the senators visit haiti and santo...

Jan. 4,19221 The” Nation

The Senators Visit Haiti and Santo Domingo ‘By ERNEST H. GRUENING

The ~ritsr of this artide, who is Managing Editor of The Nation, has just returned from the Caribbean, where he went in order to present a first-hand accoud of the official hear&m Another article, entitled Haiti and Santa Do- mingo Today, till be published in a fo&hcoming issue.

T HE Senatorial Commission investigating the American Occupation and Administratton “of Haiti and Santo Doi

mingo, Senators McCormick (chairman), Oddie, Pomerene, and Jones, passed two and a half weeks on the Caribbean island which houses both republics, leaving ,a trail of hope, anticipation, doubt, and disappointment.

To the majority ‘of Haittans the Commission’s coming meant deliverance. A simple people, it has been said, these Haitians. For weeks the event had been virtually their sole and universal topic. A couple of naval whitewash inquiries had made them skeptical about the United States’s good faith, but they felt that a Senate Commission was bound to be different, and they regarded the six long and oppressive years of military occupation as nearing an end. A presenti- ment that all their hopes might not be realized came with the refusal of the Commission to order even the temporary abrogation of martial law for the period of its stay and its failure to issue, as the Haitians had repeatedly requested, an emphatic proclamation assuring safety to all witnesses. True, an announcement was made two days before the Sen: ators’ arrival, but it was issued from brigade headquarters, specifically denied the need “further to assure the s8ecurity of witnesses,” and went so far as to repeat the language of the proclamation which had preceded the meaningless Mayo court that the Commission would “not condone perjury.” In the prevailing Haitian state of mind-a dash of ice water!

Cheering news, however, was that the Commission would stay at a hotel, and not as rumor had established for weeks, at the homes of the chief officers of the Occupation. This with the radio request from the chairman asking what en- tertainment, if any, the Cercle Bellevue had planned, again placed the Commission in the light of friendly and impartial investigators. Th’e CercIe Bellevue, which is Port au Prince’s exclusive club, famed for the quality of its enter- tainments, had up to that moment firmly abandoned its tra- ditionally hospitable habit-it would not risk the possibility of a slight, of a single Senator’s wife declining its invitation to the elaborate ball and supper which it now proceeded+to arrange. And rooted in this question of social, or rather normal, human intercourse lies the essence of many past misunderstandings and the gravest menace to friendIy relations in the future.

The hearings too started off poorly. The news that the Commission would spend but four days in Port au Prince, when four weeks were considered scarcely adequate, produced general consternation, the public grasping with difficulty that the Commission had already spent seven weeks in session, and that the trip to the Caribbean represented to some of the Senators a distinct political sacrifice. For weeks rumors had been circulating through Haiti that this Commission was but another whitewash affair and as evidence thereof, it would stay only a week! So the Haitian morale was somewhat impaired.

The first afternoon was consumed by three witnesses tes-

tifying to abuses by the military and persistent cross-exami- nation, which failed to break down the last of these, Marc Ducheine, a respected citizen of Hinche. He had been ar- rested, subjected to daily manhandling by a high officer (name given) in order to get him to confess to a cache of arms of another individual of which he had no knowledge. I After several weeks’ detention he was given a convict’s garb and thus learned for the first time from a Gendarmerie officer that he had been sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. He actually served three years and five months, the greater part at the hardest kind‘of labor. He did not know, to this day, he said, the crime with which he had been charged and for which he had never been tried. There followed what was intended to be a brief appeal by Georges Sylvain, managing director of the Union Patriotique, to the Commiss,ion-but circumstances kept him on the stand all the following day. He hoped, in view of the shortness of the Commission’s stay, the difficulty of communication, the prevailing financial dis- tress, and the terrorization of potential witnesses that the Senators would go into the interior, into the sections where most violence had occurred, and hear witnesses there. His assertions that a state of fear existed and that witnesses were consequently intimidated were sharply challenged. These were grave charges, atrocious charges, and of a wholly general nature, he was told. He was asked to name twenty- five witnesses who had been ihtimidated. He tried to explain that he was not offering testimony, but simply de- scribing a general state of mind, which, due to the failure of the Commission to give adequate guaranties, existed. Upon thunderous demands for proof he offered to read some letters received from potential witnesses in outlying districts telling of their fears, but again was cut short when the Com- mission grasped that none of these letters were sworn declarations. It was all a misunderstanding, which-illustrated but one thing-the fundamental dissimilarity in the temper- ament and methods of the two cultures. With the utmost sincerity on both sides the incompatibility remains,

Then followed a long questionnaire by Senator Pomerene which widened the breach. He wanted to know all about this Union “Patrique” ; what was it, by what right did it claim to represent the sentiment of the country, was it not hostile to the United States ond hostile to the Haitian .Gov- ernment, did it not contain among its members several as- pirants to the Haitian Presidency?. How was it financed; had it received any financial assistance from the United States? All of which was satisfactorily explained; the Union Patriotique did represent the prevailing sentiment; it was, of course, not hostile to the United States; on the contrary, it desired American friendly offices, but it was naturally irrevocably opposed to the illegal overthrow of Haitian sovereignty and the occupation of the country by alien military forces ; as for its harboring in its midst presidential candidates, its by-laws specifically forbade its es- pousing any presidential candidacy or interesting itseJ.f in any way in individuals. As for the finances, they were derived from dues and special constributions by members- not a cent had ever come from outside of Haiti. The Sena- torial heckling then took a new turn. Who, Senator Porn- erene wanted to know with some show of grimness (Senator

Pomerene’s bark is worse than his bite but the Haitians did not know that), was responsible fo r the inscriptions in the welcoming demonstration of the preceding morning : “Shall Haiti be your Belgium?”, “Shall Haiti be your Ireland?”; “Shall Haiti be your Congo?” The Union Patriotique, of course. Did the Union Patriotique think that it could influence or control the opinions of the C‘oirimission by such devices? Did it seek to arouse the populace by these inscriptions? If not, what purpose could it have in proclaim- ing Such sentiments? The answer, of course, was that they represented the sentiments of the Haitians. And then the entire day was spent in questions about Haitian history, Haitian education, designed to bring out the backwardness of the Haitians and other national defects. All this produced an unfortunate impression that kh,e Senators were hostile, an effect that was in part .overcome by the geniality and ffiendliness of the entire Senatorial party at the Cercle Belleme affair that night, which upheld all the klub’s tra- ditions of brilliance. To this function neither a single OR- cer ,in the Occupation nor the President were invited.

The next morning there were kio sessions, the afternoon was given to private conferences, which left but one day for testimony. This day was, how&er, filled to overfladink; A French priest, Father Le Sidanet, told of 250 houses of peaceable Haitians burned. One Polydor St. Pierre exliib- ited a back and legs seared with the scars of a red hot iron deliberately applied in the prison at St. Mac-and at the recollection of his poignant sufferings broke down and wept, while the Senators; appeared deeply moved. He testified Chat the burning had been performed by Captain Fitz- gerald Brown of the Marine Corps. A witness put on by the Occupation immediately after testified that he had been in the prison ai bhe time and that the burning had be& done by a Haitian gendarme. Lanoue, one of the editors, of the Cowriel‘ Haitien, who had been in prison a t the same time, swore in tuni thai; he had often heard the preceding witness describe the burning at the hands of Captain Brown. It seemed established, however, beyond contradiction that the burning had taken place iri the! prison, where the victi? was subsequently treated far months, for his burns, and that prison was in charge of Captain Brown. Volney Paultre testified to witnessing three men tortured with an electric current derived from a field radio t o extract confes- sions. After prolonged agonies they confessed and were later, he said-Although to bhis WVaS not an eye-witnes- killed.

