United States Withdrawal From Santo Domingo

The withdrawal of the United States from Santo Domingo was brought about by a combination of interrelated factors. The end of World War I, with the consequent diminution of the island’s strategic value, the shift of public attention to Santo Domingo and Haiti, the tremendous and effective propaganda of the Dominicans against American intervention and American military government, and the conversion of the intervention into a political and partisan issue in 1920, were all combined, along with other possible factors, to bring about American withdrawal on September 18, 1924, ten years before withdrawal from Haiti and Nicaragua.

World War I had drastically reduced the strength of the European nations. Germany, a power to be reckoned with in the Caribbean in 1914, had been rendered impotent by 1918. In that year France was vitally interested in security and in maintaining the status quo in Europe; she did not care to jeopardize these policies by creating troublesome situations in America. The United States Navy was almost equal to Great Britain’s, and the latter had no desire to test the new rivalry by operations in American waters. That Europe was temporarily unable to affect the Caribbean was recognized at the time by John T. Vance, Jr., Deputy General Receiver of Customs in Santo Domingo from 1913 to 1920. In 1922 he wrote: “If there was ever a time in the history of the world when Europe was not thinking of interfering in the Western Hemisphere, it is the present.” The strategic justification for American intervention in Santo Domingo temporarily disappeared after World War I, and New York financing of Latin American debts further reduced the menace of European violation of the Monroe Doctrine.¹

Another possible factor in the withdrawal from the Dominican Republic was that the value of its potential and actual naval bases to the United States may have diminished greatly with the acquisition in 1917 of St. Thomas Island, which has an “excellent” harbor.² This seems to be, however, a rather remote factor since, as far as the writer could determine, there was no connection made by State Department officials between the acquisition of St. Thomas and United States withdrawal from Santo Domingo, and no student of Dominican affairs has offered it as a proven factor.

Public attention to the Dominican situation—a most important cause of withdrawal—was practically non-existent before and during the war. Some public discussion of American relations with Haiti and Santo Domingo occurred in the latter part of May, 1917, during a Conference on the Foreign Relations of the United States held by the Academy of Political Science of New York. Opinion was divided as to the policy that the United States should follow. Some felt that our claim to the Caribbean islands was as unjustified as Germany’s claim to Holland or Denmark, but the majority seemed to be in favor of American control and possession there.³

The Nation immediately protested the “un-American procedure” followed by the United States, especially censorship, demanding “the strongest possible protest by the press” and a Congressional investigation to “find out why all these years of benevolent supervision and interference in Santo Domingo” had “resulted only in the complete collapse of the Government there.”⁴ By February, 1917, it was advancing arguments in its editorials which were to be used after the war by other anti-imperialists. It pointed out that it was Americans who were “pulling down by force . . . a small nationality just when the Allies were shedding so much blood to establish the principle that small nationalities should be inviolate.” The Nation considered this “imperialism of the rankest kind, which may readily be quoted against us abroad by those who do not approve of our efforts to end the war.” Acts by “our autocratic naval dictator” in that “subjugated republic” were “bound to cause unrest and fear in every country to the south of us.” Its editorials lamented the fact that Washington was “so busy with a thousand different things” that no one could take time to consider what was happening in the Caribbean, or where the United States was “drifting in those waters.” It urged that public and official attention should he directed to the Caribbean situation and that the public should be given an opportunity to express itself as to the policy to be followed. Leaving no doubt as to its editorial position, it ended:

George Marvin, on the other hand, writing for the World’s Work, praised the intervention on the grounds that it had “unsparingly thrown out, cut out, burnt out, wherever it found them, the materials of epidemic terror, disorder, political yellow fever, and economic anemia.” To him, there was “no shadow of a doubt” that “the very great majority of the responsible citizens” of Haiti and Santo Domingo approved of the intervention.⁶

