SANTO DOMINGO UNDER AMERICAN RULE
This is not the place to recapitulate in detail the busy history of
Santo Domingo,—how the island of Quisqueya, or Haïti, was discovered by
Columbus on his first voyage and named Hispaniola; how it was gradually
settled by the Spaniards, who as usual massacred the aborigines and
imported African slaves in their place to cultivate the newly introduced
sugarcane; how French buccaneers from Tortuga eventually conquered the
western end of the island and were recognized by having a governor sent
out from France; how battles raged to and fro between the French and the
Spaniards until something like the present frontier between Haiti and
Santo Domingo was established; how the English expedition sent out by
Cromwell was repulsed and contented themselves with occupying Jamaica
instead; how the negroes of Haiti at length rose against their masters
and drove the French from the island, then ruled the whole of it for
twenty-two years; how the República Dominicana won her independence from
Spain, voluntarily surrendered it again, regained it in 1865, and
entered into that career of constantly recurring revolutions, in which
the winner always became president and his supporters the possessors of
the public revenues, that eventually led to the present American
occupation. The interest of the modern reader is more apt to begin with
this century. In 1906, in order to keep Germany, Belgium, Italy, and
several other creditors from landing in Santo Domingo to collect the
debts of their nationals, the United States advanced $20,000,000 and
took over the custom houses as security. The following year the United
States and the Dominican Republic signed a convention under which the
former was to appoint a receiver for bankrupt Santo Domingo, five per
cent. of the custom receipts to cover the expenses of the receivership
and a certain amount to be set aside to pay off the national debts and
provide a sinking fund. The convention further stipulated that Santo
Domingo could not contract new public indebtedness without American
consent, and that the United States could intervene if conditions within
the country threatened to interfere with the collection of the custom
duties.
The Dominicans soon broke the former agreement. The government illegally
sold revenue stamps at a fraction of their value; _pagarés_ were issued
at great discounts; goods were purchased in the United States and abroad
without being paid for or legally sanctioned. In five years following
1907 there were six presidents, including the Archbishop. In 1911
Cáceres was shot by his own cabinet members because they were not
allowed to graft enough. The United States superintended the elections
of 1914, with the understanding that all parties should abide by the
result. A hard task that for the Dominicans. Within a year another
revolution broke out, secretly sponsored either by the president himself
for the advantage it would give the government in spending power, or by
the opposition party, led by the minister of war. This outbreak was soon
suppressed. In 1916 President Jimenez had barely retired to his summer
palace when this same Deciderio Arias, a turbulent _cacique_ who had
been given the war portfolio in the hope of keeping him quiet, decided
that his chief should never return to the capital. Supported by the
military forces, with the police split between the two factions, this
coup d’état was on the point of winning, when, at the end of April,
1916, the American Minister sent word that there was trouble again in
Santo Domingo. Then the United States, which had “offered its good
services” many times before and endured Dominican conditions with far
too much patience, decided to act. An ultimatum was sent to Arias
announcing that the United States would no longer permit the
establishment of government by revolution. Marines from Haiti had been
landed at Fort San Gerónimo with orders to support the government of
Jimenez, and with his clandestine approval, and took the capital with
little difficulty. The president publicly repudiated his secret
agreement, in spite of having everything in his favor, and announcing in
a bombastic _pronunciamento_ that his “dignity” would not permit him to
endure a foreign military occupation, resigned with all his government.
For this the marines were duly thankful; it simplified the whole
problem.
Meanwhile a force had landed at Puerto Plata and at Monte Cristi, and
fought their way overland, suffering considerably from snipers on the
way. Arias, who had escaped with all his supporters from the unprotected
side of the city, hurried to the Cibao and attempted to hinder the
marine advance, but was forced to surrender with the capture of
Santiago. His power was still paramount in the capital, however, and he
forced congress to make Hernandez y Carbajal, who had returned from long
exile in Cuba, president. The United States refused to recognise this
illegal election and declined to let the government have any money, with
the result that the country was left without rulers. Finally American
military occupation was proclaimed and our forces took over the entire
government of Santo Domingo, a status compared with which the mere
“advisory” one of our marines in Haiti was far more complicated, and has
remained so to this day.
* * * * *
When the Americans took over Santo Domingo the republic was millions in
debt—something like $40 per capita, to be exact—completely bankrupt, and
the salaries of all but the higher officials were long in arrears. Now,
after less than four years of occupation, there is some $4,000,000 in
the treasury. The new land tax alone—which it has been impossible to
duplicate in Haiti, where laws are still made by a native congress,—has
already produced nearly a million. Most of this goes back to the
municipalities. The old taxes bore far more on the poor man than on the
man of property. Moreover, the government of occupation has collected
more than three times as much from these older sources than was the case
under native rule, chiefly because there is no tax-gatherer’s graft and
the friends of the government are no longer let off unpaid. Every
disbursement is now paid by check, on voucher in duplicate, and the same
man cannot buy and pay. A few American civilians in supervising
positions receive their salaries from Dominican funds—and render many
times value received. The great bulk of the higher officials are of no
expense whatever to the natives, being members of our military forces
drawing their pay from the United States treasury.
The sovereignty of the República Dominicana has never ceased. Its
functions are merely _administered_ by representatives of the United
States Navy and Marine Corps, officially called “The Military Government
of the United States in Santo Domingo.” There is no president or
congress. Even the laws are made by the military governor, an American
admiral. There have been no elections since our occupation; all
officials down to the least important are appointed, directly or
indirectly, by the Americans. The latter control all financial matters
and exercise supervision over the official acts even of the smallest
municipalities. American money, chiefly torn, patched, sewn, dirty,
half-illegible bills, constitutes the circulating medium. On the other
hand, the republic has its own schools, courts, and minor officials. The
Dominican flag flies from all public buildings except American
headquarters. In short, in so far as any definite policy has ever been
announced, we are in Santo Domingo to do exactly what we did in Cuba.
The Americans found the whole question of land titles one of incredible
chaos and fraud. Not only were there few definite deeds in existence,
but the country was overrun with what are known as “peso titles.” In the
old days the King of Spain gave grants of land without any conception of
the limits thereof, often supremely ignorant of its whereabouts. Not
infrequently the same parcel was given to three or four of his faithful
subjects. The grantees, who in many cases had never seen their property,
divided their holdings among several children. The latter had no clear
idea either of the amount or the location of their property. So they
said, “Well, I think it is worth so many pesos,” whereupon each child
was given his fraction of that amount—on paper—and thus the subdivision
went on through many generations. Thousands of these “peso titles” were
sold to speculators, or to natives or foreigners who had worse than hazy
ideas of their worth. Then on top of this there grew up a big business
in fake titles. As many as four thousand have been presented, where
fewer than four hundred showed any evidence of being real. Moreover, the
real ones, being often hundreds of years old and written by men who
could neither spell nor find proper writing materials, were more apt to
look spurious than did the false ones. To clear up this intolerable
situation the Americans decreed that all land titles not proved up to a
certain date reverted to the government. The ruling caused some
injustices, but these were unavoidable under the circumstances and as
nothing compared with the old order of things. The introduction of a
land tax also has caused many who might otherwise have drifted on in the
good old tropical way to clear up their titles. A certain amount of
litigation between the government and individuals is still going on, but
the whole problem is gradually coming to an orderly solution.