Jdlibois, co-ditor with Lanoue of the his six months’ term ended, appeared to tet i fy to the rea. sons his imprisonment. When the order reestablishing Martial law issued his paper w a already on the press. filaitiaii journdism is primitive. It boasts no linotypes and only flai-bfd presses. Composition is by hand. An a+ticle criticizing the Occupation was already in type. In order not to scrap the entire issue, Joiibois extracted from the type dentehces that he considered could possibly be objectionable, leaving the spaccs blank. But the court martial decided that the readers could read inflammatory sentiment3 into the blanks! Jolibois had been leading the opposition to tKe Occupation, and the latter was determined to “get” him. ?bus would the British have regarded Tom Paine. Courts- martial verdicts are generally determined in advance. In &is connection Judge William H. Jackson, the distinguished jurist who for eight years was United States District Judge a t Panama and later presiding Judge of the Land Court, es-

tablished by the Occupation in Santo Domingo, related to me a significant experience of his own. When Fabio Fiallo, the Dominican poet and journalist whose imprisonment caused such stir throughout Latin-America that Washington was forced to reverse the verdict of the military, was placed on trial, the Judge Advocate in charge of the prosecution asked Judge Jackson to appear before the court and as an expert in Spanidh to give his judgment as to the incendiary character of the newspaper article in Fiallo’s paper, La Bandera

which Fialllo had written and for which he was being tried. Upon reading the article Judge Jackson informed the Judge Advocate that basing his opinion on his knowledge of the Spanish language and the Hispanic tempera- ment and customs, he would be obliged t o give his judgment that the article was not incendiary in character and not ac- tionable. “In that case,” said the Judge Advocate, “we shall not call you.” Judge Jackson was not called; the court martial.found Fiallo guilty and sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment and $5,000 fine. It was fittingly retributive that the Fiallo case did more to bring the Dominican cause before the world than any other single incident. Fiallo’s crime and Jolibois’s crime was that each protested against the alien invas,ion and conquest of his country.

The disappointment of the Haitians at the shortness of the Senatorial stay and the consequent impossibility of hear- ing a great number of witnesses-there had literally been just one day and a half of testimony in Port au P r i n c e was lessened somewhat by Senator Pomerene’s announcement that the case was by no means closed, that the Corn- m’ission would continue to sit in Washington and would be glad to hear further witnesses and to receive any and all depositions.

The Commission passed overland accompanied by s, oven officers of the Occupati,on in addition to the auto drivers, stopped briefly at several interior towns, where demonstra- tions demanding the return of national independence, the abolition 05 martial law, and the release of the imprisoned Haitian journalists were staged. Senator Oddie and the official stenbgrapher remained a day Hinche and Maissade to take the testimony of some twenty-four witnesses- mostly .of the killing of various of their relatives. These witnesses tame in a steady stream, trudging in miles from the surrounding country. The press was not represented at these hearings as at the last moment the previous arrangements to take its representatives overland fell through, the reason given being lack of available transportation facili- ties. At that lata hour it was virtually impossible to arrange for private transpwtation and those of the party who were not included in the overland arrangements went di-. rectly to Santo Domingo on the transport Argonne.

The atmosphere in the Hispanic Republic was vastly better than in Haiti. I am convinced that none of the Sena- tors was conscious of the slightest difference in his attitude, but to those who had been spectators at the hearings in both cases the change was startling. For one thing it was Sdnto Domingo’s first testimony before the Commis- sion. A t any rate, there was a friendliness, ali elaborate courtesy, an overflowing of the milk of human kindness in Santo Domingo which had been lizissirig in Haiti. From the Senators to the first witness, Seiior Francisco Peynado, flowed a steady stream of compliments. He was, he asserted at one time, speaking only aB an individual-he was not a leader. Senator Pomerene begged leave to inisist that he was. Peynadd’s son, organizer of the demon-

The :N-ation 9

stration of protest against the :Occupation, x a s caUed by Senator McCormick t o .sit rby his .side du,ring one of the SXS-

.sions. There were innumerable other touches of .like na- :tuce which the Dominicans appreciated .and which produced La fayorable itmpression. Seaor -Peynado, who is president of the .College of Layyeas, summed .up the Dominican desire with “Give us our indep.endence with the aecwity -of your friendsbip.” Questioned in detail about Dominican revolutions, he asserted they were .essentially harmless -to -life and pxoperty-entirely .so to the -life and property ,of foreigners. I n all Dominican history .but one American -had been killed-by a shot aimed at an .ex-President-and for this carelessness the Dominican Government had promptly paid ko the .relatives ihe sum of $33,000. I(nde.ed it was brought out that ;the “‘vocation of being a foreigner” =had often I n ,the past k e n “considered safe and lucrative. As for the great body of Dominicans they &were neither perturbed by nor .interested in the revolutions:; their life -continued unchanged. And even the revolutionists suffered 3ew .casualties. There was marching ,and countermarchimg, playing f o r position, little real ,fighting. Revolution, in .short, was a %port.” I n -1912, with the-country in revolu- kion eleven months out of twelve, the Dominican \Republic ‘had exported and imported more goods than the sum total ,of -six other -Hispanic-American countrries.

The second witness, P-edro P.erez, a former governor &of Seibo province, after testifying a t some ,length and answer- ‘ing numerous questions, startled the unexentful pqpcedure by refusing flatly to answer ,a question by Senato-r Pom- -erene as -to how -the revolutionists of former days -secured ”their arms, .homes, and !supplies. There lwas mild surprise -and man inquiry the reason .of this refusal. Because, asserted the witness in substance, all .these questions being internal Dominican matters were n o .one :else’s ibusiness, and -that h e ,wanted there .and .then to ‘know by what r ight .the .United States was in Santo pomingo, , i n violation of .all international .law and .treaties .and by .what right -it had treated Dominicans dike .“NegrQes .of .the Congo?’

The Domirlicans’ -case .proceeded like .a .well-oiled -machine. h ,the live days rat “their .disposal they ,concentrated on two main poi7nts-first, .that :the seasons -alleged f o r the -original landing .and cOccupation -.were rinvalid; .seco.nd, the -introduction of .a certain number of :atrocities, designed, -as

-Horace ,G. Knowles, counsej -for the -Dominicans, took -.pains :to .emphasize, not t o indict -the offenaers -individually or even tthe military -Occupation to -such .extent that ?it might -be held respongjble $€or -the deeds of its .subordinates, ;but :to$ndicate what the Dominican people had suffered and -why in consequence bitterness <against %he :Occupat_ion .existed.

‘SVGness :after dwikness, qualified by -first-hand -knowledge -or a special ;intimacy with the events .of the time, testified -that four facts in sthe following paragraph from the statement .prepared tby-%he M a w Department for the SenatoriGl -Commission .and incorporated in &he 3ecord ,were false.