The United States, however, “girding itself for the great crusade in Europe,” gave no heed to arguments for or against intervention. It was not until 1920, when the war was over and some Americans were “still inspired by ringing phrases about the rights of small nations and the others weary of military adventures overseas and anxious to return to ‘normalcy,’” that public attention was again focused on Santo Domingo.⁷ Prior to 1920 the fundamental questions involved in the establishment of an American military government in Santo Domingo had been very nearly ignored by the United States public in general.⁸ In that year the Nation took the lead in “exposing the violent procedure of the Wilson administration in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.”⁹ In an effort to bring the situation before the public, it made the first formal charges in articles by James Waldon Johnson, Acting Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Johnson demanded investigation of “charges of abuse of power, of favoring a financial monopoly, of establishing an iron censorship and of unjustified killings.”¹⁰ The press soon took up the issue.¹¹

Public discussion of Santo Domingo’s affairs received another impetus in May, 1920, when a “Conference on Mexico and the Caribbean” was held at Clark University. Otto Schoenrich, secretary of the United States commission which had been sent to investigate the financial condition of the Dominican Republic, assailed the record of the United States in the Caribbean, and Jacinto López, editor of La Reforma Social of Venezuela, pointed out that the United States was exercising virtual dictatorship or supporting tyrants in the Caribbean.¹² Further public awareness was achieved during June, 1920, when the Dominicans decided to celebrate “patriotic week,” in order to collect funds to bring about the restoration of Dominican sovereignty through propaganda.¹³ Fabio Fiallo, later known as the “patriot poet,” was arrested and “secretly sentenced” by the military government for writing supposedly inflammatory articles against it. This was done in order to “insure the maintenance of peaceful conditions essential for the carrying out of the mission and reforms of the Military Government,” and to prevent agitation “tending to stir the people to revolt.” There were rumors that Fiallo and two of his companions had been sentenced to death. Immediately the State Department received telegrams from numerous Latin American press associations protesting against the arrest of these men, and President Wilson was asked to intervene on behalf of Fiallo by the Havana and Montevideo Press Clubs.¹⁴ Fiallo had been sentenced to one year’s imprisonment and had been fined $2500, but because of the “unfortunate effect in Latin American countries” and the danger of their becoming “martyrs in the estimation of the Dominican public generally,” and the fear that “the report of this case will be made considerable use of in propaganda directed against the Military Occupation of Santo Domingo in other Latin American countries,” the sentence was suspended in the first days of September. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby felt that the suspension would “prove most helpful to our interests throughout Latin America.”¹⁵ More than any single incident, the Fiallo case brought the Dominican cause before the world.¹⁶

The Nation’s exposure of American rule in Santo Domingo and Fiallo’s case would have had little importance had the matter not become an issue in the presidential campaign of 1920 due to an unguarded utterance of the vice-presidential candidate. The Republican platform of that year contained no criticism of Wilson’s Caribbean policy. But Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a speech at Butte, Montana, on August 18, 1920, ridiculed the Republican contention that Great Britain would have six votes in the League Assembly while the United States would have but one. He was reported as stating that the advantage would be on the American side, that the eleven small republics of the Caribbean area viewed the United States as a benevolent guardian and that at Geneva their representatives would align themselves with their big neighbor. “The United States,” he was reported to have said, “has about twelve votes in the Assembly. Until last week I had two of them myself, and now Secretary Daniels has them.” He declared that he had written the “pretty good Constitution” of Haiti himself. Upon learning of Roosevelt’s claims the Nation and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People protested.¹⁷ The Nation suggested that

Here, at last, is an issue which the Republicans, with a highly creditable record of performance in Cuba, could make their own during the campaign. Whether they will do it, whether their own shirts are sufficiently clear of the financial mire to which the Caribbean trail leads, remains to be seen.¹⁸

Roosevelt denied having said or meant that the United States would “control” twelve votes in the Assembly; he had meant, he said, only that the interests of the twelve states would align them with the United States.¹⁹

The retraction or explanation was too late. From Marion, Ohio, on August 28, 1920, before cheering delegations from Indiana and Minnesota, Republican presidential candidate Senator Warren G. Harding, using the accusations of the Nation, took up the issue “with at least a pretense of righteous indignation.”²⁰ He said:

Roosevelt accused Harding of using the issue to “win at any cost,” and it seems that Harding was insincere.²²

