The mirror., 1922-05-18

CANS. ana nndIly Wnen the DOmlnlCanS
at last succeeded in expelling them and
regaining their independence it was only
to quarrel among themselves. AS in Haiti,
an interminable succession of revolutions
devastated the Dominican Republic and
kept it plunged in poverty and anarchy.
Indeed, conditions became so intolerable
that shortly after our Civil War a strong
sentiment arose among the educated classes
for annexation to the United States. In
response to definite offers from the Domin-
ican government, President Grant in the
year 1869 sent Gen. o. E. Babcock to in
vestigate the situation. General Babcock
was so much impressed both with the re-
sources of the country and with the friend
ly sentiment of the people that he ne
gotiated a treaty of annexation, which the
Dominican legislature promptly ratified.
But "anti-imperialist" sentiment was
strong in the United States then, and our
Senate rejected the treaty. In 1871 Presi-
dent Grant sent commission of distin-
guished men, including Mr.. Andrew D.
White, to the island, and their report like
General Babcock's, was strongly in favor
of annexation; but the opposition in the
Senate was inAexible. Left to its own de-
vices, the Dominican Republic continued
to founder in the bog of misgovernment
and revolution.
By the beginning of the present CEN
fury things had become so bad both in the
Dominican Republic and in Haiti that
foreign intervention, either American or
European, seemed imminent. Trying to
acquire as much money as possible during
their highly uncertain tenures of Office, the
various president dictators not only
squeezed their fellow countrymen to the
limit but also contracted foreign loans and
granted foreign concessions, the proceeds
of which passed through the treasury into
their own pockets. In time those debts be-
came so large that the people could not
pay even the interest on them. Both Haiti
and the Dominican Republic stood before
the world as confessed bankrupts, and the
defrauded foreign bondholders and the
ruined concessionaries appealed frantically
to their respective governments to force
the defaulting republics to live up to their
obligations. Some of the foreign creditors
were Americans, but most of them
were Europeans, particularly Englishmen,
Frenchmen and Germans.
Now it soon became clear that, what
ever the United States might or might not
be inclined to do to protect its own in
jured citizens, the European powers were
determined to see that their subjects OBJ
tanned redress. In the year 1904 at least
two European powers told our government
that they were going to intervene in the
Dominican Republic if something were not
speedily done. The European powers were
giving us the option either of cleaning up
the mess in the Dominican Republic or of
standing aside and seeing Europeans come
over and do it and thus violate the Mon
roe Doctrine, one of the corner stones of
our foreign policy.
Faced with that critical situation, Presi-
dent Roosevelt succeeded in 1905 in get
ting the Dominican government to sign an
agreement that permitted the United States
to adjust the Dominican debt and to ad-
minister the customs for the benen, -
creditors. The effects of American inter-
vention were instantly felt. page 4, Col y