'In Puerto Rico

TERRITORIES

In Puerto Rico

Great crowds gathered in streets of San Juan, of Rio Piedras, of many a village and hamlet throughout Puerto Rico last week. They had but one purpose: to stop all motor traffic. They scattered tacks, nails, scraps of iron, pieces of glass over the pavements. Automobiles that did not disappear prudently into driveways were attacked by gangs who drove nails into their tires, smashed their windshields with bricks. Thus, from end to end of their island, Puerto Ricans struck against the high price of gasoline.

In the 400-year-old fort which serves as the governor's mansion, Acting Governor Benjamin J. Horton was lunching with Deputy NRAdministrator Boaz Walton Long. NRAdministrator Long stepped to the window, took one look at the crowd and at the tack-strewn streets, decided to postpone his inspection tour of the island. Colonel Francis Riggs, chief of the Puerto Rican police, came bumping into San Juan from Rio Piedras with 23 punctures. "This is anarchy!" he cried.

But the strike was short-lived. Bus drivers, taximen, public service workers, presumably inspired by their employers, had scarcely got it into momentum before Acting Governor Horton stepped in with a proclamation. The price of gasoline was 25-c-; he reduced it to 20-c- ordered the leading companies--Shell, Texaco, West India (Standard of New Jersey subsidiary), Pyramid--to keep it at that price until gasoline costs could be investigated. The Commissioner of Labor, a Puerto Rican, magnanimously suggested that if the companies starved on a 20-c- price, the Legislature should reimburse them for their loss.

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