Jackson advocate. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1939-current, 1957-06-08
Haiti S Growing Pains

Out of many weeks of tension and some days of
destructive riotng in Haiti 42-year-od teacher of
mathematics emerged yesterday provisional Presi-
dent How provisional the Executive Daniel Fig
MOLE will be nobody knows The demonstrators in Port
uPrince obviously delighted when the troops of
Brigadier General Leon Cantave who had been holding
the Dessaines Barracks and exercising temporary
thory, walked out and left the field to Professor Fig
mole.
The President if that is what he is in any legal
promises free and honest elections next month,
Haiti of "a true democratic government and
insists that there will be dictatorship" The words
good but will have to wait for the deeds that fit
them Haiti is small island with population of only
four million esS but its personalities and politics
confused and confusing. The mCbs that ranging
the streets Saturday night with considerable loss of life
and property, may simply have needed that
they would not be subjected to tyranny 1t is
also possible that they organized by of
the pretenders to the Presidential chair.
Behind these dismal events, beginning with the
deposition and exile of President Paul Magoire last De-
cember, is the strain Of over-popuation poverty, ig
and high rate of sickness and mortality Haiti
has been technically free for a century and
half Yet how free any people subject to preventabe
disease crowded upon too little land caught IN the trap
of underproduction and inadequate wages and unable
to get the education needed to understand and deal
with their own problems?
The Haitians attractive and picturesque peo-
pe as many tourist has observed. 1t is easy to
mantcize their problems and themselves. But Haiti is
also land in which the tourist, living in comfort
able hotels and travelling mostly few good highways
must be aware of dire poverty all around him. few
years ago United Nations technical assistance mission
reported ess than of tlabe land per person.
with industrial development totally inadequate to
take up much of the slack.
Economically Haiti is almost like part of Asia or
Africa, though it lies within two hours by air from
the American coast The fault is not in the quality of the
population but rather in past years of bad and arbitrary
government Nor it be said that country
appeared at all times friend, though the Marines
during the two decades of occupation that ended in 1884
did at least keep order.
Underneath the surface of the perplexng tragedies
and comedies of the past weeks and days-and can
not be that the designation of Fgnoe yesterday
ended these dramaticss of the worldwide prob
lem of underdeveloped lands of peoples without the OPP
portuny to create and make progress and of the drive
for equality and democracy.
Haiti, to Shores is in part our own
problem and in part responsibility We cannot in
these days solve the problem meet the responsibility
by using armed force We would not if we could Those
days happily past What do is to study anew
the ways in which might help these troubled neigh
bors of to live better to learn and to govern
themselves satisfactorily The magnificent advance
of Puerto Rico within the past twenty years is an ex
ample of what can be done in the Caribbean islands Capt.
ta technical assistance and above ALL friendship and
encouragement, all needed
Meanwhile, let us be thankful that we have our
selves advanced beyond the stage of what used to be
called dollar diplomacy. Haiti is poor and small but it
is no stepchild in the modern world it is member of
the United Nations, and it has moral claim upon the
resources and services of that organization as well as
upon such help give. We hope that it's Gov
eminent will soon be stabilized and that program
destined to bring prosperity to it's people will be set up
and flourish.
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