Fortunately 1the.election of Jimenez yho .took ,office on Decem- -ber .5, 1914, -was :foll.o.wed b y a period Aof .c.omgar-ative ,calm in ,the Dominican ,Repql$ic. The dements .of disorgxanization prere present, howeve:, awaiting f,avorable .opportunity for .eTpses- sion. In April, 1916, General Desiderio Arias,.Secretary of W-ar, executed a coup d’etat, deposed Jimenez, and seized the executive power. At this point the United ’States -Government inter- vened end, with the consent of the rightful though deposed -President ;Timenez, la-nded -naval forces on may 5, and pacified Santo Domingo City, the capital. Jimenez -then re-

;signed, and the -Council of ,Ministers .ass,umed contrql of affairs.

The four facts which each successive witness strenuously combated were: .(1) That General Arias executed a .coup d‘etat and deposed Jimenez; (2) that Arias seized the ex- ~ecutive power; 4 3 ) that President Jimenez ever consknted t o the landing of the American troops, and (4) that United States naval forces pacified Santo Domingo City. Instead, -it was vigor-ously contended khat while -thepe had been a difference of opinion between -the Secretary of War and the President, there-had been no coup d‘etat, and Arias had not seized the executive power. President Jimenez’s son, his secretary, Arturp Logroiio, and others swore that the late P-resident had never consented to >the Ianding of troops ; .that when he first sav them disembarking he .believed them merely for the protection of the American Legation and that the American Minister, Mr. W. W. aussell, had specifically assured him of that fact; and that when-he the number of troops exceeded that which could possibjy be “needed as -a .legation guard he .realized .phat wa_s -happening -and resigned. %inally the Dominicans denied -the i-mplica- $ion that the naval forces had :pacified -the city., saying .the city was quiet. The testimony -was impressivqly g i p n ,and consincing. Zn ,trying to checlc it -up I -asked Mr. Rus- sell ,whether the above allusion to him ,wag correot. -Ee replied that he had given the assuraece that :the tropps were ,landing merely t o protect the Legation and that &hat time h e had so -believed. .On .the other hand .hg as- tsert,ed that a shrapnel shell had burst :in the Sront 4he Legatipn, fragments ,which -were stir1 in his posses- gion, :and that during :+ lull in the !fight;ing $e -had rushed his -wife and his three children _agd other America-n women _down the beach -to ,cornparatiye safety. The Dominiean -testimony indicated that -the ,casualties were two killed ;and (eight wounded.

‘The ,other pgqt of ,the-Dominikans’ defense -to.ok jss-ue w,ith the ,c_h+rge %h-at they ;had xiolated Article I11 ithe trea!ty of 1907 which forbids their increasing their .public .d-&t -without -$he ;consent ,of :&he United .States. the reason :given .i-n =.a Proclamation .by Admiral has been the official $ustifigation $@r Oc-cupation. Zhe Do- i-min-icqnp . cpntended khat -their public ,debt not been ,in- creased, -that $he &ntge& Land am-ofiization on ;the ou$&pd- -ing -1pan-s had been -paid xeguja-rly :in ;accLordanc-e ?with -the &r-eaty, -and that -the deficit abo_u$ $,L4,000 in national ” treasury _. rm.ostly owi.n_g :on :the pay .of :soldi.ers other i o v - ”ern-ment -offi.ciaJs,a ,defici$-brogsht about by world,c-risis,

-a aurely :internal af3a-i-r -and i-n =no :sense t h e agreement Rith ; t h e United -States. :Here at most a dif- ,ference lin :i&erp_re_tation $0 - y h t !was included pin :+he -p.or-ds (‘pgblic debt.” That such diffe-w-nce ..opiniion -gave $he .United States ithe ,right -witb.ou$ :referring to.a~bi- -$ratifin, with-o-ut ,even -p.reliminary I discussion - ~ t h the :Do- miniaan .Government, $0 intewene vi et armis:and ,to,abo!ish .all .Dominican .goyernm-en$ ,tenabl’e.

Impressive :throughout --%as !the iexcc?llepce Domini- ,cans’ “orale. :I-n taking:%heir stand usop $he high xmund -that ithe Amexicap ;Occupatio-n illegal, they have -as- sumed :a position which i s .and ,con$in-ue ko h e tim- -pregnable. Allusions to ,gertain -internal ,difficulties, to failumes of .goyernment, to dack .of this that form of Iprog- xess =leave !them unrufiled. That, .they assert, is .their 0-m !business. And _every -Dominican _witness ended with definite skatement of this -position; .entered -his ‘accusation .of wrongdoing against the .United States ,and his demand for

10 The Nation [Vol. 114, No. 2948

an unqualified return ‘of Dominican independence subject only to the preexisting treaty of 1907. And the case was admirably summed up when- the eloquent Arturo Logroiio concluded with :

By disembarking troops and committing an act of war without previous declaration against a friendly nation, and despoiling its government, the United States has‘ violated (a) the Con- stitution of the United States, (b) the Constitution of the Dominican Republic, (e) existing treaties between both, (d) especially the convention of 1907, in turning over t o marines and not to the Dominican Republic the balance of the customs receipts after taking out amortization and collection charges, (e) the resolution not to intervene proposed by the United States and adopted at the Third International Conference of the Hague, (f) international law, (g) the object and purpose of

Monroe Doctrine as interpreted by the United States, (h) the Fourteenth Point of Woodrow Wilson. There is th,e charge, clear, categorical, complete. It cannot, unfortunately, be successfully refuted.

Turning from principles t o details, the Dominicans staged a performance that might well make Caius Caligula, Torque- mada, and the Marquis de Sade turn in their graves with envy. Specifically they put on the stand witnesses who testified to the manners and customs in the field of one Charles Frederick Merkel, late captain U. S. C. To this gentle soul bhe water cure was but the merest reprimand. I shall not go into the harrowing detailethey will all be printed in the official record-which deserves wider reading than it will probably receive. Suffice to say that they included nearly every form of torture imaginable. Nor need: one ac- cept merely the testimony of Dominican witnesses in this case, convincing as they were. Word of this officer’s eccen- tricities filtered through to headquarters and an investigation was begun. The report of Majomr R. S. Kingsbury con- firms many of the gravest charges made by bhe Dominicans and formed the basis of Captain Merkel’s arrest for trial by court martial. He committed suicide four days later, Oc- tober 2, 1918.

The Occupation naturally disclaims responsibility for Merkel. He was an exception, a brute, a disgrace to the service-and the fact that he was to be court-martialed in- dicates the official attitude. Unfortunately he was allowed to carry on his abominable cruelties for at least six months, two months after definite complaints had been made and an inquiry ordered. The fact remains too that whether or not these officers’ performances are unrepresentative-which nobody will an instant deny-they are an inevitable ac- companiment of the sort of campaign of “pacification” which we carried on in Santo Domingo and Haiti; and beIatedly repudiating o r even court-martialing an occasional ultra- conspicuous offender neither restores the lives of their in- -nocent victims, nor indemnifies their relatives the tortured survivors. And the effect on the public sentiment in the subjugated country is irremediable. In the case of Merkel, no less than three officers of superior rank assured *me in all seriousness that the explanation of this phenom- enon was that he was a German and that he had been placed where he was by the Imperial German Government for the purpose of stirring the Dominicans to revolt by his cruelties. Merkel was in the Marine Corps for eighteen years, working up from the ranks. It was not the Imperial German Government which commissioned him and then promoted him through successive grades, or which planted him in the Marine Corps in the year 1900-although a telegraphic response just received from the Marine Corps states that

his birthplace is “recorded as Mannheim, Germany.’’ Merkel, however, was by 110 means the only officer accused. Charges only slightly less grave were made against others, one senior to Merkel, and a number of their scarred and mutilated victims were present to testify had the hearings continued. But as those officers have not yet had their day in court I will not cite their names.