Another question which the Americans faced upon their arrival was the
disarming of the country. It had long been the custom in Santo Domingo
for even the small boys to carry revolvers. Among the weapons were many
costly pearl-handled ones; most of them had been manufactured in
Springfield, Mass., or Hartford, Conn. A date was set when all firearms
must be turned in to the military government. The penalty for
non-compliance was at first made very severe. There are men still
serving sentence in the road-gangs of Santo Domingo for having guns in
their possession three years ago. At present the standard punishment is
six months’ imprisonment and $300 fine. With the exception of the
bandit-infested province of Seibo, the entire country has now been
completely cleared of firearms, at least those in actual use. Some, to
be sure, are buried or hidden away in the jungle, but time and the rust
of tropical climates will soon take care of those. The Americans burned
whole roomsful of rifles; more than 200,000 revolvers have been thrown
into the sea outside the capital. To-day it is difficult even for
provincial officials to get permission to carry a shooting iron.
As in other lands under temporary or permanent American rule, from Haiti
to the Philippines, a native constabulary was organized. The _Guardia
Nacional_ of Santo Domingo, consisting at present of a company of some
eighty men in each of the fourteen provinces, has the same organization
as the Marine Corps. Its members enlist for three years, and privates
get $15 a month. Their uniform lacks only the hat ornament and somewhat
more durable dye-stuffs to be an exact copy of that of our
“leather-necks.” The only difference in equipment is the “Krag
Jorgensen” instead of the “Springfield.” The officers are marines,
usually sergeants, except in the higher commands and a very few natives
who have climbed to “shave-tail” rank. All commands are given in
English. A “non-com.” can put his men through the whole drill in that
language, yet if you ask him his name, the answer is almost certain to
be “_No hablo Inglés_.” Unlike the Gendarmérie of Haiti the Guardia is
confined in its duties to matters of national defense; municipal police
still keep order in the cities. We got the impression during our short
stay that the Guardia officers were not quite the equal of those of the
Gendarmérie. For one thing the pay is less attractive, though that of
the men is fifty per cent. higher. Recently, too, all marine sergeants
holding commissioned rank in the Guardia have unwisely been reduced to
privates during their absence from their permanent organizations, with
the unfortunate result that the few native lieutenants get more pay than
their American captains, unless the latter are also commissioned
officers of the Marine Corps. The native rank and file of the Guardia
have a cocky, half-insolent air quite foreign to their simpler fellows
of Haiti; they look as if they would be better fighters, more clever
crooks, and not so easily disciplined.
The _cacos_ of Santo Domingo are called _gavilleros_, _caco_ in that
country meaning merely thief or burglar. They are usually armed with
“pata-mulas” (mule hoofs), which are rifles that have been cut down into
revolvers, partly because they are too lazy to carry the whole gun,
partly because the abbreviation is easier to conceal. In the olden days
any one with a few hundred dollars could raise an “army,” especially by
making copious promises of government jobs to everyone if—or rather,
when—his side won. Not until the Americans came were these
anti-governmental groups called bandits; they were dignified with the
title of revolutionaries. Santo Domingo had long run more or less wild;
many of its men preferred taking to the hills at fifty cents a day with
rations and the possibility of loot to doing honest work at a dollar a
day. As with all Spanish-sired races, the Dominicans have the gambling
instinct well developed. They love the lotteries of life; they would
rather take a chance on winning some big prize as bandits or
revolutionists to toiling in safety at peaceful occupations. Then, too,
many were forced to join these outlaw bands, lest their houses be burned
or their families injured. The _gavillero_ situation had been bad before
the Americans landed. It became worse under the occupation, for reasons
that we shall see.
To begin with, Arias released nearly all the criminals in the country
during his revolt against the Jimenez government. These quickly turned
bandits; later on they pretended to be patriots fighting the American
occupation. As a matter of fact the majority of them were fighting for
food, rather than for either political or patriotic reasons, but bombast
is one of the chief qualities of the Latin-American. The forces of
occupation might in some ways have handled this bandit situation better
than they did; largely because of ignorance of local customs, partly
because of inefficiency and a certain amount of brutality, they made
something of a mess of it, or at least let it become more serious than
it need have done.
Two regiments of marines are engaged in the occupation of teaching the
Dominicans how to live without lawlessness—a scant 5000 of them among a
population of 750,000. Unfortunately there are flaws in all
organizations. There are marine commanders in Santo Domingo so just and
broad-minded that they are almost loved by the naturally hostile
population; there were others who have little real conception of their
duties. The rascally, brutal, worthless, “Diamond Dick” class of
American sometimes gets into the Marine Corps as into everything else
and tends to destroy the good name of the majority. Boys brought up on
dime novels and the movies saw at last a chance to imitate their
favorite heroes and kill people with impunity: some of them, too, were
Southerners, to whom the Dominicans after all were only “niggers.” The
great majority of the forces of occupation were well meaning young
fellows who often lacked experience in distinguishing outlaws from
honest citizens, with the result that painful injustices were sometimes
committed.
These ignorant, or movie-trained, young fellows were sent out into the
hills to hunt bandits. They came upon a hut, found it unoccupied, and
touched a match to the _nipe_ thatch. They probably thought such a hovel
was of no importance anyway, even if it were not a bandit haunt, whereas
it contained all the earthly possessions of a harmless family. In their
ignorance of local customs they could not know that the entire household
was out working in their jungle yuca-garden. Or they found only the
women and children at home, and burned the house because these could not
explain where their man was. Or again, they met a man on the trail and
asked him his business, and because he could not understand their
atrocious imitation of Spanish, or they his reply, they shot him to be
on the safe side. In still other places they burned the houses of
innocent accomplices, because bandits had commandeered food and lodging
there. If one can believe half the stories that are current in all
circles throughout Santo Domingo, the Germans in Belgium had nothing on
some of our own “leather-necks.”
A parish priest of Seibo, who seemed, if anything, friendly to the
occupation, told me of several cases of incredible brutality of which he
had personal knowledge. He could not divulge the secrets of the
confessional, but he could assure me that many of the victims had been
innocent even of hostile thoughts. The Guardia, he asserted, included
some of the worst rascals, thieves, and assassins in the country, men
far worse than the _gavilleros_, and these often egged the naïve
Americans on to vent their own private hates. Scarcely a month before a
sad personal experience had befallen him. On Christmas Day he had gone
with acolytes to another town to attend a fiesta, when a drunken marine
had fired his rifle twice into the wattled hut where it was being held
and killed a boy of ten who was at that moment swinging the censer.
I cannot vouch for all the padre’s statements, but rumors of this kind
were strikingly prevalent among natives and Americans all over Santo
Domingo. On the other hand we must remember that the bandit-hunters
often have no certain means of telling a _gavillero_ from a “good
citizen,” and they cannot always afford to give a man the benefit of the
doubt. One is as apt as the other to look like an honest, simple,
harmless fellow, and there have been sad mistakes on the side of
leniency also, which have naturally led to over-caution. The Dominican
is quite versatile enough to be a bandit one day and to be found
scratching the ground of his jungle garden with his machete the next.
