How the States Got Their Shapes Too_ The People Behind the Borderlines - Mark Stein [147]
During this same period, Berry also sought to have bookstores in Jersey City voluntarily cease selling James Jones’s popular novel From Here to Eternity. The novel’s language was more explicit than the Academy Award—winning film, which was currently in release.
While these actions may sound outrageous today (and were controversial and derided at the time), they shared a common denominator with Berry’s other efforts, and in particular with his adventure on Ellis Island. They all bespoke a desire to preserve Jersey City as it was—or as Berry believed or wished it was. Ironically, Jersey City had been one of the most politically corrupt cities in America when ruled by Mayor Frank Hague and his nephew, Mayor Frank Hague Egger, from 1917 to 1949. But that was not the Jersey City Berry longed to preserve. His vision, real or imagined, was captured in the town’s Hudson Reporter in 2007, forty-five years after his death. “Prior to the large malls, there were many neighborhood stores,” a letter to the editor remembered. “Totaro Hardware, Stegman Tavern, Stanley Bakery.… The candy stores on Jackson Avenue would remain open until after 10 PM.… The City, under Bernard J. Berry, conducted nightly basketball games at Audubon Park (starring Vinny Ernst), art shows, handball games and an open playground with outdoor showers for the children in the summertime.”
Bernard Berry was unable to stop the cultural and economic forces of the 1950s. But one effort that succeeded was his Ellis Island raid. It raised awareness of New Jersey’s ownership claim, thereby helping prepare the way for the state’s subsequent legal efforts. The legal challenge, far less theatrical and far more time-consuming, culminated in 1998, when the U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled that the landfill acres of the island were indeed in New Jersey. Today Ellis Island is officially Ellis Island, New York/New Jersey.
But Berry’s publicity stunt achieved even more. His vision of an ethnic museum and park—yet another of his efforts to preserve and respect the past—prevailed when Ellis Island became part of the National Park Service’s Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965. Since 1990, following a $150 million restoration effort, its main buildings have served as a tremendously successful immigration museum and records center.
THE ALMOST STATES OF AMERICA
LUIS FERRÉ
Puerto Rico: The Fifty-First State?
Puerto Ricans have served with distinction in all the wars in which the U.S. has been involved [since 1898].… Several, such as Fernando Luis Garcia … have been decorated with the Congressional Medal of Honor. Among other distinguished leaders is Admiral Horacio Rivero, in 1968 the Chief of NATO Forces in Southern Europe.… Our great actors, like José Ferrer and Raul Julia, have been American favorites.… Roberto Clemente has been included in the Hall of Fame.… The time has come for Congress … to do justice to more than 3.6 million disenfranchised American citizens.
—LUIS FERRÉ1
Puerto Rico became an American possession during the Spanish-American War when, in 1898, U.S. troops landed on the island and met the welcoming arms of its residents, delighted to be liberated from Spain. Congress conferred citizenship on Puerto Ricans in 1917, followed one month later by draft notices. In 1947 Congress allowed Puerto Ricans to elect their own governor. Statehood, however, repeatedly faced resistance … from the majority of Puerto Ricans.
Luis Ferré was the leading voice of those Puerto Ricans who sought statehood. He founded and led the New Progressive Party, whose central platform was Puerto Rican statehood. This quest had commenced much earlier, dating back to the very beginning of American sovereignty and emanating from both Americans and Puerto Ricans. One month before the ceasefire that ended the Spanish-American War, a letter to the editor in the New York Times described the “triumph of democracy.” The letter stated that the United States “is capable of ruling men