At the impressive demonstration on the last day when thousands marched through the city and assembled finally in the historic Plaza Colon the determination of the Dom- inicans to regain their unqualified independence was again evident. The placards bore but four inscriptions, all vari- ants of the same idea: “We want our liberty,” “Give us our independence,” “We protest against the Occupation,” “Death is preferable to slavery.” Senator McCormick, after preliminary verbal courtesies, said that he desired himself to “join in the common aspiration for the establish- ment in the future of the foundation of civil order sure and undisturbed, of economic prosperity continued and sure and upheld by these, the independent Government of the Dominican people.” He was rapturously applauded. If any Dominican sensed the qualifying phrases he was too polite to withhold his plaudits. Senator Pomerene followed and delivered a ringing speech, one of those stentorian affairs with well-rounded sentences which go so well with the Ohio electorate. He had never seen a Commission, he said, so determined to get the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; that the American people wanted nothing more and nothing less than the prosperity of all Dominicans ; and that the Senatorial Commission was ac- tuated with the single purpose of discovering what was fo r the Dominicans’ good. But he did not mention independence. Strange how difficult that one word is for many who represent the country that made it famous! It was the word and the one sentiment that the Dominicans desired to hear. But having heard justice and truth fer- vently uttered, they went away hopeful and optimistic. A simple people, too, these Dominicans.

At the time of going to press the views of the Commis- sion are disclosed in preliminary report on Haiti and in

statement by Senator McCormick on Santo Domingo, made public with numerous Haitian and Dominican witnesses still to be heard and before the summing up of counsel f o r either side. These pronouncements will be discussed later. That both can disregard not only the deep-seated and unanimous desire for independence by Dominicans and Haitians and the illegality of our original overthrow of the sovereignties of these two weak and hitherto independent, republics may come as a profound shock to those who, perhaps somewhat naively, still cling t o the principles that have long been cherished as fundamental in our republic. Yet to those who have followed the recent and steady development of our the verdict will not be sur- prising. In any event the voluminous record incidental to the work of the Commission will at least serve t o place before the world officially and in incontrovertible form what has hitherto remained in the realm of rumor, conjecture, and unsupported assertion. As such the inquiry is merely an incident in the dramatic and tragic relations between our country and these two little Caribbean nations. The struggle to achieve their freedom and to perpetuate, or shall we say, to reestablish, some pristine ideals of our own has just begun. And in the end there can be but one outcome.

Feb. 8,19221 The Nation 147

through which they have just passed. We arm ourselves for that age of iron which our eyes shall not see, but beyond which, I have faith, some small part at least of our spirit shall survive.

We seek, for those who shall come after us, to save and to concentrate the forces of reason, of love, of faith, which will aid them in weathering the tempest when, having accom- plished its work of a day, your credo-pardon me for fore- seeing its end-your communist credo will be lost in the shadows, compromised in the injustices of the combat, or led astray by the indifference which follows fatally upon the heels of all victories too exclusively political.

Do not misjudge me. I admire, my dear Barbusse, your

courage, your ardor, and your chivalrous loyalty. Our two courses of action are not in opposition. They complement each one the other. We are both borne along by the same tide of the revolution, o r better, the tide of human renova- tion, of perpetual renewal. Both of us look toward the rising dawn, and both of us seek to break the mortal bonde of the past, the checks which hinder the march of mankind. But I do not wish to substitute for them newer bonds which are harsher yet.

With you and the revolutionists against the tyrannies of the past, with the oppressed of tomorrow against the tyrannies of tomorrow, the words of Schiller are my watchword forever : “In Tyrannos.” ROMAIN

Haiti and Santo Domingo Today-I By ERNEST H. GRUENING

N ten days’ diligent inquiry in the Dominican Republlc could not find a slngle native who did not want the Amer-

ican Occupation t o get out, bag and baggage, at the earliest possible moment. In twice that period in Haiti I could not discover a single Haitian who was not profoundly unhappy, disillusioned about all things American, and did not desire the return of Haitian sovereignty and independence.

Among thinking Haitians I found that beneath the universal discontent were varying shades of sentiment. First, there is the group, by far the largest, represented by the Union Patriotique, which sees the Amei-lcan Occupation ex- actly for what it is-an illegal and unwarranted assault conceived in wholly selfish motives on the rights and liberty of an independent, small, and always friendly state-and stands in consequence f o r unconditional return of unqualified Haitian sovereignty at the earliest moment. A second group, which includes a fa i r proportion of the small business men, while longing for the withdrawal of the Americans still hopes that some kind of an advantageous situation in the nature of a compromise may be worked out-it wants Haiti’s liberty but still hopes for unselfish American assistance. A third group, insignificant numerically but holding by virtue of the American Occupation the privileges and perquisites which the latter can bestow, is willing to con- nive with the Occupation as the best course for its members personally in a situation which they feel rather hope- less. In this group are the President, his council of state of twenty-one members, and a few of the other more important state-appointed functionaries. Their views are in part undoubtedly colored by their positions, by the strenuous efforts of the Occupation to cause a split in Haitian ranks, and in part by the inevitable personalities of such men who after the six and a half years of oppression are the docile and pliant residue from whom have been gradually filtered those who preferred principle to expediency and would pot longer assist in riveting the chains on their country. The Occupation propaganda which was visibly absorbed by Sen- ator Pomerene-I cannot account for his discourteous heckling of M. Georges Sylvain in any other way-that the Union Patriotique merely represents the political “outs” is amply disproved by the history of those of its members that have had public careers. Virtually everyone of these has been tempted with high office, many in vain, while others having tried it for a time in the hope of rendering some service to their country have found themselves inevitably forced into

a position which they believed to be wholly against Haiti’s interests.