To add to the political fuel, a confidential letter from Major General George Barnett, commandant of the Marine Corps in Haiti, which spoke of “practically indiscriminate killing of natives” in that country was published in October, 1920.²³ The press, missing “its accustomed ration of war news seized on that choice morsel and made the most of it.”²⁴ Rear Admiral H. S. Knapp, Major General John A. Lejeune, Admiral Henry T. Mayo, and others conducted investigations into these charges, all of which resulted favorably for the marines and the intervention.²⁵ Yet these investigations only intensified the clamor. The Nation, on November 3, demanded “a broad-minded committee of the ablest men in Congress—men without color prejudice—” to investigate conditions in Haiti and Santo Domingo. “If such a committee is not appointed by Congress in its coming session,” the Nation went on to say “the Republicans will convict themselves of having exploited the agony of a subject people merely for campaign material.”²⁶ By December 7, Indiana Republican Representative Bland introduced a resolution to investigate foreign relations, with special reference to the conduct of American marines in Haiti and Santo Domingo, but the election was over and the “lame duck” session was not interested.²⁷

Much of the political force was knocked out of the Republican contention, however, when President Wilson unexpectedly announced the relaxation of American military rule preparatory to Dominican self-government. On December 23, 1920, Rear Admiral Thomas Snowden published a proclamation of withdrawal. In order to “inaugurate the simple processes of . . . rapid withdrawal” a “Commission of representative Dominican citizens” and a “Technical Adviser” were to be appointed by the Military Governor to formulate amendments to the Constitution and to revise the laws of the Republic; these amendments and laws, “upon approval by the military Government in occupation,” were to be “submitted to a Constitutional Convention and the National Congress of the Dominican Republic, respectively.”²⁸

Why this sudden unexpected announcement of withdrawal? Officially, according to the proclamation itself, “the restoration of public order and the protection of life and property” had been “substantially achieved,” and “improved conditions in Santo Domingo” to which the United States had “sought to contribute gave promise of permanence.” The State Department gave as the official motive the “complete tranquility . . . throughout the republic” and the ability of “the people for the first time in many years . . . to devote themselves to peaceful occupations without fear of disturbance.”²⁹ The annual report of the Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels to the President of December 1, 1920, before withdrawal was announced, suggested the same reason:

The New York Times attributed withdrawal to the “fact” that the United States had “made the republic solvent, and educated the people in the principles of self-government.”³¹ Henry Kittredge Norton, an author and lecturer familiar with conditions in the Caribbean, reached the same conclusion: the country was in such “a condition of peace and prosperity it had never before known” that “Washington believed that sufficient progress had been made so that the Dominicans themselves could henceforth carry on the work, preserve order, and fulfill their treaty obligations.”³²

These official reasons for withdrawal are very much open to question. The January 2, 1921, Quarterly Report of the Military Governor to the Secretary of the Navy covering the period from October to December, 1920, dispels the idea that Santo Domingo was “prosperous,” and shows that Wilson and the State Department had no idea of true conditions in Santo Domingo and that the Military Government had not been consulted on the matter:

This gloomy picture of Dominican finances painted exactly at the time that withdrawal was announced by a Military Governor given to officially optimistic reports and based on “a digest of reports received from agents all over the Republic,” indicates—if it does not prove—that there were other causes for United States withdrawal than “prosperity” and “tranquility.” President de jure Francisco Henríquez y Carvajal reported exactly the same conditions in June, 1921. According to him, an employee who had received $100 was paid $40 now, personnel was reduced by half, courts of justice and schools were suppressed in various places, and public works were discontinued. In order to resume public works the Military Government was seeking a new loan of $10 million at 8% interest, whereas the country was paying only 5% on the previous debt. H. P. Krippene, a businessman in Santo Domingo, reported that “schools will be closed indefinitely because of lack of funds— and this despite our boast that the landmarks we leave are preeminently schools and education.” Henríquez y Carvajal attributed “suppression of the whole system of public instruction” as a “method of persuasion” used by the Military Government to counteract Dominican protests against the new loan.³⁴

