We finally found passengers enough to afford the trip by automobile from Macoris to the capital. With the single exception of the Haitian journey to Las Cahobas, I have never known of a worse road being actually covered by automobile. Sandy or stony beyond words, a constant succession of rocks, stumps, scrub trees, sun-baked mud-holes, without a yard of smooth going, it was in fact no road at all, but so often had travelers followed the same general direction that a kind of route had grown up of itself. Several times we came to temporary grief; once we ran into a tree and smashed a case of Cuban rum that had been tied on the running-board, and as the chauffeur felt impelled to “save” as much of the precious stuff as possible, his driving was far from impeccable during the rest of the journey. One after another we bounced through such towns as La Yeguada, Hato Viejo, Santa Isabela, all spread out carelessly on the flat, dry, prairie-like country peculiar to the coral formation of southern Santo Domingo. In one place the mud was so deep that we were forced to turn aside for a few yards into the private property of a Cuban ex-general, who occupies a wattled hut with his illegitimate brood of mulattoes. This wily individual, in spite of the fact that he draws a generous monthly pension through a foreign bank in the capital, has placed a guard at his gate and collects two dollars from every passing automobile. Then came more sugarcane, another large mill with its creaking ox-carts and striking negroes, and from San Isidro on sixteen kilometers of excellent highway to Duarte, a suburb of the capital, and across the Ozama river into Santo Domingo City. The American governor of the republic had recently made the official announcement that sixty per cent. of the great national highway from the capital to Monte Cristi was already completed! He could scarcely have taken his own words seriously had he been privileged to follow us in the opposite direction.
CHAPTER X
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.