For the government so-called, in short, the P r e s i d e n t for his council merely executes his orders and the slightest resistance on the part of any of them causes his dismissal- is a phantom government, a marionette of which the Occu- pation pulls the strings. Ever since Secretary Daniels’s radio1 ordering Admiral Caperton, one week after the election of Dartiguenave, to seize Haitian custom-houses with the prescription : “Have President Dartiguenave solicit it, but whether President so requests or not, proceed,” the Oc- cupation has attempted to follow this ingenious policy. Every act of autocratic tyranny for which President Darti- guenave could be induced to take verbal responsibility has been made to appear t o have the sanction of the Haitian Government. And unfortunately for the Haitians, Darti- quenave, the man whose election “the United States prefers,” according to Admiral Benson’s radio to Admiral Caperton,2 has been more than pliant. The testimony of Generals But- ler, Waller, Cole, and other high marine officers before the Senatorial Commission would indicate that in many in- stances he exceeded the wishes of the Occupation in demanding repressive measures. Of course the situation. is admirably adapted to the game known as “passing the buck,’’ but a psychoanalytical study would go far to explain Presi- dent Dartiguenave’s course. The Eumenides are haunting his waking hours. In not one of the three interviews I had with him privately, nor in the meeting with President Hen- riquez y Carvajal, a t which I was present, could he keep from talking of his enemies and how they were attacking him. As he is amply protected by American bayonets, these fears are but the reflection of his own conscience. I believe not many Haitians would hold up against him his responsibility for the treaty which they now fear has destroyed their birthright-they all hope, not irretrievably. They realized at the time-and the whole world now knows since the Navy De- partment‘s dispatches have been read into the record-that he was under every kind of pressure, and that in that grave crisis his course may have seemed the wisest. At least no one could expect that the United States would itself fail -as i t has-to carry out a single one of its obliga- tions in the treaty which i t had written and imposed. No, not for that would the name of Dartiguenave be anathema

l 19, 1915. 10, 1916

in Haiti today, but rather because having turned over the country to the alien invader he used his every effort to de- feat the attempt of other Haitians to regam the lost independence. His posltion of unique security and vantage he used to oppress his own fellow-countrymen, t o demand himself the imprisonment of patriotic journallsts who were criticizing hls actions, and, most ignominious of all, to deco- rate, to adorn with his own hands, the breasts of marine officers for the exploits against the Haitians who were revolt- ing against the invader. Surely, they say in Haiti, that was a depth to which he need not have sunk.

Only once did he resist the encroachments of the Ameri- cans: in the summer of 1920 when he opposed the efforts of Mr. McIlhenny, the financial adviser, to put through a loan and was punished by having his salary held up for weeks-one of scores of gross illegalities practiced by Amer- ican officlals in Haiti. Thls resistance may have been inspired wholly by patriotic motives. On the other hand the military Occupation has no love for Mr. McIlhenny. Presi- dent Dartlguenave showed me the carbon of a letter written November 10 last to President Harding in which he de- manded McIlhenny’s removal and protested against the loan which the latter was negotiating, but he took occasion to devote the second part of this letter dealing supposedly with financial matters to an enthusiastic eulogy of Colonel John H. Russell, the chief of the Occupation, expressing the hope that he would be retained in Haiti whatever else happened. The working alliance between these two has long been ob- vious.

It is just to record here that I also heard Colonel Russell highly praised by Archbishop Conan of Port au Prince and by Bishop Pichon of Aux Cayes, who spoke to me of the chief of the Occupation as a fine, upstanding man, beloved of all the Haitians. Truth compels me to report that I did not find this view shared by any Haitians (the clergy 1s French) although in my personal relations with him I found Colonel Russell thoroughly courteous and kind. I tried to ascertain whether his general unpopularity was merely the natural opposition of an oppressed people t o the chief agent of the Occupation, but I found the Haitians distinguishing sharply between individuals. Everywhere I heard nothing but the highest praise for certain marine officers who had in the past held responsible posts in Haiti-General Catlin, Colonel Little, and Lieutenant Colonel Wise-of whom without exception all who discussed the marine personnel spoke in terms of admiration and even affection. Here were three officers, I told, who had understood the tragic difficulty of the Haitian position and had been friendly and sympathetic.

The question of personnel is of course tremendously important as long as the Occupation continues, though nobody, be he ever so kindly and human, can wholly transmute a military Occupation into a lawn party; and it should not be forgotten for an instant that the great atrocity in Haiti is that we are there at all-and the manner of our going in. And this is fundamentally why the present situation is and will continue impossible, even should we substitute a more sympathetic type of marine personnel and replace the civilian “deserving Democrats,’’ the most important of whom Senator McCormick described as “both socially attractive and personally charming, but how otherwise qualified I am not informed.” As Haiti has not been permitted under the rigid color line the Occupation has drawn to enjoy their social attractiveness and personal charm, the actual benefit

derived is not difficult to calculate. The situation is fundamentally impossible because the Haitians now firaly believe, following the preliminary report of the Senatorlal Commission, that faith and honor are not in the United States. They had been hopeful and confident in the belief that the invasion of 1915 was the act of an irresponsible autocracy in Washington, undertaken without the consent of Congress or the knowledge of the American people, Indeed it was. They hoped that when the American people was finally informed, all this would be swept away and that thew century-old liberty would be regained. President Harding’s campaign declarations on the subject of Haiti naturally fortified their hope.

What is behind the seizure of Haiti and Santo Domingo? How much is commercial and financial, how much military, and how much just plain blundering? One of the earliest impressions I received, even en route to Haiti, was the way in which marine officers took the Caribbean for granted as a field of activity; being detailed to Costa Rica to keep the Panamanians in their place, or getting “action” in Nic- aragua appeared to be all in the day’s work; and Haiti and Santo Domingo, while apparently viewed as United States domains, furnished splendid military opportunities. The Caribbean, indeed, is already a great Marine Corps “prov- ing” ground, and the subconscious effect on the attitude of the average marine officer is evident. The corps is not a large body, and its proportion of officers to men is larger than in army or navy. Marines now hold Haiti and Santo Domingo; they have been in Nicaragua since 1912 ; detach- ments are in Cuba,3 Porto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Canal Zone, Panama, and for all any ordinary citizen of our democracy is permitted to know, in other Central American republics. It would perhaps need but one more “Occupa- tion” to necessitate an increase in the size of the Marine Corps-and that means more officers and more rapid pro- motion. Moreover the opportunities for the individual officer are obviously far greater under conditions of military rule than they would be at some dull post in the United States, as indeed they always are in the field. In Santo Domingo a formerly obscure paymaster, Lieutenant Com- mander Mayo, the man who floated the notorious 14 per cent loan, became the financial mogul of that republic. In Haiti American officers live infinitely better than they could at home. A lieutenant can afford a large house and several servants, and as an officer in the Gendarmerie d’Halti (or Guardia Nacional in Santo Domingo) he gets an automobile at the expense of the Haitians or Dominicans, and other perquisites.

As for the chiefs of the respective Occupations, they are not only civil and military dictators but the supreme social arbiters of the foreign colony as well. In every sense they are monarchs of all they survey. No one who incurs the royal displeasure in Haiti is received at the American Club or at other social American functions. The business man, American and foreign, soon finds that i t is not merely to his advantage but essential to his well-being to keep on good terms with them. One American business man who com- plained to me bitterly that the methods employed by the Americans in Haiti had destroyed the prestige and good name of the United States and that such a policy was bound t o work to our commercial disadvantage, shuddered at the suggestion of relating these facts to the Senatorial

Cuba, 26 to Three

Feb. 8,19221 The Nation 149

Commission. In answer to my inquiry, he said, “Frankly, because I have a wife and - chlldren, and I want to stay in Haiti.” I asked him whether he really felt that giving such lnformation to the Commission would endanger his safety. “I would certainly be put out of busmess,” he said. “As fa r as my life is concerned, all I can say is that most everyone here knows what happened to Lifschutz.” Lif- schutz was the one American civillan who dared openly to criticize the Occupation and he happens also to have been the only American clvl!lnn ever killed in Haiti.