As late as October 10, 1919, the Military Government published in Santo Domingo a denial of rumors that the United States was to withdraw due to the petition of Francisco Henríquez y Carvajal for the restoration of the national civil government.³⁵ On December 2, 1919, Snowden reported that

In March, 1921, Snowden, pleading and begging for authorization to increase the bonded debt of Santo Domingo, urged the attention of the Secretary of the Navy “to the loss of prestige and the unfortunate showing made by the uncompleted condition” of public works.³⁷ The State Department, after attempting to postpone the $10 million loan asked for by the Military Government, finally acceded to a $500,000 loan with the cutting admonition that “it is hoped . . . that the Military Government will henceforth keep its current expenditures within its current revenues.”³⁸ The budget deficit for 1921 was $550,000, and the State Department finally had to approve a $10 million loan.³⁹ The Senate committee investigating Haitian and Dominican affairs urged continued occupation of Santo Domingo until the Dominicans would accept a treaty similar to Haiti, even after plans for withdrawal had been announced.⁴⁰ Carl Kelsey, who conducted an investigation into Haiti-Santo Domingo affairs at the request of the Latin American Division of the State Department, reported in 1922 that

In July, 1920, Harry A. Franck, an American traveler in Santo Domingo, criticized the official American government announcement that 60% of the great national highway was ready.⁴² As late as April 14, 1923, the New York Times reported that

From the above it is certain that the official reasons for withdrawal of “tranquility,” “prosperity,” and “substantial achievement” of the purposes of intervention given in 1920 were merely for public consumption and not based on fact. The real motives lay elsewhere.

The presidential campaign of 1920 had brought the problem of Santo Domingo before the public. The Democrats were defeated at the polls, and some felt that the December, 1920, announcement of withdrawal “was for the specific purpose of putting Republicans in a difficult position,” and embarrassing the incoming administration. To Wilson

It may well have been that the premature announcement of withdrawal by President Wilson was occasioned by political necessity or expediency.

A more realistic factor than the achievement of tranquility and prosperity was the one given by Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby on November 27, 1920. In the first official mention of withdrawal in the Foreign Relations Papers, Colby saw “no valid reason for the continuation of occupation”:

Several interrelated factors were implicitly included here: the propaganda efforts of the Dominicans; the arguments used by them to point out the illegitimacy of the intervention and occupation; and the preoccupation of the State Department with the bad publicity engendering Latin American animosity.

Dominican opinion was almost unanimously critical of American intervention from the beginning.⁴⁶ On December 4, 1916, the Dominican Minister in Washington, Armando Pérez Perdomo, presented an official protest to the State Department in which were enumerated arguments setting forth the illegality of intervention. Numerous protests by prominent Dominicans followed, but the world was occupied with World War I. But by 1919 a strong, organized movement for the resumption of self-government was initiated. In January, 1919, Max Henríquez-Ureña, in a pamphlet issued to all the Hispanic American governments, pleaded for restitution of sovereignty, stressing confidence in the “justice and love” of the “noble North American people.” Dominicans reasoned that the public opinion of Americans and of the world would not allow occupation to continue once they understood the situation. Perhaps, because of convenience and necessity, the Dominicans continuously manifested confidence “in the high moral qualities of [American] foreign policy.”⁴⁷

By March, 1919, the State Department was aware of the “very active and rather widespread propaganda in behalf of the restoration of Dominican independence” which was “being directed by Dr. Francisco Henríquez y Carvajal, Provisional President at the time of the American intervention.”⁴⁸ This propaganda was carried on by different organizations and individuals. On December 30, 1918, the first Comité Pro-Santo Domingo, planned since 1917 by Max Henríquez-Ureña and Fernando Abel Henríquez but impeded by the World War and the February, 1917, Cuban revolution, was organized in Santiago de Cuba January 5, 1919; another was organized in Havana, also for the immediate purpose of voicing Dominican opinion officially and extra-officially to the plenipotentiaries who were to meet at Versailles. Later the program was expanded to the lending of “all the moral aid possible to the Dominican people to bring about an improvement in the present conditions, from the political point of view, as well as in intellectual, commercial and industrial development.” Other committees were organized in Oriente and elsewhere. By such means as public lectures on Martí and Máximo Gómez, money was collected to send Henríquez y Carvajal⁴⁹ to Paris. In Paris the de jure Dominican president found that the “private matters of American nations” were excluded from the agenda of the Versailles Peace Conference. After two informal conferences with Mr. Stabler, Chief of the Division of Latin American Affairs of the Department of State, and after many talks with Latin American diplomats, of which the State Department was “kept closely informed,” Henríquez y Carvajal left for Washington, where he presented a memorandum on the Dominican position to Mr. Stabler.⁵⁰