Captured _gavilleros_ have boasted that they hid their guns in a
cane-field when a hostile force appeared, came out and helped the
marines unsaddle, drank a round with them in the neighboring
_licorería_, and recovered their weapons as soon as the hunters had
taken to the trail again. The Guardia, too, has not always been free
from spies. The difficulties of the situation, and the necessity of a
wide knowledge of local customs and conditions on the part of those sent
to handle it, is exemplified by the miscarriage of a plan to clear a
certain district of Seibo of outlaws. The government of occupation
ordered all “good inhabitants” to come into the towns on a certain day,
so that the bad ones might be more easily corralled. But the
_gavilleros_ have a better news service than those who have no
particular reason to keep their ears to the ground. The former learned
of the order, concealed their weapons, and hastened into the villages,
with the result that those who were shot were chiefly honest, simple
peasants.
There have been several battles of importance between the marines and
the _gavilleros_ since the occupation. The latter are more worthy
adversaries than the Haitian _cacos_, though the defeat of a band of
four hundred by a score of Americans is not considered an extraordinary
feat. Thanks either to his Spanish antecedents or to his revolutionary
history, the Dominican has a ferocity and a _desprecio_ of human life
that makes it unwise to be compassionate. More than thirty marines have
been killed in Santo Domingo, as against only four in Haiti. One band
has announced a determination to completely exterminate the white
foreigners, and makes a practice of horribly mutilating the dead and
wounded. A persistent rumor has it that one of its leaders is an
American.
The story of the killing of the bandit chieftain of Santo Domingo is not
so heroic as the extermination of Charlemagne in Haiti—nor as definite.
Vicentico and his men had overrun almost the entire province of Seibo.
In July, 1917, one account has it, a gunnery sergeant who spoke
imperfect Spanish went into his district unarmed and in “civies” and
spent a week in winning the chief’s confidence. The Americans, he told
him, had lost hope of defeating so expert a warrior and would make him a
general and chief of the Guardia, with places for the best of his men,
if he would disband his forces and support the occupation. Another
version is that the real go-between was a “Turk” shopkeeper who had
known him in other days. Questions of individual glory aside, Vicentico
at length set out with seventy picked men to report to the marine
commander. On the way he was suddenly startled to hear one of the wild
birds of Seibo utter its peculiar shriek in a tree-top above him.
“You are betraying me!” cried the chieftain, whirling upon the “Turk”—or
the sergeant—and covering him with his “pata-mulas.” “That bird has
never failed to warn me of danger.”
The emissary, who was evidently gifted with a superhuman tongue, managed
to talk his way back into the confidence of the outlaw, and the journey
proceeded. Arrived at the American headquarters, Vicentico marched
haughtily in upon the marine colonel, his swarthy face twitching with
triumph, and announced himself ready to take over the command of the
Guardia.
“You are under arrest,” said the colonel, dryly.
“Caramba!” cried the outlaw, while a detachment of marines disarmed his
seventy followers, “I _knew_ I should have listened to that bird!”
Just what happened after that is not very clear, except that it was
nothing of which to be particularly proud. One version runs that the
gunnery sergeant entered the outlaw’s cell one night and told him, amid
curses and crocodile tears, that his superiors had repudiated their
promise, but that he would redeem his own unintentional treachery in the
matter by helping the bandit to escape at once—whereupon guards
carefully posted outside met him with a volley sanctioned by the _ley de
fuga_ of his own race. Another termination of the tale has it that a
group of marine officers, “lit up after a big party,” staggered to the
prison and vindicated the loss of some of their comrades by shooting the
outlaw with his handcuffs still on, and without even allowing him time
to call a priest. Just how much truth there is in these varying
accounts, or combinations of the two, will probably remain a mystery,
but even the marines themselves do not often boast of the killing of
Vicentico.
Chronic pessimists and sworn enemies of the occupation assert that the
Americans have made ten bandits for every one they have killed. Without
taking this statement at par, there is at least a grain of truth in the
complementary assertion that the killing of Vicentico made all Seibo
turn _gavilleros_. In some sections only women, children, and old men
are seen; the young bucks have all taken to the hills. The leaders that
are left have no confidence in Americans, especially those in a marine
uniform, and they will no longer enter into negotiations of any nature.
The province wants revenge for what it considers the treacherous
betrayal of one of its popular heroes. We should remember the
time-honored Spanish attitude towards bandits—something mere warriors,
with no time to study history, cannot be expected to know. The
government of Spain has always been more or less an oppressor of the
common people; those who rise against it, either singly or in groups,
are looked upon somewhat as champions of the helpless masses. The
favorite heroes of Spanish dramas to this day are _bandidos_, and they
are always equally noted for their absolute indifference to personal
danger and for their knightly code of honor, to say nothing of their
unfailing generosity toward the poor. It is not hard, therefore, to
understand why _los Americanos_ fell far down the moral scale of Seibo
province by their uncaballeresco treatment of Vicentico.
* * * * *
If I may continue this unprejudiced explanation of things as they seemed
to be in Santo Domingo at the beginning of 1920 without giving the false
impression that the great majority of our forces of occupation are not a
credit to the land of their birth, I would add a word about the effect
of personal conduct. A few marines, some officers among them, vary the
monotony of their assignment by starting irregular households; a
somewhat larger number take undue advantage of their isolation from our
new and not too popular constitutional amendment. The former lapse would
attract but little attention in Santo Domingo, where it is almost a
national custom, were it not an American habit to boast ourselves
superior to other races in such matters, at least in view-point. The
result is a frequent sneering whisper of “hypocrites.” As to the second,
like all Latin races the Dominican is seldom a teetotaler, but he is
even more seldom seen under the influence of liquor, at least publicly.
In a land where any man of standing loses caste by the slightest
evidence of intoxication, the effect on the popular mind of what to
their self-appointed rulers is merely a “little celebration” is
extremely unfortunate. The result of these things, of a certain amount
of crude autocracy, and a tendency to let red tape have the precedence
over common sense, is that our forces of occupation are far less popular
in Santo Domingo than they could be.
There has been a growing tendency on the part of the Dominicans to show
their enmity openly. Several outbreaks at dances and fiestas, ranging
from individual encounters to near-riots, have indicated the feeling
against Americans. Marine officers dancing with Dominican girls have
been subjected to unpleasant scenes. Our men are less often invited to
native clubs than formerly. A less serious and more amusing index,
almost universal south of the Rio Grande, is the increasing refusal to
call us Americans. Several newspapers have permanently adopted the
clumsy adjective “Estadunidense.” If our Southern neighbors have their
way I suppose we shall soon be calling ourselves “Unitedstatians,” or,
as a fellow-countryman who has lived so long among them as to admit
their contention always writes it, “Usians.”