Senator McCormlck, who long before t‘ne Commission was created recorded himself publicly in favor of our retention for twenty years of the Clv~l Occupation of Haiti, but now accepts the military view completely, told me in conversation that his interpretation of the MGnroe Doctrine gave us “militant rights down to the Orinoco Basin.” This, I take it, means that we can according to our needs more o r less gobble up everything in and around the Caribbean. South of the Orinoco, Senator McCormick is “wllling that the United States should pursue a noli policy.” Mr. McCormlck’s successor may substitute the Amazon f o r the Orinoco, and Senator Some-one-else may feel t‘nat our sphere of militancy should not stop short of the Stralts of Magel- lan. But the fruits of this policy are already visible in our actual, partial, potential, and rapidly increasing domination of the weaker states of the Cambbeac.

Of course all this proceeds under the gulse of benevo- lence-a pretention solemnly maintained with evldent sincerity by a great number of persons and with a tongue in cheek by others. Colonel Russell told me that I t was the two million Haitian country people that he wanted to help, and that he was very fond of them but against the “three hundred agitators in Port au Prince,” and this view was echoed by other officers. The Occupation’s affection for the Haitian proletariat is truly touching. Obviously if the in- tellectual crowd, which for better or worse has made Haiti for a century or more, is eliminated, the most docile and the cheapest labor supply that a concessionnaire ever dreamed of will be easily available. Twenty cents a day is the current Haitian wage. But if this was Colonel Russell’s view, i t was not that of his friend H. P. Davis, vice-president and general manager of the United West Indies Corporation, the American civilian who is generally referred to as the spokesman of the Occupation. To me, at least, he was en- gagingly frank. “There has been a lot of bunk about helping the Haitians,” he said in answer to my inquiry. “I am not here to help the Haitians. I am here t o make money out of Halti for myself and my friends. I am an expert in de- veloping and discovering new territories for development

banks. It is true that in helping myself I have helped some Haitians, but I have helped them incidentally and for purely selfish reasons.” It is generally rumored in Haiti that Mr. Davis has ambitions to succeed Mr. McIlhenny as financial adviser should we remain in Haiti. I fail to see why he is not eminently eligible. But nowhere is the situation more lucidly pictured than in the verses which begrn:

you an island shore Which has not been grabbed before

With the simple native quite Unprepared t o make a fight,

Lyrng in the track of trade as Islands should,

Oh, you just drop in and take it his good.

And y e t d e s p i t e all this there are Americans in Haiti who have broken through the iron pressure of their environ-

mental opinion-and know better. There must be others ”like one clear-eyed officer of no mean rank who said t o me: “We’ve no business here. The fact is that the fellows who stood up agalnst us and were shot down were patriots. These people have as much right to their independence as we have.” And another told me simply t‘nat the “Job is impossible. We don’t understand them and they don’t understand us. We can’t change their natures, and that is what we’d have to do to make them do things our way. It‘s not the Marine Corps’ work anyway.”

And they are rrght-but it is not the prevailing or the 0% cia1 opinion, nor one that these officers could express openly with impunity. We have no business there and our being there benefits no one unless it be a few investors. It will not help the Haitians-although we may build them a few roads; you do not need an Occupation fo r that. It’s no job for young rosy-cheeked boys of yesteryear-who return to the States, burned out by the tropical sun, soaked with rum, often irremediably diseased as well. And above all I t never wlll help the United States-unless we consider the l m n g of the pockets of a handful help to our country, to be weighed against the dislike and bitter resentment of formerly friendly people and the dlstrust and fear of dozen others mho dread the day when thelr turn will come. And even for the capitallsts-Haiti so far has been a grave- yard of high hopes. Eight mlllions have beer, sunk in the Haitian-American Sugar Company and recelver is in charge; the Natlonal City Bank’s venture has not been profitable desplte its special advantages; the largest Amer- ican cotton-growing venture was a flat fallure; the West Indies Trading Company literally went up in smoke when I was in Port au Prince-all this despite the Occupation and the Franklin Roosevelt constltutlon. Maybe there’s a fatality about it; Roger L. Farnham of the National City Bank told the Commission of acres of American cotton that withered while Haltian cotton planted adjacently flourished

Mamaloi’s curse, it might be called in fiction. The really important thing to salvage from Haiti is Amer-

ican honor. It can still be retrieved. Admiral Caperton’s revealing we-are-getting-this-treaty-through-thanks-to-military-pressure cable4 and Josephus Daniels’s infamous mes- sage5 ordering the admiral on-your-own-authority-to-tell- the-Haitians-that-unless-they - sign - the-Occupation-will-be- permanent can hardly be formally voted into the American archives of famous documents. Will the Senate of the United States care to enshrine them with the Declaration of Independence, Patrick Henry’s invocation, the Emanci- pation Proclamation, and the Gettysburg address? For i t is doubtful whether a single Senator knew when he voted to ratify the Haitian treaty in 1916 by what methods it had been imposed. -If there be one, let hlm stand up !

Yet is i t more moral to condone an offense because it has occurred? Senator McCormick had no hesitancy in con- demning to me in unsparing terms the crime committed against Haiti by Woodrow Wilson and Josephus Daniels. Yet his preliminary report, which gives no inkling that the United States had illegally seized two republics and held them since against the will of their inhabitants, condones this crime. Senator McCormick knows better; he is intelli- gent enough to know that what we did in Haiti in 1915 and in Santo Doming0 in 1916 was dishonest, indecent, and rot- ten. Senator King’s bill calling for withdrawal and abrogation of the treaty fortunately shows the way out.

‘ 8, 1916. 10, 1916.

188 The Nation

Haiti and Santo Domingo Today-I1 By ERNEST GRUENING

I N the Dominican Republic the situation is simpler than in Haiti. Where the Haitians suffered from the betrayal

a t th’e hands of Sudre Dartiguenave, the Dominicans were fortunate in having as their President Dr. Henriquez y Carvajal, a man of rare integrity, statesmanship, and patri- otism. Moreover, the Dominicans had had in May, 1916, when the Americans invaded their country, the advantage of six months’ observation of the execution of America’s promise to Haiti of “no aim except to insure, establish, and help maintain Haitian independence.”l In consequence, though America tried precisely as in Haiti to force a humili- ating and enslaving treaty upon the Dominicans, they refused to sign.2 Where in Haiti today a dummy government carries out the Occupation’s wishes, a constant potential wedge to split the Haitians, in Santo Domingo absolute unity exists.

