Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 1

by Andrew Dickson White

It was perfectly clear that the church authorities preferred to be under a government which, even though they regarded it as Protestant, could secure them their property, rather than to be subject to a Roman Catholic republic in which they were liable to constantly recurring spoliation. This I found to be the spirit of the clergy of every grade in all parts of the island: they had discovered that under the Constitution of the United States confiscation without compensation is impossible.

It also fell to my lot, as the youngest man in the commission, to conduct an expedition across the mountains from the city of Santo Domingo on the south coast to Puerto Plata on the north.

During this journey, on which I was about ten days in the saddle, it was my duty to confer with the principal functionaries, and this gave me novel experiences. When- ever our cavalcade approached a town, we halted, a messenger was sent forward, and soon the alcalde, the priests, and other men of light and leading, with a long train of functionaries, came dashing out on horseback to greet us; introductions then took place, and, finally, there was a wild gallop into the town to the house of the alcalde, where speeches were made and compliments exchanged in the high Spanish manner.

At the outset there was a mishap. As we were organizing our expedition, the gentlemen charged with purchasing supplies assured me that if we wished to secure proper consideration of the annexation question by the principal men of the various towns, we must exercise a large if simple hospitality, and that social gatherings without rum punch would be offensive rather than propitiatory. The order to lay in a sufficient spirituous supply was reluctantly given, and in due time we started, one of our train of pack-horses having on each side of the saddle large demijohns of the fluid which was to be so potent for diplomatic purposes. At the close of the first day's travel, just as our hammocks had been swung, I heard a scream and saw the people of our own and neighboring huts snatching cups and glasses and running pell-mell toward the point where our animals were tethered. On examination I found that the horse intrusted with the precious burden, having been relieved of part of his load, had felt warranted in disporting himself, and had finally rolled over, crushing all the demijohns. It seemed a serious matter, but I cannot say that it afflicted me much; we propitiated the local functionaries by other forms of hospitality, and I never found that the absence of rum punch seriously injured our diplomacy.

Civil war had been recently raging throughout the republic, and in one of the interior towns I was one day notified that a well-known guerrilla general, who had shown great bravery in behalf of the Baez government, wished a public interview. The meeting took place in the large room of the house which had been assigned me. The mountain chieftain entered, bearing a rifle, and, the first salutations having been exchanged, he struck an oratorical attitude, and after expressing, in a loud harangue, his high consideration for the United States, for its representative, and for all present, he solemnly tendered the rifle to me, saying that he had taken it in battle from Luperon, the arch-enemy of his country, and could think of no other bestowal so worthy of it. This gift somewhat disconcerted me. In the bitterness of party feeling at home regarding the Santo Domingo question, how would it look for one of the commissioners to accept such a present? President Grant had been held up to obloquy throughout the whole length and breadth of the land for accepting a dog; what, then, would happen to a diplomatic representative who should accept a rifle? Connected with the expedition were some twenty or thirty representatives of the press, and I could easily see how my acceptance of such a gift would alarm the sensitive consciences of many of them and be enlarged and embroidered until the United States would resound with indignant outcry against a commission which accepted presents and was probably won over by contracts for artillery. My first attempt was to evade the difficulty. Rifle in hand, I acknowledged my appreciation of the gift, but declared to the general that my keeping such a trophy would certainly be a wrong to his family; that I would therefore accept it and transmit it to his son, to be handed down from generation to generation of his descendants as an heirloom and a monument of bravery and patriotism. I was just congratulating myself on this bit of extemporized diplomacy, when a cloud began to gather on the general's face, and presently he broke forth, saying that he regretted to find his present not good enough to be accepted; that it was the best he had; that if he had possessed anything better he would have brought it. At this, two or three gentlemen in our party pressed around me, and, in undertones, advised me by all means to accept it. There was no alternative; I accepted the rifle in as sonorous words as I could muster —``IN BEHALF OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES''; had it placed immediately in a large box with the words ``War Department'' upon it, in very staring letters; and so the matter ended. Fortunately the commission, though attacked for a multitude of sins, escaped censure in this matter.