Meanwhile in Santo Domingo a society known as the Unión Nacional Dominicana was formed in March, 1920. Its objective was to effect the immediate return of Dominican independence, and it announced its refusal to concur in any international agreement with the United States which could prejudice any of the inherent rights of sovereignty of the republic. It was especially this organization which, through a “considerable fund,” expanded propaganda against the continuation of the military occupation in the Latin American republics, both through articles published in the press and through the despatch to Central and South America of delegates to make widely known the conditions existing in Santo Domingo. Juntas Patrióticas de Damas and Asociaciones de Jóvenes also contributed to the Dominican cause at home and abroad. The practice of sending a number of students to foreign countries had to be discontinued by the military government because these students created “certain political problems.” Several publicists went on lecture tours in Latin America and Europe, to condemn the conduct of the United States.⁵¹

Another Dominican organization partly responsible for the United States’ withdrawal in 1924, was the Comisión Nacionalista Dominicana, constituted in New York in July, 1919, and presided over by Francisco and Federico Henríquez y Carvajal, Tulio M. Cestero, and Max Henríquez-Ureña. This commission was an “information bureau in New York” and was “indefatigable” in presenting the Dominican case to the government and people of the United States. With Horace G. Knowles as its “adviser and assistant,” the Comisión Nacionalista Dominicana was responsible for the presentation of evidence and testimony by Dominicans and other anti-interventionists to the Senate Committee investigating Haiti-Santo Domingo affairs.⁵²

This intense campaign no doubt affected the Latin American policy of the United States and worried the State Department, for on October 2, 1920, it issued a statement to all the diplomatic officers in Latin America. This statement was to be translated and given “as wide publicity as possible” by being “published in the leading periodicals” of each country “in some form that will not make it seem to be merely official propaganda.” This statement “prepared by the Department from official reports of the Military Government of Santo Domingo [and] designed to call attention to some of the creditable achievements of the United States Occupation,” was issued “in view of the propaganda that has recently been carried on in many of the countries of Latin America by means of distortion of facts designed to discredit the Military Government.”⁵³

Latin American countries took up the plea of Santo Domingo. Governments throughout Latin America made both official and informal protests. The Colombian Congress in August, 1920, passed congratulatory resolutions on the anniversary of the Dominican rebellion against Spain as a means of expressing its sympathy for Santo Domingo. The Brazilian ambassador and Uruguayan minister in Washington formally expressed to Secretary of State Colby the hope that the occupation would be terminated soon. Policarpo Bonilla of Honduras, unsuccessfully proposed to the League of Nations on April 22, 1919, that reference to the Monroe Doctrine in Article XXI of the Covenant of the League of Nations be defined as “signifying that all the American republics have a right to their independent existence, without any other nation having the right to acquire, by conquest, any portion whatsoever of their territory, or the right to intervene in their Government or interior administration, nor in any way to injure their autonomy or national dignity.” In a speech before the Cuban International Law Society in January, 1919, the eminent Cuban jurist, Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring, criticized the American intervention, and his speech was printed and widely read, making it “a real factor . . . in bringing Santo Domingo’s case to life after it had been buried by the distracting events of a war and a peace conference.” Prominent publicists in South America and associations throughout the continent addressed protests to President Wilson urging the end of United States occupation. A determined campaign against the policy of the United States was carried on in the press of Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, and the Central American republics. During 1923 at least two papers in Argentina and one in Honduras were founded and “backed by some of the most distinguished men of Latin, America,” whose sole purpose was opposition to the United States. It was customary in almost every one of the prominent Spanish American magazines to carry in each issue one or more articles against the United States. Some of the delegates attending the Second Pan American Labor Congress held in January, 1921, threatened to leave unless Samuel Gompers, who presided over the Congress, would forward at once to President Wilson the unanimous protest of the Latin Americans against the American occupation of Santo Domingo. Since by this time the United States had announced its 1920 program of withdrawal, Gompers wished to modify the wording of the protest by inserting the word “accelerate.” At the Fifth Pan American Conference held in Santiago in March, 1923, a “strong bias against the United States and its proposals” manifested itself. At least fifteen of the Spanish American countries exhibited open discontent. The outstanding feature of the conference “was the revelation of an unexpected anti-American spirit.” Press comments on the conference both in Latin America and Europe were generally unfriendly. While the conference was in session, committees from the Dominican Republic and Haiti appeared to present their situation, and they were looked upon as the “representatives of oppressed peoples.” Although the conference did accomplish some good in sanitation, trade mark registration, peace treaties, and similar matters, it was a “distinct disappointment” as a promoter of good feeling.⁵⁴