In the Hispanic Republic, where there is no vestige of national government and the Occupation derives its only sanction from brute force, where, further, the archbishop and all the priests are Dominicans, the church is strongly patriotic. In Haiti, on the other hand, a Concordat with the Vatican established in 1860 provides that the church must sustain the Haitian Government (as indeed it is the church’s policy to sustain constituted authority everywhere) and that the government must support in turn the church. A special clause provides fo r the blessing of the Haitian president by name after every high mass. Whatever, therefore, may be the original force and fraud upon which the present Haitian Government rests, it is for the t ime being the legally constituted authority. Moreover, the Haitian clergy is not national. Archbishops, bishops, and a great majority of the priests are French and their interest in Haiti’s nationalism is quite naturally less keen than if they were natives. Nev- ertheless, the Occupation was first not viewed with favor by the clergy, as indeed it is not today by many of the priests. Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Williams testified before the Senatorial Commission that he believed some of the Haitian countrymen were inspired by the priests to make complaints of brutal treatment, and that the relations between the American officers and the priests were officially unsatisfactory. This feeling he believed was largely due to the influence of the bishop of North Haiti, Monseigneur Ker- suzan. Bishop Kersuzan a few months ago celebrated his fiftieth anniversary as a priest in Haiti. The Occupation has, however, made valiant efforts, especially since attention was first called to Haitian conditions a year and a half ago, to capture the clergy. Whereas, previously, the church had suffered directly from the Occupati~n,~ every attempt was now made to conciliate it. Priests’ salaries were raised. The sacristan of the cathedral at Port au Prince told me personally that the Occupation had promised to put a new roof on that edifice, the present roof leaking badly after the severe tropical storms. This he said would be done without expense to the church “by the Occupation,” which means, of course, at the expense of the Haitian people. And today,

1 August 7, 1916,

11. A of

to 18.

while the church does not and will not officially and openly run counter to the prevailing national sentiment by indors- ing the Occupation, i t cannot and will not, as the church in Santo Domingo, oppose it.

The Dominicans also profit by their membership in the great Hispanic-American family of nations. Protests against the treatment of Santo Domingo and Its citizens have come from Spain and from virtually all South Ameri- can countries which are bound to Santo Domingo by ties of race, culture, and language. Hispanic America sees in both Haiti and Santo Domingo an augury of a possible fate. But its encouragement and sympathy have naturally gone to the country which speaks the same language. The Do- minican morale has thus received constant sustenance and is also better, no doubt, because of the gestures of withdrawal that Washington has made. In their last days in office the Democrats had made overtures looking toward re- tiring the Occupation. Last May the “Harding plan,” as it is called by the Dominicans, was presented with a flourish. As it turned out to be merely a device to legalize the situation and under the guise of withdrawal t o make Santo Do- mingo virtually a subject state, the Dominicans refused to touch it. Their cooperation to the extent of holding elec- tions was essential. Today the attitude of the Dominicans is unchanged. “We will sign nothing,” is their watchword. “If necessary we will remain in slavery a hundred years, but never will we sign away our birthright.”

At present, however, largely because withdrawal has been in the wind, conditions are better than in Haiti. The sense of oppression so evident in Por t au Prince is lacking in Santo Domingo. I cannot speak for the interior, which I did not visit and where, I was told, the rigors of martial law still fall heavily upon some of the inhabitants. But in the capital witnessed an easy banter between the provost shal, Captain Fay, who is highly esteemed by the Domini- cans, and the editors of the Listin Dimio, which has vali- antly upheld the national cause. In an affair at the private house of a Dominican which I attended the orchestra was composed of marines. Both these situations would be un- thinkable in Haiti. Moreover, I found among Dominicans a friendly attitude toward the military governor, Admiral S. S. Robison, of whom I heard only kind words-a good impression which I looked forward with pleasure to reporting, but which unfortunately was marred by an eleventh- hour incident I witnessed.

It was the day of the Senatorial Commission’s departure. The sub-chaser carrying the Senators and their wives had just slipped away from the dock bound for the transport Argonne lying under steam in the harbor. A second boat- load containing newspaper correspondents and other personnel of the Commission was about to follow. Mr. Horace G. Knowles, counsel for the Dominicans, came hurrying to the wharf. He was formerly American minister to Bolivia, to Serbia, and t o the Dominican Republic, a Roosevelt ap- pointee. He had come with the Commission but was stay- ing behind a few days to collect additional evidence. How the Occupation hated Knowles ! He had committed the un- pardonable crime of criticizing it and of taking the part of the Dominicans. (How little they understood that he had

Feb. 15,19221 The 189

really been taking the part of America!) As he leaned over the boat to hand the official stenographer a letter for Senator McCormick he was, according to his account, pushed aside by the Commisslon’s liaison officer, Captain Day, U.S.N., and told he could not send it. A lieutenant commander who was present told me later that Knowles’s conversation had de- layed the boat and that he had been pol i te ly requested to remove himself. But when he attempted to remonstrate Admiral Robison stepped up from behlnd and in thundering tones overheard by not less than fifty people shouted: “Get out of this; get the hell off this wharf!” Knowles withdrew and the Admiral proceeded t o tell his entourage: “We’ve seen enough of that man around here; I’ve got no use for him. Any man that will make the charges he has, has no right here.” Later in the day, Mr. Knowles told me subsequently, he was summoned by the governor to headquarters. On telling the provost marshal who conveyed the order that in the circumstances he did not care to call on the Admiral but would be at his hotel should the Admiral desire to call upon him, he was informed that he had better come; that otherwise the provost marshal’s orders were t o take him to the palace by force. Mr. Knowles went. It is regrettable that he did so. I t would have been interesting to find out just what rights an American citizen has in a country where our alleged justification for conquest is “to protect American interests,” and how far our militarism can stage its own Zabern with impunity. Moreover, a couple of days previously the Admiral had told Captain Angell, who accompanied the Commission, that but for the fact that Mr. Knowles was there by Senatorial courtesy he would have deported him.

This episode was more illuminating than pages of testimony. Occurring to a man of Mr. Knowles’s position in the presence of Americans, particularly of newspaper men bound for home, with the Senators barely out of earshot, it furnishes a clue to the fate of those who incur the displeasure of the military Occupation. What happens to the poor devils of natives who are voiceless, helpless, and without means of redress can well be imagined. As a matter of fact, Admiral Robison’s proposed treatment of an Ameri- can citizen is in line with Occupation policy. Americans have been deported unceremoniously. Needless to say if questions are asked they are generally slandered and labeled undesirable citizens; but the reason for their deportation is almost invariably antagonism to the Occupation. An American woman resident in Santo Domingo told me that, burning with shame over the acts of certain individuals in the Occupation, and profoundly unhappy over the oppression practiced in the name of the American people, she had repeatedly resolved to write to various persons and to news- papers in the United States, but had invariably been d e terred by the fear of deportation. Her husband was in business in the country and she did not feel justified in jeop- ardizing his safety and future as well. While was in Port au Prince an American marine, a former gendarmerie officer, was ordered deported. He had been detailed t o the prison a t Port au Prince and announced that he had intended to testify about some of the cruelties practiced there. Just before the Commission’s arrival his deportation order, which had been published in the official organ, was held up. When I saw him again he said he knew neither why he had been ordered deported nor why the order had been suspended, that he did not intend to testify, and that had misunderstood him when he said he would.

Of course what goes on behind the scenes the four Sena- tors neither learned nor cared to learn. Their minds were obviously closed. do not want to imply the slightest doubt of the sincerity of any of them: but the absurd anomaly of having one of the parties to a controversy act as jury, judge, yes, and executioner, must be self-evident. The only proper or possible way to have the case of Haiti or of Santo Domingo ws. the United States justly settled is to have some disinterested third party-Denmark, Belgium, Uruguay, the A.B.C. Powers, or the Irish Free State-act as arbitrator. The same fallacy on a smaller scale was subscribed to by the Senators themselves when they solemnly urged all those whom they had not time to hear to report their grievances to the respective heads of the Occupations. As for the Sen- atorial astigmatism it is also true that the investigation has been foreshadowed for a year and a half and that conditions had been pretty well cleaned up in both republics, where relative quiet exists today. Testimony was general that

campaign of exposure had brought about a decided lessening of many abuses which had existed.

