Enrique Campos del Toro (15 June 1898 – 28 February 1980) was a Puerto Rican

law professor A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...

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, and

attorney general In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...

Early years

Campos del Toro was born in

Ponce, Puerto Rico Ponce (, , , ) is both a city and a municipality on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. The city is the seat of the municipal government. Ponce, Puerto Rico's most populated city outside the San Juan metropolitan area, was founded on 12 August 1 ...

, on 15 June 1898. He received his law degree from the

University of Puerto Rico School of Law The University of Puerto Rico School of Law is a law school in Puerto Rico. It is one of the professional graduate schools of University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus and the only law school in the University of Puerto Rico System. It ...

in 1923. Upon his graduation, he became a professor at said university from 1923 to 1924.

Career

In 1936, Campos del Toro was appointed assistant to the Puerto Rico

. In 1943 he was appointed president of the Puerto Rico Industrial Commission. In 1944, at a time when the Governor of Puerto Rico was still an appointee of the

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...

, Campos del Toro was appointed Coordinator of Insular Affairs by the colonial Governor of Puerto Rico. In April 1944, Campos del Toro became president of the Insular Labor Relations Board (ILRB). In 1945 the President of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

appointed him Attorney General of Puerto Rico, a position he held for a year. Together with

Teodoro Moscoso José Teodoro Moscoso Mora
Rico Puerto Rico. Noticel. June 15, 2012. Retrieved June 28, 2012. ...

, Jorge Bird, Samuel Schweitzer, Rafael Carrion Jr., Guillermo Rodriguez Benitez, Luis Valiente and Alfonso Valdes, Campos del Toro is credited with having turned around the impoverished Puerto Rican economy of the first half of the 20th century and into an industrial/financial powerhouse with the highest standard of living in the Caribbean and Latin America. In 1948, Campos del Toro founded El Diario de Puerto Rico (''The Puerto Rico Daily''), and in 1949 he founded the Puerto Rico Loan and Savings Association. He was president of First Federal Savings (today Firstbank) and a member of its governing board. In the 1960s Campos del Toro wrote two books, ''The housing problem of Latin America and its possible solution'', published in 1961, and ''Divagaciones de un hombre confundido'' (Madrid: Editorial Stanley: Unwin Books. Ediciones Iberoamericanas), published in 1967. In 1961 he also wrote ''Reflexiones minimas: artículos y conferencias'' (Mexico: Editorial Orion). In June 1976, Campos del Toro was honored as the founder of Puerto Rico's first savings and loan association.Dreyer, Martha. ''This week in Caribbean Business history.'' Caribbean Business. 5 July 2007, Vol. 35 Issue 26, p16. He died on 28 February 1980 of prostate cancer. He was buried at the Puerto Rico Memorial Cemetery in

Carolina, Puerto Rico Carolina (; ) is a city and municipality located on the northeast coast of Puerto Rico. It lies immediately east of the capital San Juan and Trujillo Alto; north of Gurabo and Juncos; and west of Canóvanas and Loíza. Carolina is spread ove ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Campos del Toro, Enrique 1898 births 1980 deaths Popular Democratic Party (Puerto Rico) politicians Deaths from cancer in Puerto Rico Deaths from prostate cancer Attorneys from Ponce Businesspeople from Ponce

Early years

Career

See also

References