One part of our duty was somewhat peculiar. The United States, a few years before, had been on the point of concluding negotiations with Denmark for the purchase of St. Thomas, when a volcanic disturbance threw an American frigate in the harbor of that island upon the shore, utterly wrecking both the vessel and the treaty. This experience it was which led to the insertion of a clause in the Congressional instructions to the commission requiring them to make examinations regarding the frequency and severity of earthquakes. This duty we discharged faithfully, and on one occasion with a result interesting both to students of history and of psychology. Arriving at the old town of Cotuy, among the mountains, and returning the vicar's call, after my public reception, I asked him the stereotyped question regarding earthquakes, and was answered that about the year 1840 there had been one of a very terrible sort; that it had shaken and broken his great stone church very badly; that he had repaired the whole structure, except the gaping crevice above the front entrance; ``and,'' said the good old padre, ``THAT I left as a warning to my people, thinking that it might have a good influence upon them.'' On visiting the church, we found the crevice as the padre had described it; but his reasoning was especially interesting, because it corroborated the contention of Buckle, who, but a few years before, in his ``History of Civilization in England,'' had stated that earthquakes and volcanoes had aided the clergy of southern countries in maintaining superstition, and who had afterward defended this view with great wealth of learning when it was attacked by a writer in the ``Edinburgh Review.'' Certainly this Santo Domingo example was on the side of the historian.

Another day brought us to Vega, noted as the point where Columbus reared his standard above the wonderful interior valley of the island; and there we were welcomed, as usual, by the officials, and, among them, by a tall, ascetic- looking priest who spoke French. Returning his call next day, I was shown into his presence in a room utterly bare of all ornament save a large and beautiful photograph of the Cathedral of Tours. It had happened to me, just after my college days, to travel on foot through a large part of northern, western, and middle France, especially interesting myself in cathedral architecture; and as my eye caught this photograph I said, ``Father, what a beautiful picture you have of the Church of St. Gatien!'' The countenance of the priest, who had at first received me very ceremoniously and coldly, was instantly changed; he looked at me for a moment, and then threw his arms about me. It was pathetic: of all who had ever entered his door I was probably the only one who had recognized the picture of the cathedral where he had been ordained; and, above all, by a curious inspiration which I cannot to this hour account for, I had recognized it by the name of the saint to whom it is dedicated. Why I did not speak of it simply as the Cathedral of Tours I know not; how I came to remember that it was dedicated to St. Gatien I know not— but this fact evidently loosened the cords of the father's heart, and during my stay at Vega he was devoted to me; giving me information of the greatest value regarding the people, their habits, their diseases, and the like, much of which, up to that moment, the commission and its subordinates had vainly endeavored to secure.

And here I recall one thing which struck me as significant. This ascetic French priest was very severe in condemnation of the old Spanish priesthood of the island. When I asked him regarding the morals of the people he answered, ``How can you expect good morals in them when their pastors set such bad examples?'' It was evident that the church authorities at Rome were of his opinion; for in nearly every town I found not only a jolly, kindly, easy-going old Spanish padre, surrounded by ``nephews'' and ``nieces,'' but a more austere ecclesiastic recently arrived from France or Italy.

In the impressions made upon me by this long and tedious journey across the island, pleasure and pain were constantly mingled. On one hand was the wonderful beauty of the scenery, the luxuriance of the vegetation, and the bracing warmth of the climate, while the United States were going through a winter more than usually bitter.

But, on the other hand, the whole condition of the country seemed to indicate that the early Spanish rulers had left a curse upon it from which it had never recovered. Its inhabitants, in revolution after revolution, had destroyed all industry and industrial appliances, and had virtually eaten up each other; generation after generation had thus been almost entirely destroyed.