I have in my possession copy ‘of a confidential order issued from “Headquarters” at Santo Domingo City on Sep- tember 10, 1920, which reads in part as follows:

Officers of discretion mll be instructed to spread a bit of propaganda here and there in a very careful and discreet manner so that it may not appear that it is being done officially. Present and past conditions may be compared along many lines, the aims and ambitions of the government explained. A few specially chosen officers might sound some of the people on the question of annexation, merely by conversation telling the people that in 1876 the majority of Dominicans desired annexation and asked for it, but that our Congress refused it because we did not know the country and the Dominicans as well at that tme. Certain people who seem to be receptlve could be induced to spread the idea by showing them how much better situated they would be today had they been part of the United States for the past forty years. Conditions in Porto Rico, the Philippines, and even Cuba could be cited as examples.

The order is signed by Colonel George C. Reid, U. S. M. C., commanding officer of the Guardia Nacional. I showed it to Senator Pomerene just after he had finished addressing with much sound and wind a great patriotic gathering of Dominicans. He had told them that he had learned of a few misguided persons who believed that the United States had annexationist designs on their country but that there was no basis whatever such belief and that he had never heard the subject mentioned in Washington. I supposed that since he was there to investigate he would be interested in learning about this order issued by the third highest officer in the island, the highest American military official in direct contact with the Dominicans. But he merely replied that it was the act of an individual and had nothing whatever to do with American policy. Senator Pomerene is back from his flying trip and is probably thinking more of his campaign in Ohio next fall than of the Dominicans. But the Occupation which issued the order “in a very careful and discreet manner, so that it may not appear it is being done officially,’’ stays on. It stays to perpetuate the six years of martial law upon an always friendly and inoffensive people, and i t will stay on according to the verdict of the Me- Cormick-Pomerene Commission until Santo Domingo comes to terms and signs on the dotted line. For less than a week after its return the chairman of the Commission gave out an interview that the status quo would continue in Santo Domingo until the proposals of last spring were acceded to.

190 The Nation [Vol. 114, No. 2954

Meanwhile three great American banking houses are “negotiating” for a loan with the Haitian “government.” Each of these loans is based on the convention of 1915 and further hog-ties the Haitian Republic for a period of thirty years. Negotiations were already under way before the Commis- sion went to the Caribbean. Senator McCormick was in favor of that loan from the beginning and insists upon i t now. The Haitians neither want nor need the loan. But

the Occupation wants it, and American high finance needs it. Once it is consummated and only the thin resistance of Dar- tiguenave the Docile stands in the way, needless to say we shall have to stay in further to protect “American interests,” the interests of the National City Bank of New York, of the Sugar Trust, of King Cotton, of the horde of carpet-bagging concessionnaires that are the camp-followers of American militaristic imperialism.

Waste in Business By EDWARD EYRE HUNT*

The curse of mankind is not labor, but waste; mlsdirectlon of time, of material, of opportunity, of humanity.-Dr. M. 0. Forster, British Association for the Advancement of Science.

Report on Elimination of Waste in Industry may mark an epoch. Already it has given organized labor

confidence in industrial studies in the United States, made under impartial auspices, and it provides a basis for genuine cooperation in future between labor and management, instead of the pseudo-cooperation which consists in labor’s lying down and playing dead at the will of the em- ployer. One of the Committee on Waste, George D. Bab- cock of Peoria, Illinois, says the report is the most important engineering document dealing with industry since the management papers of Frederick W. Taylor.

Now what is this report? It is the work of a committee of seventeeen engineers named by Herbert Hoover, who unanimously state that the relative weight of responsibillty for waste in certain typlcal industries is as follows:

Outside Management Labor Contacts

% % Y O

Men’s clothing manufacturing. ....... 75 16 9 Building ............................ 65 21 14 Printmg ............................ 63 28 9 Boot and shoe manufacturing.. ....... 73 11 16 Metal trades ........................ 81 9 10 Textile manufacturing ............... 50 10 40

One of the greatest wastes is from low production. This is due to faulty management of materials, plant, equipment, and men; not to faults of labor. What engineers call “faulty control” of materia:, design, production, cost, and labor, lack of research and defective sales policies lie in the domain of management and probably rank next to general industrial depressions in their waste of materials, time, and human effort.

Defective control of design results in a major waste, since it prevents standardization of product. In the building trades, f o r example, while the standardization of buildings is not generally practicable or desirable, certain detalls readily lend themselves to standardization. If certain walls were made of a uniform thickness i t would mean a saving of some $600 in the cost of the average house, Standardized mill-work, such as window frames, doors, and other similar items, would also mean considerable saving.

Among current American magazines there are eighteen varieties in width and seventy-six in length of page or col- umn. Among trade publications there are thirty-three different widths and sixty-four lengths. Even among news- papers there are sixteen widths and fifty-five lengths. The

of on

standardization of newspaper columns to one size would make possible an annual saving of from three to five million dollars on composition and plates alone. The Committee did not attempt to write an academic

definition of industrial waste. Furthermore, it felt no call to put the blame on any individual, group, or class. It be- lieves that the wastes in industry today are inevitable results of methods, tactics, and relationships of long stand- ing. Industrial waste understood by the Committee is that part of the materlal, time, and human effort expended in production represented by the difference between average attainments, on the one hand, and performance actually at- tained on the other, as reveaIed by detailed field reports. How much will have to be done to lift average plants to the level of exceptional plants in each industry is suggested in the following table, giving a comparison of plants in various industries :

Ratio of Best to Average Plants

Men’s clothing manufacturing. ................... 1 Building ...................................... l:l% Printing ....................................... 1:2 Boot and shoe rnanufactunng.. .................. 1:3 Metal trades ................................... 1:4% Textile manufacturing ......................... 1

In reporting that more than 50 per cent of the responsibility for waste in industry can be placed at the door of management and less than 25 per cent at the door of labor, the Committee had no intention of minimizing labor’s share in what is obviously a common task. It reveals much for labor to do.

In the building trades, for instance, some painters’ unions do not permit the use of a brush wider than four and one- half inches for oil paint, although for certain classes of work a wider brush is more economical. Lathers have attempted to impose a rule that twelve bundles of laths shall constitute an eight-hour day’s work. Formerly the output was sixteen bundles. Plumbers’ and steam-fitters’ unions prohibit the use of bicycles and vehicles of all sorts during working hours. Members of these unions in some sections of the country demand that all pipe up to two-inch shall be cut and threaded on the job. Brick masons insist on wash- ing down and pointing brick work when laborers could do i t more economically. Structural steel workers under certain rules must bring the steel from the unloading point to the building site, thus doing laborers’ work a t high cost. They also place reinforcing steel for concrete, whereas experience has proved that properly trained laborers can do the same work to good advantage and a t greatly reduced cost.

A union rule in newspaper printing offices requires that

the senators visit haiti and santo...

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