FAR-SIGHTED CARLOS MORALES
The United States is now in Santo Domingo; President Roosevelt, with a stroke of the pen, has fixed Don Carlos Morales firmly in the saddle. That cheerful and ingenious bandit begins to enjoy the unearned increment of the “status quo.” He can read now with a smile of the erstwhile terrible preparations of Jiminez and Barba. He can sit in his palace and rake in 45 per cent. of the customs revenues of his republic, collected for him and scrupulously accounted for. That was what Morales wanted, and he is happy. Domestic malice, foreign levy—nothing can touch him further.
If Cipriano Castro had one-tenth of the ingenuity of his brother bandit of the black republic he would have seen long ago that his present policy is foolish. Instead of making faces at the United States, Castro should have been busy inducing the foreigners in his country to set up a concurrent roar. He should have acknowledged the validity of claims of any kind and to any amount, the bigger the better. Then, at the psychological moment, he should have pointed to the imminent danger to the Monroe Doctrine, and begged the United States to enter and preserve order, collect his revenues and pay him a share of the proceeds.
If there is any other Central or South American dictator who is shaky on his pins, now is the time he should apply for relief. Let him take a lesson from Morales and imitate that “prudent and far-seeing statesman.” Forty-five per cent. of the revenues, in clean, hard coin, without work or worry, is better than all the revenues with danger of revolution and dismemberment.
Step up, gentlemen! The United States has a big navy, and it has nothing to do at home. Our duty is to protect our weak and struggling sister republics, and now that the Senate is out of the way, we propose to do it. We shall take right hold, and leave to the future the problem of how to let go.—Washington Post.
A man was killed at Lancaster, Ontario, while trying to rob a bank. There are still a few of the old-time robbers who have not learned that the proper method of robbing a bank is to work from the inside.—New York American.