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Ernest Gruening, the Withdrawal from Haiti, 1934 in This Selection From Ernest Gruening, The Withdrawal from Haiti, 1934 In this selection from Foreign Affairs magazine, the journalist Ernest Gruening offers his view on the implementation of the Good Neighbor. Later, Gruening would serve as both a U.S. Senator and Governor for the state of Alaska. The American Government’s official view regarding events in Haiti - the view which guided the policy of the State Department from 1915 to within the last few weeks - was that government had broken down in Haiti, that Haitian finances were in chaos, that foreign creditors were pressing, and that the United States was forced to intervene to straighten out the tangle. This invasion, vi et armis [with force and arms], was presented as altruistic, the extension of a helping hand to the helpless and hapless Haitian people. The writer’s contention as set forth in these pages [in January 1933] was, on the contrary, that the pressure of powerful private American interests with claims against the Haitian Government furnished the chief motivation for the intervention, and that these interests were able to utilize the naval and diplomatic forces of the United States to gain their ends. Summarized, this interpretation of the Haitian episode is that these claimants sought financial control of Haiti by the United States with a view to securing settlement of their claims, and failing in this endeavor through negotiation, succeeded in bringing about armed intervention. Then, by “military pressure,” to use the exact words of Admiral Caperton, a treaty was imposed which gave the United States military and financial control and a pledge to settle foreign claims. Subsequently, when the Haitian Congress refused to adopt a constitution prepared in Washington, granting foreigners the right to own land for the first time in the history of Haiti, and placing the Marines’ courts-martial above the Haitian courts in matters affecting the occupation, the Congress was dissolved by Generals Cole and Butler. The protocol arranging the settlement of claims and the contract for a loan to pay the claims were similarly imposed. The loan for $40,000,000 (of which $23,660,000 of six percent bonds was actually floated), dated 1922 and due in 1952, carried the further extraordinary provision that during the life of the loan United States financial control would continue. This was in effect an extension of the treaty for possibly sixteen years, and it was done without the consent of the United States Senate. As for the Haitian Congress, it was not permitted to re-assemble, and government in Haiti continued to be, in the phrase of one of the United States financial advisers, Mr. Arthur C. Millspaugh, a “dictatorship by collusion.” In 1930 the mounting resentment of the Haitians at this chain of events culminated in riot and bloodshed. President Hoover, unexpectedly facing revolution where all had been reported serene, sent the Forbes Commission to investigate. This commission discovered that public opinion was highly inflamed, demanded amplified powers, obtained them, and reestablished constitutional government in Haiti. The first free elections since the beginning of intervention were held, and a Senate and House of Deputies, and then a President, were chosen. The commission recommended military evacuation at an early date, prior even to the expiration of the treaty on May 3,1936, and immediate preparation for such withdrawal. This preparation, in the form of “Haitianization” of the various services which had gradually been taken over by American officials, was indeed imperative, as many of these officials had apparently been acting on the assumption that the occupation would be permanent. The Hoover Administration, while agreeing to this program as far as the military and civilian services were concerned, was adamant on the question of the financial services. It insisted on retaining fiscal control in Haiti, not merely until the expiration of the treaty, but for the life of the loan - this control being administered at the Haitians’ expense. A “treaty of friendship” negotiated along these lines between the Haitian executive and the American Minister, Mr. Dana Munro, and dated September 3, 1932, was hailed by the State Department as a happy solution of the Haitian episode. Nevertheless, twelve days later the treaty was rejected by the Haitian national assembly without a dissenting vote, the opposition being based on the continuation of the financial control beyond the expiration of the treaty of 1915… During the first part of the Roosevelt Administration no change was noticeable in the policies of the Department of State. President Roosevelt was deeply absorbed in major domestic issues and Secretary Hull, just back from the London Conference, had not yet been able to familiarize himself fully with the manifold problems confronting the Department… Six months later this policy was reversed. As this is written, plans are under way for a complete evacuation - financial as well as military - not later than November 1, 1934. The explanation of this change is that the larger purposes and policies of President Roosevelt and Secretary Hull are now being put into execution. A new treaty - a brief document - canceling the existing one, and making reference to a contract between the Haitian Government and the Bank of Haiti, will become effective immediately upon ratification by the Haitian Assembly and the United States Senate. Under the new arrangement, the Bank of Haiti (which has been since the early days of the occupation a branch of the National City Bank of New York), will take care of the service of the debt. This now consists of approximately $11,000,000 of six percent bonds, over half of the 1922 loan haying already been amortized… But there is even more. Haiti will acquire the National Bank of Haiti by purchase. The price of $2,000,000 is to be paid, part in cash, part in notes, over a period of four years… Until the payments for the bank are completed, as well as during the service on the debt, a majority of the directorate of the bank will represent American financial interests. Of six directors, during this transition period, two will be Haitian (one of them the Secretary of State for Finance, ex officio), two will represent the Foreign Bondholders’ Protective Council, and two will be nominees of the present fiscal control. This arrangement is proper and protects all the interests involved, Haitian and American. Thus the protracted Haitian episode is being brought to an end in a creditable and generous fashion. The change in the Administration’s policy harmonizes its conduct in Haiti (hitherto a paradox) with its trail- blazing policies elsewhere in Latin-America - the pledge of non-intervention, the continentalizing of the Monroe Doctrine in President Roosevelt’s Woodrow Wilson Day address last December 28, and the abrogation of the Platt Amendment. Mr. Roosevelt has, in short… applied the Golden Rule, and has started a new chapter in the relations of the United States with our sister countries in this hemisphere. He has, in the brief space of fifteen months, put into practice his inaugural pronouncement concerning the role of our country as the good neighbor. Ernest Gruening, “The Withdrawal from Haiti,” Foreign Affairs 12, 4 (July 1934) 667-679. .
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