The broad ax., 1922-04-08
INQUIRY INTO OCCUPATION
AND ADMINISTRATION OF
HAITI AND SANTO
DOMINGO
Hearings Before a Select Committee
on Haiti and Santo Domingo,
u. s. Congress. Part

printed for the use of the select
committee on Haiti and Santo
Domingo. Washington Government
Printing Office, 1922. May be OBJ
tanned free on application to- Elisha
Hanson. Clerk, Select Committee on
Haiti and San Domingo.)
Much has been written on Haiti
and Santo Domingo, but this govern
ment document is the most human
work that ! have yet seen. We have
IN It a testimony taken in Haiti for
hve days and testimony and reports
OF the United States occupation in
Santo Domingo. The Haitian mate
nal is the more readable. It was Sc
cured at Port au Prince, Hinche. and
the plantation of Adalaye. Then, to
the intense disappointment of the Hal
tians. the Commission went on to San
Domingo, leaving a large part OF the
island quiet unvisited. But they heard
stories that should haze startled Amer
ica had they been reported. Here are
few of them.
NJ. Jose Derebier at Hinche: Two
brothers OF mine, one Is. the other 25.
were killed The one 25 was a Grip
pie. He was sitting on a bed of rice
when a white man with a revolver
killed him. He took the other boy BY
the arm, and said, Come out OF here.
garcon,' and with the same revolver
shot him twice"
Madame Maxine: 81 have to tell
the Commission OF how my mother
and brother were killed. Ny brother
came and called me after my mother
was shot. There were three white men
going along the road They were
passing and they came in Ny mother /
was shot through the side and in both |
breasts. Ny brother was taken pris-
oner by the white men and maltreated
and sent to Cape Haitien and died in
prison"
NJ. Meier Belloni. Plantation of Ad-
alays: Il lost my father and mother.
They were killed by marines under
the command OF Becker was sleep
ing in another house. They took my
father and tied him to a tree, my
mother was standing inside, and then
set FIRE to the house. When my
mother cried out they called her in
side the house There was another
boy in the house and when they shot
my mother. the boy saw that they had
tied up my father and ran out, and
when he came out they started shoot
ing at him until he had time to reach
a ravine; and when he fell into the
ravine they left him and came back
and killed my father, breaking his
head"
Nine. Celicourt Rozier: 81 am 60
ing to show you where received the
bullets in the fingers and above the
left knee All my children have died
Becker, or a man, with a name like
that. did it. There were eight chill
dren; they were shot first and then
fire was set to the house and they were
all burned"
One feels that the volume ought to
have another name: "Lynchings by
Americans. Volume two, Haiti These
stories tally only too well with the
atrocities committed against the Ne
groes in the United States. Here IS
the same carelessness as 10 human lite,
the same burning. the same torturing.
There is further testimony OF reputable
citizens who were thrown out OF their
homes that the marines might occupy
them; imprisoned without trial, tor
tured. One man was burned with an
iron over his body and legs Another
was handcuffed and then hung up to
an iron bar by chain attached to his
wrists. because he would not lend his
horse to a marine. Throughout all the
testimony, one reads of tragic, brutal
treatment of foreign people, whose
country we have no more right to rule
than they would have to rule ours
OF Santo Domingo the report IS
concerned largely with statistics show
ing the growth of trade, the building
of roads, the establishment of schools
since the American occupation. 1t IS
an interesting setting forth of the i'm
periaI policy into which we have en-
tered. But somehow the Santo Do
minicans don't ike it. 1t IS some
thing as though Andrew Carnegie,
when he saw that our country needed 1
more Libraries, instead of offering to
help finance a library If the town
would raise a part of the needed sum,
had raised a regiment, gone into the
town, fired shots, imprisoned those,
the most prominent citizens, who
dared TO defy him and had then taxed
the people for the library, that he be-
lieved they ought to have His money
would not have gone for books, but
for soldiers and bullets We should
have had the Libraries, but / doubt II
we should have enjoyed them Ger
tainly the Santo Domingo people
have something to say against the
-v IN which American civilization II