5/27/2023 0 Comments Microcosm band![]() In some ways, Puerto Rico is as much a part of the United States as are those other non-contiguous parts of the country, the states of Alaska and Hawaii. ![]() citizens through the close trans-oceanic family ties of many of these citizens through common currency, common diplomatic representation, common postal service, common military service, common commerce and trade and through many other bonds ranging from the ecclesiastically hierarchical and educationally accreditable to the realms of the commercially entertaining and the sartorially fashionable. For our purposes this morning, suffice it to say that Puerto Rico is intimately linked to the United States: linked through its almost four million U.S. If you glanced at this morning's San Juan papers you will have an idea of some of the existing opinions regarding what's to be done next, and an idea of the urgency with which the subject is viewed by many people in Puerto Rico and by a few people in the U.S. 1998, you see, marks a century of the island's extremely close link with the United States, a link first forged through war: the Spanish-American War of 1898. Some of these opinions have become crystallized in the form of political parties, of which the island presently has three, and the subject is particularly significant this year of 1998. There is also a wide range of published opinion concerning what, if anything, is to be done next regarding Puerto Rico's political status in the world, a status which at the moment seems to satisfy nobody on the island. There is an ample literature on that subject. This is not the moment for a lecture on Puerto Rico and how it became what it is today. I am as saddened as everyone else by the destruction wrought in Puerto Rico by the recent hurricane, but very pleased to be here among so many old and new friends I am highly honored to have been invited to deliver this Fifth Annual Robert Trotter Lecture of The College Music Society. ![]() ![]() Thank you and good morning, President Seaton colleagues, guests friends all. ![]()
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