
state Republican committee chairman J. W. Krueger wrote
the White House. “[A]nd this is valuable ammunition
to the Democratic candidates and orators at this time.”44
Krueger added that Pesquera had become “one of the
leading speakers and an important figure at practically
all the Democratic meetings among Puerto Ricans” in
New York City.45 Another New York City GOP observer
implored the administration, “As you probably know,
thousands of Porto Ricans have settled in this City. They
are, of course, citizens, and after being here one year, have
the right to vote. For some reason, which many of us have
been unable to fathom, an impression has gone forth
amongst them that nothing has been done to alleviate the
conditions in Porto Rico caused by the recent tornado.”46
Given the administration’s belief that the Resident
Commissioner represented Hoover as a Beverley appointee,
and thus as a Republican, talk of political retribution
abounded. Krueger noted, “Something ought to be done
with Pesquera … who should be severely called to account
for his activities here in the Democratic campaign.”47
The White House made good on the threat, authorizing
Krueger to “make a suggestion to this Commissioner as
to whether he had considered that his appointment came
from Governor Beverley and that his misrepresentations
of the President’s action and position might be very
embarrassing to the Governor.”48 Krueger allegedly
confronted Pesquera, pressuring him to desist and asserting
that his criticism “was an untruth and a serious reflection
on the President, who, he knows, has done a lot for the
Puerto Ricans in the past two years.”49
Working with Governor Beverley, Pesquera continued
to pressure the Hoover administration, primarily because
both politicians faced enormous pressure from Puerto
Ricans to act. George Van Horn Moseley, a War
Department official, met with Pesquera to discuss the
issue and later paraphrased the Resident Commissioner’s
response as, “You must realize that I am the Resident
Commissioner and this request has been made on me, and
it is up to me to produce.”50 On October 3, Pesquera met
with officials from the Emergency Relief Division of the
RFC to follow up on a request made by Governor Beverley
for a $5 million loan toward immediate relief under Title
I of the federal organization’s founding legislation.51 The
meeting ended poorly for Pesquera. Though he requested
funds through various provisions of the act, RFC officials
claimed the organization was not designed to provide relief
from natural disasters and demanded to know precisely
how many people had been affected and how much money
was needed before drawing any permanent conclusions;
they estimated that $1 million would suffice for the
remainder of 1932.52 The Puerto Ricans did not receive
the supplies they requested, and on October 12, the RFC
approved a meager $750,000 relief loan.53
Pesquera’s anger with the Hoover administration
resulted in his official endorsement of Roosevelt in the
presidential election on November 3, and he encouraged
Puerto Ricans living in New York to vote accordingly.
“I believe we need a Democratic victory to ensure full
recognition of the rights we Puerto Ricans have as
American citizens,” he told El mundo. “We have not
received the recognition from the Republican administration
and the stance of the War Department as regards sending
materials to aid the victims of the last storm shows we
cannot hold out hope that the Republican administration
will cooperate with us, not even for humanitarian
reasons.”54 He also spoke freely about local politics. When
Santiago Iglesias secured the Coalición’s nomination for
Resident Commissioner, Pesquera published a statement
attacking this decision, arguing that Iglesias’s nominally
“red” ties would be harmful to the island’s cause in
Washington.55 “If the Republican Union Party has decided
not to choose a man from within its own ranks but rather
one from within the Socialist Party to hold Puerto Rico’s
only representative office in the U.S. Congress,” Pesquera
said, “it is obvious that the Republican Union [Party] will
not have a chance to maintain its principles in Washington,
because it has surrendered that privilege to the Socialist
Party.” He concluded, “And if this is not surrender, let God
be the judge.”56
After the Coalición handily won a majority in the
election, elevating Iglesias to Resident Commissioner,
Pesquera returned to his law practice and agricultural
pursuits in Bayamón, where he died on July 25, 1950.
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
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