Luis A. Ferré

Luis A. Ferré

Don Luis Alberto Ferré Aguayo (February 17, 1904 – October 21, 2003) was a Puerto Rican engineer, industrialist, politician, philanthropist, and a patron of the arts. He was the third Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico from 1969 to 1973, and the founding father of the New Progressive Party which advocates for Puerto Rico becoming a state of the United States of America.

Quotes

• I am concerned that many young people in the Hemisphere seem to envision the United States as a nation intoxicated by power, addicted to warfare, controlled by a military-industrial complex, and determined to preserve the status quo, that we are against rapid economic and social growth.
  • 1971 National Governors Association Annual Meeting NGA

• Industry is not a collection of machines and tools and buildings. It is a social entity that has the responsibility of realizing the happiness of those who work in it.
  • Quoted by TIME Magazine on May 11, 1962 Time Magazine

• Not only are Puerto Ricans citizens by birth, but one would be hard-pressed to find a Puerto Rican without a sister in New York or a son in Chicago, a cousin in Orlando or a daughter in Honolulu or Oklahoma City.
  • On the subject of the Puerto Rican diaspora to a United States Senate committee in 1998, as quoted by the New York Times.

• The scholars and critics all called it kitsch, everyone thought I was crazy to buy them.
  • Quoted in a Forbes magazine interview in 1993[1], on his acquisition of art pieces to create the Ponce Museum of Art, now the largest art museum in the Caribbean, and considered one of the best in the Americas.

• Revolutionary in my ideas, liberal in my objectives and conservative in my methods.
  • As quoted by the New York Times in an October 22, 2003 obituary.

• The most important things in my life have been being governor of Puerto Rico and eliminating the old tradition that was established by [former Gov. Luis] Muñoz himself of being a boss. He was the boss of the government and there was no opposition in Puerto Rico. That was the thing I broke to make Puerto Rico a two-party system, a truly democratic society.
  • Caribbean Business interview, 1999.[2]

• My theory was that a city without a newspaper is a city without a soul.
  • On acquiring El Día, now the largest newspaper by circulation in Puerto Rico, as quoted by the Associated Press.

• We speak Spanish but we think American. We don't want to be a colony, we don't want to be inferior. We want to be equal.
  • On Puerto Ricans and their relationship with the United States, in a 1999 WOSO radio station interview in Puerto Rico, as quoted by the Associated Press

• I hope I will live to see a final meeting of the minds between Puerto Rico and statehood, but [even] if I don't live that long, I am certain it will happen.
  • As quoted by the Associated Press after the 1998 status referendum in Puerto Rico.

Attributed

Reason does not scream. Reason convinces.

• La razón no grita, la razón convence.
  • Reason does not scream. Reason convinces.
  • Attribution inscribed on the memorial statue in the Puerto Rican Capitol (see right).