“You must change your large money at the bank!”
I turned to an Old-Timer, himself an American.
“Hasn’t our country done anything to make this a regular republic?”
“Son,” he said, “this was a regular republic before our country stepped in.”
VI
The story of the American coöperation—which the Nicaraguans themselves describe by a less pleasant word—dates back to 1909.
At that time Nicaragua had a Dictator. José Santos Zelaya had been reëlecting himself president for seventeen years. He had commenced his reign, stern though it was, with fairness and justice toward his countrymen and friendliness toward foreigners. In his later years, overwhelmed with conceit at his success, he came to regard his Dictatorship as a right that carried with it the privilege to amuse himself as he saw fit. If he needed money, he horsewhipped the wealthier merchants until they offered a “voluntary” contribution. If he saw a woman he desired, he sent for her to come to the palace. Presently he commenced to meddle in his neighbor’s affairs, fomenting revolutions in the adjoining countries, and thumbing his nose at the United States.
In 1909 a revolution started in his own country, over at the isolated port of Bluefields on the Caribbean coast. There are rumors that it had the backing of American capitalists. These rumors arise from the fact that Adolfo Diaz, then the treasurer of the revolution—and later the leading actor in the drama—was an humble employee of an American concern. Diaz denies these rumors. “Every penny,” he told me in Managua, “was contributed by Nicaraguans.” But certain it is that the revolution had the sympathy of the United States government.
President Taft, at the time, frankly described Zelaya in a message to Congress as “an international nuisance.” And when, during the fighting, the Zelayistas executed two American soldiers of fortune caught red-handed attempting to dynamite troopships on the San Juan River, the American government made this trivial incident the pretext for hinting broadly that it was time for Zelaya to resign. Zelaya did resign, leaving the presidency in the hands of an excellent man backed by all the old lieutenants of the Zelayista party. The United States was not satisfied. And when the Zelayistas, having licked the revolutionists to a frazzle, were about to take their stronghold at Bluefields, an American gunboat intervened on the ground that further fighting might destroy American property.
From some mysterious source—which all Latin America believes to be the United States—the revolutionists obtained new ammunition. They sallied out from Bluefields again, thrashed the Zelayistas, and overturned the government. One General Estrada, the leader of the insurrection, became president, but he soon gave way to Adolfo Diaz. Now enters upon the scene the American banker.