What we need in such jobs as that in Santo Domingo are “long time men,”
soldiers who have learned by experience that the task is rather one of
education than of oppression. I should like to see all those removed
from our forces of occupation who have not a proper respect for
Dominicans; not an unbounded respect—I haven’t that myself—but who at
least admit that our wards are human beings, with their own rights and
customs, and not merely “Spigs” and “niggers.” There is too much of that
“nigger” attitude among the more ignorant class of Americans, who too
often make the color-line a protection against their own shortcomings.
“Mac”—or “Big George,” for that matter—is an excellent example of the
kind of American we want in such places. An early training that has
taught self-control as well as the power to command, a long enough
residence to speak Spanish perfectly, with all its local idioms, a bit
of Irish blarney, which goes a long way with these simple and really
good-hearted people, a due knowledge and regard for their customs and
point of view, yet with a sense of humor to see and enjoy, rather than
be annoyed by, their ridiculous side—in short, a real American, by which
I do not mean the boisterous, bullying fellow who sees no good outside
the United States, but one who can adapt himself to all conditions,
return courtesy for courtesy, concise and straight-forward, living up to
the law in every particular, always giving common sense the right of way
over red tape, kindly worded in all his dealings, yet always letting
possible recalcitrants sense the revolver loaded and cocked under
his—the government’s—coat. Such are the men needed for these jobs, not
the haughty autocrat nor the ignorant “rough-neck.”
The majority of Dominicans object to American occupation for several
reasons. A list of the most potent might run something as follows: That
of the bad boy made to behave himself; the resentment of politicians who
have lost their hold on the public purse; the knowledge that the
Americans consider themselves a superior race; the sharpness of the
American color-line; the military censorship; “unconstitutional”
American military courts; the order against carrying arms; the alleged
breaking by the government of occupation of the Dominican law
restricting immigration. There are others, but they are unimportant as
compared to these.
The first two or three need no explanation. Few Americans realize how
irksome is our attitude on the negro question in a country where not one
inhabitant in ten can show an unquestionable Caucasian pedigree. Even
the Dominicans have a color-line; I have yet to find a country inhabited
by negroes that has not; but they see no justice in ranking a
well-educated, influential citizen of more than the American average of
culture in the same socially impossible category as an illiterate black
dock laborer, simply because his hair is curly and his complexion
slightly dulled. As to the censorship, the occupation calls it
excessively lenient; Dominican writers find it “intolerable.” That it is
stupid goes without saying; it seems to be a universal rule that a
censor must be supremely ignorant of literature and forbidden even to
have a speaking acquaintance with the classics. Yet with an
uninstructed, inflammable population and a pest of irresponsible,
self-seeking scribblers, no military occupation could exist without
taking measures to curtail printed sedition. This is a rock on which the
rather popular military governor and even the best class of natives have
split asunder. The _Comisión Consultiva_, headed by the Archbishop, that
was formed to give the admiral unofficial advice on Dominican matters
beyond his natural ken, resigned at the beginning of 1920 because the
“insupportable” censorship was not wholly abolished, instead of being
merely softened.
The _Cortes Prebostales_ come in for a large share of Dominican
invective. The American military courts, they protest, sometimes try and
punish those who have been acquitted by the native courts, and vice
versa. It is unconstitutional, they cry. True enough, but so is it
unconstitutional to have made it necessary for a foreign military force
to assume the government of the country. Courts martial are resorted to
only in cases of carrying arms, insurrections, assaults on members of
the forces of occupation, and sales of liquor to men in uniform. It
takes no great amount of thinking to see how impossible it would be to
have such matters passed upon by Dominican judges. For one thing, none
of them are covered by the civil laws of Santo Domingo.
[Illustration: Advertising a typical Dominican theatrical performance]
[Illustration: A tree to which Columbus tied one of his ships, now on
the wharf of Santo Domingo City]
[Illustration: The tomb of Columbus in the Cathedral of Santo Domingo
City]
It is naturally irksome to a man who has always considered a revolver as
a sign of caste, an adornment similar to a diamond ring or a gold-headed
cane, to be forced to dispense with this portion of his attire. But not
much can be said for the plaintiff in this case. There is more reason
for sympathy with the countrymen who cannot even have a shotgun to kill
the crows, woodpeckers, guinea-fowls, and parrots that destroy his
crops. The man, too, is entitled to a hearing who has hundreds of
laborers under his command in the wilder sections of the country, or who
lives on the edge of the bandit zone, yet who can have nothing better
than a machete with which to protect himself or his family. Our
experience of the close resemblance between _gavilleros_ and respectable
citizens, however, has sadly shattered our confidence, and it is
difficult even for native officials whose duties carry them about the
country to get permission to dress themselves up in firearms.
I have already spoken of the dog-in-the-manger attitude of the
Dominicans on the subject of immigration. Their complaints on this score
have become less acute since the military government promulgated the
recent decree of registration and proof of self-support for alien
laborers. There is still some grumbling, however. Native law forbids the
bringing in of negro or Oriental workmen “except in cases of emergency.”
The Americans, they assert, have permitted too many blacks from the
neighboring islands to take employment in the great cane-fields of the
South. Yet surely the harvesting of sugar is an “emergency” to the
unsweetened world of to-day. Also, the American steamship line that
monopolizes the carrying of goods to and from Santo Domingo brings
stevedores from Turk’s Island and other points to work the cargoes,
dropping them again at their homes, and the Dominicans complain that
this lowers their standard of living. The fact is that the native
laborers are not merely indolent; they are distressingly independent.
About Thursday a bunch of them get together and say, “We have enough to
live on until Tuesday. Why should we work?” So off goes the bunch on a
dance-fiesta-cockfight spree and the canes wither in the field or
cargoes lie untouched in the hold or on the dock. The workmen of the
South, in particular, have the reputation of being the best time-killers
in the world. The great sugar centrals of that region could not exist
without the privilege of bringing in Haitian or British West Indian
laborers.
Abhorring steady labor as he does, the Dominican has been quick to catch
the drift of modern trade unionism in demanding exorbitant wages for
indifferent work. At the recent labor conference in Washington Santo
Domingo was represented by the mulatto son of a German, formerly
governor of Puerto Plata, and a man who could not but have chuckled at
his own humor in addressing the conference as “my fellow workmen.”
Denied the privilege of holding office in the old style under American
rule, these professional politicians are attempting to get a
strangle-hold on the public purse by forming labor unions and appealing
to the American Federation of Labor to bring its powerful influence to
bear on the military government. The parade of a score of _gremios_
during our stay in the Dominican capital, nearly all of them formed
within six months, shows what success is attending their efforts. The
labor dictator of America seems to have fallen into the trap. He
requests that the laborers of Santo Domingo be given “full liberty of
action,” which sounds to those of us who have been there like permission
to take a gun and turn bandit. Measured in dollars and cents the wages
of the Dominican laborer are not high; balanced against the work he
actually accomplishes they show him rather the exploiter than the
victim. No one on earth, least of all the occupation, is hindering him
from doing a good day’s work and getting reasonably well paid for
it—except his own indolence, which in the end is apt to leave him
swamped beneath foreign immigration in spite of any political
manipulations.
