Attempt Against Governor Winship
The year following the Ponce massacre, on July 25, 1938, Governor Winship decided to celebrate the invasion of Puerto Rico with a military parade. For a venue, he specifically chose the city of Ponce, in order to demonstrate that his "Law and Order" policy had been a successful one against the Nationalists. Since 18 Puerto Ricans had been slaughtered in Ponce just one year earlier, this decision proved to be disastrous.
The parade was greeted with a hail of bullets fired towards the grandstand, in an attempt to assassinate Governor Winship. It was the first time in Puerto Rican history that an attempt was made on a governor's life. Winship escaped unscathed, but 36 other people were wounded.
The dead included Nationalist Angel Esteban Antongiorgi, and National Guard Colonel Luis Irizarry. Despite the Nationalist Party's disavowal of any participation in the attack, several Nationalists were arrested, and nine were accused of "murder and conspiracy to incite violence." Among the nine Nationalists accused was the Captain of the Ponce branch of the Cadets of the Republic Tomas Lopez de Victoria and fellow cadets Elifaz Escobar, Santiago Gonzalez Castro, Juan Pietri and Prudencio Segarra. They served 8 years in the State Penitentiary of Puerto Rico. However, since the governments actions against them was unjust Governor Rexford Guy Tugwell had no other choice but to pardon them.
Winship proceeded to declare war against the Nationalists, to which Jaime Benitez, a student at the University of Chicago at the time, wrote a letter to President Roosevelt which in part read as follows: "The point I am to make is that the Governor himself through his military approach to things has helped keep Puerto Rico in a unnecessary state of turmoil. He seems to think that the political problem of Puerto Rico limits itself to a fight between himself and the Nationalists, that no holds are barred in that fight and that everybody else should keep out. As a matter of fact he has played the Nationalist game and they have played his."
Read more about this topic: Ponce Massacre
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