The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1917-03-22
Un.ie Sam in the Caribbean
By FREDERIC J. HASKIN

ideal place to explore with pony and
camera. And the bulk of it is now
serving no other purpose than to de-
light an occasional wanderer with an
eye for the picturesque.
st. Croix, on the other hand, is a rich
island. 1t contains eighty-four square
miles of territory, large part of which
S planted in sugar cane, One side OF
the island is fiat, while a NINA ture
mountain range borders the other,
rising steeply out of the bright, tender
green Of the sugar fields, which reach
clear down to the palm groves along
the white beaches. This island has fine
roads bordered with rows of royal palms,
and it boasts no less than twenty
automobiles. Long ago it was q
favorite winter resort for Americans,
and the islanders believe that it is 60
ing to become popular with tours IS
again. Land has already been bought
for the erection Of large modern hoteh
st. John contains about twenty square
miles. 1t claims nine hundred In
habitants, but they are hard to find
owing to the density Of the Jungle, the
lack of roads, and the fact that there
Is no town on the island.
The other forty-seYen islands which
are included in our purchase vary from
such bits as Sail Rock, which is a bare
splre Of granite that looks like a sail
and affords home for a few sea birds.
to Buck Island, which is several square
miles in area, covered with dense
growth, and full of wild pigeons, parrots
and wild goats. Most of these small
islands, or keys, are uninhabited, and
many Of them are practically meyer
visited by man.
Our purchase includes three principal
cities, and few smaller villages. The
most important of the cities is Charlotte
Amelie. on the island OF St. Thomas.
In the islands the town is called St.
Thomas, its Danish name almost never
being heard. 1t has about twelve
thousand Inhabitants, most Of whom
have negro blood, but it is not a negro
town in the sense that Port au Prince
is. The typical st. Thomian of the
better class Is a West Indian Creole,
and of distinctive type. He has just
enough negro blood to make his skin
dark and his hair slightly kinky. He is
indolent and pleasure loving, but intelli-
gent and pretty well educated. Many
of the leading merchants of st. Thomas
are Creoles, including the only million
are in the islands. These well-to-do
Creoles have their children educated in
Europe, and mingle with the Danish
officials as social equals. Many of the
young Danes have taken Creole brides
back to Denmark.
In st. Croix are Christiansted, the
capital and Fredriksted, each having a
population of between four and five
thousand. Fredriksted is fiat, white
dusty town, swept by wind from its
open roadstead, and is neither pictur-
esque nor interesting. Christiansted,
on the other hand, is beautiful tropical
city, full Of flowers and palms and
picturesque old houses. 1t has pretty
little harbor choked with sand and mud.
The bulk of the people in St. Croix are
black negroes, while the dominant class
are mostly Irishmen and Danes.
From these facts, it will be seen that
we have not bought valuable piece of
real estate. The purchase was justified,
for reasons which will be made clear
in the next letter But whatever the
value of the islands to US, our potential
value to them IS enormous. The people
of the Danish West Indies are looking
to US with faith and hope for many
things, and the whole Caribbean world
will watch our course there with keen
and critical interest. Wherefore
Uncle Sans new islands are a more
important part of this domain than they
appear on the map,