Foreign opinion other than Latin American also aided the cause of Dominican sovereignty. Answering an appeal by the Dominicans to the King of Spain to intercede with the United States to restore liberty in Santo Domingo, an important nucleus of members of the Spanish Congress in September, 1919, and later in April, 1921, formulated messages of sympathy and adhesion to the Dominican cause, protesting “against the suppression of rights and liberties there.” Spanish intellectuals issued a similar statement, and the Instituto Ibero-Americano de Derecho Comparado sent a cablegram to President Wilson advocating the re-establishment of sovereignty.⁵⁵ The press of France was filled with comments “running from sarcastic slurs on the United States as the good Samaritan of the New World to the defense of France’s policy in financing the Little Entente, in buying arms, and in the occupation of the Ruhr for the alleged collection of debts.” The Manchester Guardian in England told the story clearly in an article that was widely reprinted. The press of Spain made American intervention its favorite theme, and Italy, Egypt, India, Ireland, and Russia found here “proof texts, alike for preachments favoring radicalism and reaction.” Japan justified its Twenty-one Demands on China and its imperialism in Korea, Manchuria, and Eastern Siberia by pointing to American intervention and by formulating its own Monroe Doctrine of the Orient.⁵⁶

In the face of such criticism by foreigners the American press and public reacted. Harding had won the election and was about to assume office when Wilson announced the withdrawal policy. American press comment on the whole affair sustained the view that the United States was justified in intervening in 1916, but was not justifled in holding on by military dictatorship.⁵⁷ This view and the more radical one of unjustified meddling were also presented to the public by individuals and organizations in an attempt to stir public opinion and achieve early withdrawal. In an all-out attempt to “secure an open, thorough and complete investigation of the military occupation” of Santo Domingo and Haiti, to “work for the immediate restoration of full national independence,” and to “take such other steps as the Society may deem wise to establish friendly cooperation and give disinterested aid on a basis of mutual understanding and international justice,” Oswald Garrison Villard allied the Nation with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Union Patriotique d’Haiti, forming the Haiti-Santo Domingo Independence Society to carry on agitation and propaganda.⁵⁸ This society, with offices in New York and Washington, waged an active campaign for the immediate re-establishment of constitutional government, the immediate withdrawal of the marines, and the negotiation of an equitable treaty. Persons contacted by the society were asked to urge their senators and representatives to support all legislation designed to accomplish its aims. Funds for carrying on the work were acquired through solicitations in full page advertisements in extrabold letters counseling “Lovers of Liberty and Opportunity” to contribute to the cause, or through benefit performances at theaters where tickets sold for from fifty cents to two dollars.⁵⁹