* * * * *
Among those I talked with about their country’s “wrongs” was Deciderio
Arias, the former war minister who added the last straw to American
patience. He runs a pathetic little cigar factory in Santiago now,
sleeping on a cot in one corner of it, and professes, I hesitate to
report, a great friendship for “Big George.” A proud, rather ignorant
mulatto, with perhaps a touch of Indian blood, a commanding manner still
despite his reverses and the high degree of outward courtesy of all his
people, he is, or pretends to be, fairly well satisfied with American
occupation. All he wanted, he asserts, was internal peace for his
beloved native land, and the marines have brought that, or nearly so.
But he regrets that the Americans do not study the customs and
“psychology” of the Dominican people, rather than jumping to the
conclusion that what is good for themselves is unquestionably good for
all other races.
Then there was Santo Domingo’s chief novelist and literary light, the
pride of La Vega. He is perhaps the most outspoken opponent of the
occupation in the country. “Cuba and Porto Rico have always been
colonies,” he frothed, “and are used to having a rule of force thrust
upon them. But Santo Domingo won her own independence single-handed and
what we want, what we must have, is _LIBERTY!_” He did not add that the
meaning of the word in this particular case was the right of continual
revolution, but it was easy to supply that footnote for him. His wrath
was scornful toward those of his fellow-countrymen who had “debased
themselves” to accept office under the occupation, and he asserted that
all who had done so were “the dregs of our national life.” The
novelist’s testimony was somewhat discounted, however, by “Mac’s”
characterization of him as a “one-cylinder crook,” who had been removed
from public office for selling cancelled revenue stamps.
The parish priest of Seibo was far more favorable to the occupation. A
native Dominican, without a hint of the asceticism of the French priests
in Haiti, with a generous waist-line and the face of one who enjoys to
the full all the good things of life, he had the ripe judgment of a man
of the world, rather than the view-point of the cloister. All
intellectual Dominicans, he explained, are ashamed that it was
necessary, yet they know it is for their own good, that the Americans
have “annexed” the country. The lesson has been hard to bear, but it was
unavoidable, and now they have learned it so well that they “will never
do it again”—it sounded like the cry of a bad boy under the paternal
strap—if only we will let them govern themselves and still hold a
menacing hand over them. It is the old Latin-American cry for protection
without responsibility. Every Dominican would bless the United States if
the marines were withdrawn and an advisory governor left. They would
never again steal public office or government funds. They have been
taught that continual revolutions are not a mere pastime, but a crime.
The _intellectual_ Americans of the occupation had done much good, he
asserted, but their works had been largely offset by those of the other
class. For all the violence he had reported, he seemed to have no hard
feelings against us, but he felt that the time had come for us to go
away. He “had heard it said” that the _gavilleros_ would return to their
_canucos_ and settle down again as soon as the Americans leave. Many of
them were simple rascals who had no sense of patriotism whatever, but
only a desire to live by robbery and plunder. They were as apt to kill
their own countrymen as Americans, rather more so, in fact, for the
latter went armed and the Dominicans could not. Yet many of them had
been driven to the hills by force of circumstances—by threats from the
real bandits, by the marines mistaking an innocent family for
_gavillero_ sympathizers, or a man was falsely given a bad name and
dared not come in and give himself up, for fear of suffering the fate of
Vicentico. Once these unwilling outlaws abandoned the fight the rest
would have no choice but to disband.
It is difficult to admit, however, that Santo Domingo is now ready to
govern itself, not because there are no educated and honest men in the
country, but because these cannot get into power. Force rules; just
elections are impossible. As in all Latin-America, with few exceptions,
parties depend upon and take the name of their leader. Principles do not
interest the rank and file in the least. In the old days the president
always appointed a military man as provincial leader, that his “party”
might not assert any signs of independence. Every district had its
little local _cacique_, or tribal chief. Elections were two-day affairs.
Woolly countrymen were brought in from the hills and voted at once. The
_cacique_ got them shaved and voted them again; got them a hair-cut and
voted them again; gave them a new shirt and voted them again. On the
second day a half-dozen more disguises preceded their repeated visits to
the polls. It is hard to believe that a bare four years of occupation
have completely cured the Dominicans of such habits. The Americans, in
fact, have never yet attempted to hold an election, hence there has been
no new ideal held up to them in this matter. Under the old régime judges
divided fines among themselves, and it cost much effort to get them to
give up this privilege. Now they are apt to give ludicrously light
fines, because it all goes to the internal revenue, in which they are
not personally interested. Like a wayward boy who was never taught to
govern himself, but was merely exploited by a heartless stepfather, from
whom he finally ran away, Santo Domingo has no real conception of how to
conduct itself in political matters, and up to the present occupation no
one has ever attempted to teach it what it never learned from Spain or
experience.
Some Dominicans would be satisfied with an American protectorate,
provided they could have their own congress and a certain show of
autonomy. Many thoughtful citizens want us to remain until a new
generation has been trained to administer their affairs. So far little
such training has been done, and it will take a long time to break them
of their “Spig” habits. Cuba and Porto Rico have always been used to
obeying the law, yet they have scarcely yet approached proper
self-government. Santo Domingo has always run more or less wild; she
needs a complete new standard of honor and morals. Among other things
this will require at least twenty-five years of good elementary
schooling. Nor should it be a hesitant, over-kindly schooling. The
textbooks adopted should contain such pertinent queries as: “What are
the chief faults of Dominicans (of Latin-Americans in general) which it
is necessary to correct before they can take their proper place in the
modern world? Answer: We must get rid of _Caudillismo_, of personal
instead of political parties”—and so on, with what may seem offensive
frankness. Not only should Americans remain long enough in Santo Domingo
to train a new generation, but we should tell them at once that such is
our firm intention. The rumor that our troops are about to be withdrawn
is always going around the country, leaving no one a certain peg on
which to hang his hat. Remember how we hate the uncertainty of a
presidential year. There should be a proclamation by our own federal
government to the effect that we are going to remain for many years—I
should say fifty, until all the present generation has disappeared—and
that there is no use kicking meanwhile against the inevitable. Instead
of that the present governor tells them that he will do all in his power
to get them a civil government soon and to have the troops withdrawn,
remaining perhaps as a civil governor. I do not believe they are ready
for any such move, certainly not to handle their own finances, which is
what they wish above all to do. Bit by bit they should be initiated into
the mysteries of real self-government, but we should avoid the error we
made in Cuba, and to some extent in Porto Rico, of graduating them
before they have finished the grammar grades. If the unborn generation
can be reared without political pollution from the living, there is
promise even in such a race as the Dominican. However, have you ever set
out on a journey astride a mongrel native horse and expected him to keep
up with a thoroughbred?
* * * * *
The military occupation has made mistakes; all military governments do.
