The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 13, March 27, 2005, Article 14

FIFTY STATES PLUS SIX?

On March 23, 2005, the Miami Herald published an opinion
piece by Kenneth D. McClintock, president of the Puerto Rico
Senate, about the stalled bill proposing to extend the Fifty States
Commemorative Coin Program Act to include quarters for
Washington, D.C. and the U.S. territories of American Samoa,
Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands
and Puerto Rico.

"It is offensive and frankly inexplicable that Congress should
treat these half-dozen loyal U.S. communities as if we were
not part of the nation.

Several times in recent years, the U.S. House or Representatives
has passed the District of Columbia and United States Territories
Circulation Quarter Dollar Program Act, which would rectify
this omission and place the ''Separated Six'' on an equal numismatic
footing with the rest of the United States. However, in the U.S.
Senate (where none of the six has a voice, let alone a vote), the
Banking Committee has repeatedly failed to act on the bill.
Roughly 80 percent of the American citizens being snubbed by
the Senate are residents of Puerto Rico."

"Since 1898, the American flag has flown over Puerto Rico.
The American dollar has been Puerto Rico's currency since
1899. Since 1917, Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens.
After more than a century as patriotic members of the
American family, having defended the nation in two world
wars and every conflict thereafter (including Afghanistan and
Iraq), Puerto Ricans have earned the right to civic parity. It
is patently wrong that the U.S. citizens of Puerto Rico are
denied the right to vote for the commander-in-chief who
dispatches Puerto Rican military personal into harm's way,
but it is utterly preposterous that we have been legislatively
ostracized from something so presumably noncontroversial
as a commemorative coin program."

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  Wayne Homren, Editor

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