La convocatoria de una semilla: Fundamentos y dinámicas del desarrollo constitucional de Puerto Rico | Cuarta Edición

73 la convocatoria de una semilla: fundamentos y dinámicas del desarrollo constitucional de puerto rico de Puerto Rico se redactaría en San Juan por manos puertorriqueñas. 123 La concesión de la ciudadanía norteamericana a los puertorriqueños estuvo presente en todos los años desde 1900 a 1917 en varias piezas legislativas y en los mensajes de los presidentes de Estados Unidos que promovían su extensión. Con esta se aspiraba a definir diferentes rumbos de Puerto Rico y las Filipinas y significar la permanencia de la Isla en su relación con Estados Unidos. Su concesión inició un «diálogo de ambivalencias», como ha dicho Morales Carrión. 124 El profesor José Cabranes, destacado juez de Apelaciones de Estados Unidos, ha expresado: The collective naturalization of the Puerto Ricans one year after the Filipinos were promised their independence was a watershed in American colonial history and quite probably the turning point in Puerto Rico’s political development. Having agreed in 1916 to grant independence to the larger and more intractable of the new insular territories, it is significant that Congress then chooses to assert the permanence of the existing relationship with the smaller and more loyal territory . 125 La iniciativa del presidente William Howard Taft de proponer la ciudadanía norteamericana para los puertorriqueños en 1912, aunque no fue la primera, fue la más articulada. En su Mensaje Anual del 6 de diciembre de 1912 al Congreso, Taft endosó calurosamente el proyecto para la extensión de la ciudadanía norteamericana, aprobado hacía poco por la Cámara, pero tuvo cuidado en separar tal acción de promesa alguna 123 Trías Monge lo cita: «As nearly all the essential concessions looking to a larger measure of self-government for the island are granted in this bill, which if passed will constitute their new constitution, it is confidently believed that the dream and desire for independence will not be longer indulged or cherished, and that Porto Rico may become a great and prosperous self-government Commonwealth, which if not independent, will maintain its association with the United States because of its desire to continue such association, and because it will be mutually beneficial to Porto Rico and to the United States to continue it. I venture the prediction that the next constitution of government for Porto Rico that will be formulated will not be drawn in Washington, but it will be formulated in San Juan by the people of Porto Rico and sanctioned and approved by the congress of the United States. As the present constitution of Canada was formulated at Ottawa, as the present constitution of Australia was drawn at Melbourne, and as the constitutions of the great self-governing Commonwealths were approved without change by the parliament at London, so will the future constitution of Porto Rico be drawn by her own people and approved without modification by the Congress of the United States». Ibíd. , p. 79. 124 Arturo Morales Carrión, Puerto Rico and the United States , supra , p. 51. 125 Véase: José Cabranes, Citizenship and the American Empire , supra , p. 5. «United States citizenship thus inevitably was considered a means of acknowledging the special place of Puerto Rico among the new colonial territories and of expressing the virtually universal expectation of a permanent relationship». Íd . , p. 53.