But they are by no means so many nor so serious as those the Dominicans
made themselves. There have been cases of arbitrariness, snap judgments,
and injustice, but on the whole American rule is just, justifiable, and
well done. Some of the trouble comes from the fact that navy youths of
no experience are given important _secretarías_ that require men of
exceedingly mature judgment—though, to be sure, the governing of Santo
Domingo, with its bare 750,000 inhabitants, is little more than a
mayor’s job, except in extent of territory. A second drawback is that
the most important posts are in the hands of men who know not a word of
Spanish and must do all their work through interpreters, usually of the
politician stripe, with results easily imagined. There is no reason
whatever why graduates of Annapolis or West Point should not know what
has become so important a language to their calling. Did anyone ever
hear of a German professional officer who did not speak at least English
and French fluently? Some of the time that is now given to “social
functions” and the learning of afternoon-tea manners could easily be
sacrificed to our new requirements. Lastly, there should be more
knowledge and interest in our scattered wards among our higher officials
at home. It is not particularly helpful to a naval officer suddenly
appointed governor of such a place as Santo Domingo to have the
secretary who should outline his policy turn from the map on which he
has just looked up that unknown spot and make some such reply as,
“Orders? Don’t bother me with details. I have more important matters
requiring my attention. Go down there and sit on the lid.”
As an example of the improvements already accomplished by the occupation
there is the matter of marriage. Formerly it was almost impossible for
the mass of the people to form legal unions; the cost was too great and
the requirements of birth certificates and other formalities
insurmountable. As a result, marriage had come to be looked upon as a
superfluous ceremony. This condition, more or less universal throughout
the West Indies, is a deliberate legacy of olden times. The exploiters
of the islands, particularly the Spaniards, abetted by the church, whose
prosperity depended on their prosperity, purposely made marriage
difficult among the laboring classes. A married woman and her children
could demand support from her husband; a mere consort added to the
available labor supply, because she was obliged to earn her livelihood
in the fields and to send her children there early in life. Though there
were men who treated their irregular families as legal dependents before
the Americans came, illegitimate children were frequently abandoned,
mistreated, or exploited to a degree that drove many of them to turn
bandit. At best they suffered for want of a firm fatherly hand in their
early years. The occupation attacked this problem by forcing men to pay
for the support and schooling of their “outside” children. As little
stigma attaches to this social misbehavior in Santo Domingo, there was
seldom any difficulty in establishing the parentage. It was usually
common knowledge. Even the priests have families in the majority of
cases, many of them frankly acknowledging their sons and daughters.
There are men in Santo Domingo, some of them veritable pillars of
society, who suddenly saw their burdens increased from two or three
children to twenty-five under the new law. Marriages are now free, and
are public ceremonies. They almost always take place at night, and
crowds gather outside the wide-open, lighted house. Members of the
family come out and talk with friends in the throng now and then but do
not invite them inside. About the parlor table sit the bride and groom,
the notary and the priest, surrounded by the standing relatives and
intimate _amigos_ and _compadres_. There is much signing of documents
and ledgers, each followed by a sort of rapturous sigh from the curious
throng in the street, which under no circumstances short of a downpour
gives any signs of breaking up until the new couple has retired from the
scene. Most dances, fiestas, and family celebrations are like that in
Santo Domingo, where the principal room always faces the street and the
heat makes closed doors and windows worse than superfluous. Sometimes
these open, chair-forested parlors are on a level with the sidewalk,
sometimes several feet below it, but it is impossible to avoid a peep
inside, even if one does not join the crowd. Besides, there is nothing
secretive about such Dominican festivities; the bride who did not see a
throng gathered before her door on her wedding night would probably weep
her eyes out before morning.
When the Americans arrived there were only 18,000 pupils nominally
attending the schools of Santo Domingo. There were no rural schools
whatever. Many “teachers” never taught at all, but were merely political
henchmen who drew salaries, some of them wholly illiterate. Some of them
farmed their “pupils” out or worked them in their own fields.
Superintendents and inspectors rarely did either, and kept no records
whatever. Listen to a passage from a novel by a sworn enemy of the
occupation:
The average Dominican woman frequented—the word is well chosen—a
school of first letters sustained and directed by a priest, where
she learned to read and write after a fashion, the barest rudiments
of arithmetic and geography, and a world of prayers which the good
priest made special effort to teach her. She had the catechism at
her fingers’ ends, but except for the forms of devotion she was a
complete ignoramus who took seriously any nonsense told her by those
who happened, falsely or otherwise, to have her confidence.
There was not even a basis on which to build an educational system.
Those charged with the task had to begin from the ground up. The
peculiar status of Santo Domingo gives it an American Minister of Public
Instruction and a native superintendent, the reverse of the case in
Haiti. Both are earnest men, but pedagogy is not on the curriculum at
Annapolis. No attempt has been made to Americanize the schools, as in
Porto Rico and the Philippines, which is proper enough politically but
questionable educationally. Every man has been made personally
responsible for the men under him, clear down through the system. The
occupation now has 100,000 pupils in the schools, with as many still
unprovided for; but many of the former attend only half time for lack of
accommodations. Dominican illiteracy still exceeds ninety per cent., and
information passes chiefly by word of mouth, with consequent garbling.
An attempt is being made to have the university in the capital teach
only “practical” subjects, banishing the lofty culture with which the
Latin-American loves to flirt. One gets the impression, however, that
there is more attention and expense bestowed upon the elaborate
educational pamphlets that pour in a constant stream from the government
presses than on the adobe school houses and the barefoot urchins who
attend them.
The Dominican of the masses is kindly, hospitable, long-suffering, and
hopeful; in spite of having been exploited and mistreated for centuries,
despite his tendency to settle things by force of arms and his low value
on human life, he is still simple and good-hearted underneath. Even in
the days of revolution lone Americans went in safety where a company of
marines now moves with caution. The mothers of American girls married to
officers of the occupation would be horrified to know that their
daughters use murderers from the Guardia prisons as cooks and servants,
yet such arrangements scarcely attract a passing comment among the
Americans in Santo Domingo. Like all Latin-Americans, the _dominicano_
has no compassion, either for animals or his fellow-men. Brave enough in
physical combat, he has little moral courage—I have already mentioned
the inability of native officials to discipline their own people. Worst
of all, he has no idea how to curb his politicians. The best families
emigrated to Cuba during the twenty-two years of Haitian rule, and the
latter closed the university and many of the schools as superfluous
luxuries, which may be among the reasons why the “higher” classes do not
measure up correspondingly in character with the masses. A rise in the
social scale seems frequently to bring a drop in moral standards. As an
example: The son of a shoemaker worked his way through school with truly
American spirit; he studied medicine in Paris, learned English and
French, is a voracious reader of all the literature of his profession in
several languages. Yet when a poor countryman with a broken skull was
brought in to him by a Guardia detachment, he declined to attend him,
after beginning the operation, because no one could assure him his $500
fee.
* * * * *
The Dominicans have few strictly native customs, their chief
characteristic being their fondness for revolutions. They are gay,
vivacious, and frivolous, fond of music and dancing, and find a great
deal of amusement in the most trivial pastimes. Bull-fights have long
since disappeared, but cock-fighting is the universal male sport, and on
Sundays and feast days the cockpit is the center of attraction. Not a
city or village is without its _gallera_; in the country districts there
is sure to be one within easy distance of every collection of thatched
huts. On any holiday the traveler along the principal roads and highways
is certain to meet a cavalcade of horsemen, each carefully carrying in a
sack what the initiated know to be a prize rooster.
The chief _gallera_ of Santo Domingo City was just back of our lodging.
On Sunday we were awakened at dawn by its uproar, which varied in volume
but never once ceased entirely until sunset. In the afternoon I wandered
into the enclosure; paid an admission fee of twenty-five cents, and,
climbing the tank-like outer wall, crowded into a place up near the
round sheet-iron roof. The sport is legalized and a part of the
gate-money goes to the municipality, netting some $1,500 a year. This is
a mere bagatelle, however, compared to the sums that change hands among
the spectators during a single day’s sport. Like most Spanish games,
betting is the chief raison d’être of the cock-fight. The constant,
deafening hubbub recalled the curb market of New York, as well as the
ball games of Havana. Before each separate contest there were long waits
while the shrieking spectators placed their wagers on the two haughty,
gorgeous birds tenderly held by their owners or hired seconds.
It came as a surprise to find what class of men attend these contests in
the capital. The circle of faces rising eight tiers high above the
earth-floored pit were in many cases wholly free from negro strain; the
great majority of the audience was not merely well-dressed, they showed
considerable evidence of moderate affluence. Wealthy merchants and men
high in local affairs, two or three ex-ministers, were pointed out to me
as owners of one or several contending cocks. “Chickens” would be a more
exact term, for the fighters, unlike the spectators, were not confined
to one sex. The _toilettes_ of the birds were fantastic in the
extreme—each had been clipped, picked, or otherwise denuded of its
feathers on various parts of the body, particularly the thighs and neck,
according to the whim or expert opinion of its trainer, and the
appearance of its bare skin demonstrated that it was indeed in the
“pink” of condition. An invariable formality preceded each contest. On a
square board hanging stiffly on poles from the roof was placed a pair of
scales in which the two opponents were weighed in their sacks, custom
requiring that they balance one another to the fraction of an ounce.
Then, when a lull in the betting showed that the spectators had decided
their odds, the owner or his agent filled his mouth with rum and water
and spurted it in a fine spray over the bird from haughty head to bare
legs, and the fight was on.
The first battle after my arrival was between a black hen and a red
India rooster. From the moment of release they went straight at it, like
professional boxers. Now and then they clinched, but as there was no
referee to separate them they eventually broke away themselves. Then the
rooster took to running round and round the ring, the hen after him,
which a “fan” beside me called clever strategy. During the early part of
the fight the favorite changed with every peck, or slash of the spurs.
Shouts loud as those at a Thanksgiving football game seemed to set the
tin roof above us to vibrating. The shrieks of the bettors were
emphasized by waving hands, by jumping up and down, by shaking money in
one another’s faces and placing wagers at a distance by lightning-quick,
cabalistic gestures. Those who hazarded a mere ten dollars a “throw”
were the most insignificant of “pikers”; on every side flashed
hundred-dollar bills, sometimes two or three of them in the same hand.
Screams of ecstasy greeted each clever spur-stroke, awakening a
loathsome disgust for one’s fellow-men. I found myself wondering how
many of these shrieking _fanáticos_ had a tenth as much nerve as their
gamey chickens. Certainly none of them would have endured so much
punishment without crying quits. Gradually the bets dropped from even to
ten to one. The rooster was getting the worst of it. He had gone stone
blind, his head was a mass of blood, he was so groggy on his feet that
he fell dizzily on his side now and then, only to struggle up again and
fight on, pecking the air at random while his opponent continued a
grueling punishment. The owner on the side lines kept shouting frantic
advice to him,—“_Anda, cobarde!_ _Pica, gallo!_” A lucky peck or
spur-thrust sometimes suddenly gives the battle even to a blind cock,
hence there was still hope. Toward the end the rooster frequently lay
down from sheer fatigue, his opponent respecting his fallen condition
with knightly honor and never once touching him until he had wobbled to
his feet again. The exhibition became monotonously disgusting, even some
of the “fans” began to protest, and at length the owner stepped into the
pit with a deprecating shrug of the shoulders and snatched up the
rooster, rudely, in one hand, like some carrion crow. His bleeding head
hung as if he were dead. Even when a gamecock wins, it cannot fight
again for months; if it loses it means the garbage heap or at best some
pauper’s pot. A man at the ringside pulled the natural spurs off the
defeated bird for use on some other less well-armed fowl, losing bettors
began to hunt up the winners and pay their debts, and another throng
invaded the ring in preparation for the next disgusting contest.
* * * * *
Santo Domingo City, more often called “La Capital” within the country,
is a prettier town than Santiago, and somewhat larger. It is less
compact, has more trees and open spaces, and many curious old
ruins,—palaces, gates, fortresses, and churches—so many old churches, in
fact, that some of them are now used as theaters and government offices.
Of the several ancient stone gateways remaining from its former city
wall the most curious is the “Puerta de la Independencia,” opening on a
pretty outer plaza—curious because the Dominicans pretend it is the gate
through which the triumphant army entered after driving out the Haitians
in 1844, though any street urchin knows the entry was really made by a
less ornate gate nearer the sea. Then there is the aged tree down in the
custom house compound on the banks of the Ozama river to which Columbus
is said to have tied one of his ships. The cathedral on the central
plaza is a picturesque pile of old stone, without tower or spire, and
noteworthy for the elaborate tomb of the famous Genoese just inside its
main portal. Without going into the vexed question of whether the bones
it contains are really those of the great discoverer, except to say that
Havana, Valladolid, Seville, and Santo Domingo City are all equally
certain that they have the genuine remains, one can at least say that
the tomb itself is worth visiting. Indeed, though a trifle ornate for
American tastes, it is astonishingly artistic to the traveler long
familiar with the almost universally ludicrous “art” of Latin-American
churches. With its splendid bronze reliefs, its excellent small figures
in marble, and its inspiring general form, it might almost rank as the
gem of ecclesiastical architecture south of the Rio Grande.
Once in the cathedral there are several other things worth a glance
before leaving, though its tiny windows give the interior an eternal
twilight. Two or three paintings by Velasquez and Murillo have a genuine
value; a picture brought over by Columbus can be seen only by means of
the sexton’s key; a cross which the discoverer of America is said to
have set up nearby is protected by glass doors let into the wall because
the faithful and the curious were given to chipping off pieces as sacred
relics or souvenirs. The mahogany choir-stalls, the pulpits, and the
altars are all of rich-red old woodwork. There is an excellent tomb of
the archbishop who was once president. Indeed, it does not seem
necessary to be of Columbian stature to be able to sleep one’s last
sleep beside the doughty old navigator. During our stay in the city the
marble floor was opened a few feet from the historic tomb to receive the
remains of a Syrian merchant, long resident in “La Capital” but deceased
in New York, whose only claim to glory seemed to be a fortune easily won
and wisely spent. The interior of the cathedral has been generously
“restored” by daubing the walls with gleaming white. It was planned to
whitewash the aged outer walls also, but the Pope vetoed the suggestion,
for which the Dominicans seem to have a grievance against him.
The government palace, occupied now by Americans in navy and marine
uniforms, is full of capacious leather-upholstered chairs, in striking
contrast to the average uncomfortable Dominican seat. No wonder they
fought one another to become president. Ostentation is more important
than real use among the two score or more automobiles with wire wheels
and luxurious tonneaux that hover about the central plaza, though there
are good macadam roads for 16, 25, and 30 kilometers respectively in as
many directions. The theaters are seldom occupied by actors in the
flesh, though now and then there is a bit of opera. The only regular
attractions are the movies, which begin at nine in theory, nearer ten in
practice, and feature the same curly-haired heroes and vapid-faced
heroines that nightly decorate the screens in the United States. Like
all Latin-Americans, the people of “La Capital” are great lovers of
noise. Despite American rule the crack-voiced church bells begin their
constant din long before dawn. During the “flu” epidemic, with its
endless succession of funerals, they thumped for nine mortal days
without a pause, until the marine doctors protested that most of the
victims were dying for lack of sleep. Automobiles scorn to use mufflers;
carriages are constantly jangling their bells. Every boy in town is an
expert whistler, and every passer-by will find some way of making a
noise if he has to invent it. The throngs returning from the cinemas
habitually make slumber impossible until after midnight. One comes to
wonder if it is not this constant lack of sleep that makes the
Dominicans so nervous, inattentive, and racially inefficient.
* * * * *
Small as it looks on the map it is not a simple matter to cover all
Santo Domingo in a few weeks. Among the parts we missed were the
southwestern provinces, including the town of Azua, seventy miles from
the capital, founded in 1504 by Don Diego Velazquez, who later conquered
and settled Cuba. Thereabouts once dwelt many illustrious sons of old
Spain, among them Cortés, the conqueror of Mexico, Pizarro, who
subjugated Peru, and Balboa, the discoverer of the Pacific. A much
shorter route from Port au Prince to the Dominican capital is that
through this region, but it is chiefly by water. Lake Azua, partly in
Haiti, is fifty-six feet above sea-level, and a paradise for
duck-hunters. Lake Enriquillo, only five miles east of the other, and
named for the last Indian chief who opposed the Spaniards, is a hundred
feet _below_ the sea and more salty than the ocean itself. Nor should
the traveler to whom time is unlimited fail to visit the high mountain
ranges in the center of the country, with their breakneck trails and
luxuriant vegetation.
One of the drawbacks of West Indian travel is the lack of shipping
between the islands, particularly the larger ones. Only in the ports
themselves can one get the slightest data on sailings, and often not
even there. This is especially true of Santo Domingo, one of whose chief
misfortunes is the American line that holds a virtual monopoly of its
sea-going traffic. Not only are its freight and passenger rates
exorbitant, its treatment of travelers and shippers worse than
autocratic, and some of its steamers so decrepit that they take
twenty-six days for the run down from New York, halting every few hours
to pump out the vessel or patch something or other essential to her
safety, but it keeps a throttle hold on poor Santo Domingo by more or
less questionable means. Not long ago another line proposed to establish
traffic between the island and New Orleans. One of its steamers put into
a Dominican port, offering to take cargo at reasonable rates. Though the
warehouses along the wharves were piled high with cacao, not a bag was
turned over to the newcomer. Her captain button-holed a shipper and
asked for an explanation.
“It’s like this,” whispered the latter, “we should like to give you our
cargo, but if we do, the other line will leave our in-coming goods, on
which we are absolutely dependent, lying on the dock in New York until
they rot.”
The captain visited several other ports of the republic, with the same
result, and the proposed line to New Orleans died for lack of
nourishment. Disgruntled natives assert that the monopoly keeps its hold
because it has a large fund with which to starve out competitors, and
because its president is a member of our Shipping Board. The Dominicans,
however, are losing patience, and there are signs that the freight that
should go in American bottoms will gradually go to British, Dutch, and
later to German steamers.
We were spared all this through the kindness of the military governor,
who sent us to La Romana on a submarine chaser. Lest some reader be
subject to seasickness by suggestion, I shall not say a word about the
ability of these otherwise staunch little craft to cut incredible
acrobatic capers on a barely rippling sea. The fact that we noted the
gaunt old American battleship _Memphis_ still sitting bolt upright on
the rocks beside the seaside promenade of the capital just where a wave
tossed her in September, 1916, the dangerous bottle entrance to the
harbor of San Pedro de Macoris, with its wrecked schooner, and the water
that spouted a hundred feet into the air through the coral holes along
the low rocky coast and hung like mist for minutes before it fell, must
be accepted as proof that we are experienced sailors. At length appeared
the red roofs of La Romana, with its narrow river harbor, similar to
that of the capital, and the Santo Domingo we knew was forever left
behind.
Though it is in Dominican territory, La Romana is virtually American, a
vast estate belonging to a great sugar company of Porto Rico. Thanks
largely to it, sugar is the chief product of Santo Domingo. Here again
was one of the huge _centrals_ with which we had grown so familiar in
Cuba, with its big-business atmosphere, its long rows of excellent
dwellings built of light coral rock along the edge of the jagged coast,
its own stores, clubs, movies, and its many miles of standard-gauge
railroad. We rode about this all the next morning, past immense
stretches of cane, most of it recently cut, through bateys of white
wooden huts raised on stilts, sidetracked now and again by long trains
of cane, hungry bees hovering about them, and finally out upon great
tracts where the company is pushing back the forests and the bandits to
make way for increased sugar production. La Romana embraces a quarter
million acres, of which only 16,000 are under cane, immense as the
fields already look. Three fourths of the estate is estimated good cane
land, and the foothills make excellent pasture as fast as they are
cleared. The felling of these great forests, with what would seem to the
uninformed a wanton waste of lumber, has already altered the rainfall of
the region. Formerly the rains were regular; this year not a drop fell
in January, yet during the forty-eight hours of our visit in early
February, the gauges registered more than five inches. The country women
were everywhere paddling about under strips of _yagua_ in lieu of
umbrellas.
The company employs from 7500 to 9000 men, of whom a bare hundred are
Americans, most of them dwelling in the great central _batey_. The rest
are chiefly Haitians and Porto Ricans, with a large sprinkling of
negroes from all the other West Indian islands. English, Porto Rican,
and Dominican schools are maintained, the teachers of the two former
being paid out of company funds. There are very few Dominican employees,
the natives, though good ax-men, being usually “too Castilian to work
for a living.” Wages range from an average of $1.20 a day for
cane-cutters to $4 for mechanics, with twelve-hour shifts and a twenty
per cent. bonus for all. The contrast between this productive region and
the great virgin wilderness of most of Santo Domingo gave serious
meaning to the parting words of the company punster, “What the
Dominicans need most is to stop raising Cain and go to raising cane.”
We left La Romana and Santo Domingo on one of the two cane boats that
ply nightly between this dependency and the mother country. She was the
flat-bottomed steamer _Glencadam_ from the Great Lakes, flying the
British flag and captained by a quaint old Scotchman whose cabin far
forward contained almost transatlantic accommodations. Once more I draw
the curtain, however, on the merely personal matters of pitch and roll,
greatly abetted in this case by the recent rains, which had made it
impossible to gather more than half a cargo. The very canes themselves
were showing a tendency to waltz before we had passed the mouth of the
river and turned our nose toward Porto Rico, already lying cloud-like
and phantasmal on the eastern horizon.