Other groups in the United States also helped to develop proSanto Domingo public opinion. Utah Democratic Senator William H. King, an indefatigable opponent of intervention, was supported in his criticisms of Wilson’s intervention by the Popular Government League, which held that the intervention was in the exclusive interest of bankers and promoters, and by the Foreign Policy Association of New York, under whose aegis twenty-four prominent lawyers signed a brief condemning the occupation of Haiti on legal as well as moral grounds.⁶⁰ Also under the auspices of the Foreign Policy Association, H. G. Knowles, former minister in the Dominican Republic and adviser of the Comisión Nacionalista Dominicana, criticized American policy.⁶¹ Idaho Senator Borah reached a large audience at Carnegie Hall, where, in a “sensational speech,” he stated that he was “convinced we are in [Haiti and Santo Domingo] to stay unless American opinion brings us out.” After the speech anti-imperialistic literature on the subject was distributed.⁶² The Anti-Imperialistic League of Boston protested publicly, and at the annual conference at Longwood, Pennsylvania, June 2-4, 1922, the Progessive Friends adopted a resolution expressing their “unqualified disapproval of the policy of our Government in its seizure and military control of the Dominican Republic and Haiti,” and asked “for the evacuation by our Government of these two countries at the earliest possible date.” The intervention was considered “not only un-American and in violation of existing treaties and international law,” but was “not in keeping with the clear and unconditional promise and pledge of President Harding when he was asking the support of the voters of the country.” This was considered “one of the few ante-election pledges” made by Harding, and the Progressive Friends asked “that he no longer postpone its fulfillment.”⁶³

The Progressive Friends were not the only ones reminding Harding of his campaign promise.⁶⁴ Although he may have been insincere in his campaign promises or at least used them expediently to obtain the presidency, Harding deemed it advisable, as the volume of protest against the Caribbean policy of the United States increased, to make at least a gesture of good faith by approving the appointment of a special Senate Committee to investigate Haiti-Santo Domingo affairs.⁶⁵ Since early December, 1916, the Dominicans and the Nation had demanded some sort of an impartial investigation by the United States “to make known” the situation of the Dominican Republic before the people.⁶⁶ In October, 1920, the Nation again asked for a congressional investigation in which “no official whitewash” would be tolerated.⁶⁷ In February, 1921, Senator Hiram Johnson had introduced a resolution calling for a Senate investigation, but again, as in the case of the Bland resolution, the election was over and the “lame duck” session was not interested. In July, 1921, after the Nation prodded the Republican Congress, the Senate finally adopted a resolution by Senator Medill McCormick. The committee was composed of Chairman Medill McCormick (Rep., Ill.), Atlee Pomerene (Dem., Ohio), Tasker L. Oddie (Rep., Nev.), William H. King (Dem., Utah), and Philander C. Knox (Rep., Penn.), the latter being substituted a few months later by Andrieus A. Jones (Dem., N. Mex.). After lengthy hearings in Washington and brief ones in Haiti and Santo Domingo, the committee decided against abrogation of the treaty or the withdrawal of marines from Haiti and Santo Domingo. Instead it endorsed the policy of intervention and sought to strengthen the treaty regime in Haiti by recommending measures designed to correct its deficiencies.⁶⁸

Opinion as to the thoroughness and objectivity of the senatorial investigation was divided. Pro-interventionists considered the committee report objective and thorough; anti-interventionists denounced it as biased and incomplete.⁶⁹ Whatever the case may be, the Senate investigation had a salutary effect: the public became aware of the problem and the Dominicans were able to present their legalistic arguments before the world. Through extensive press coverage they gave their reasons for considering the American occupation illegal.

One of the most potent factors in the early withdrawal of the United States from Santo Domingo was the logical argument set forth by the Dominicans on the illegality of American occupation on the grounds that each state is absolutely sovereign. Fortunately for the Dominicans the United States had just fought a war for “the rights of small nations,” and there was much talk of respecting the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political independence of weak nations. Had these idealistic phrases not been advanced and defended by the United States herself, it seems doubtful that the Dominican arguments would have been effective. Now, however, Americans could not argue that sovereignty was not always absolute and that the more powerful, better-organized nations had a duty to protect, punish, and guide the weaker, more backward ones just as society was obliged to protect, punish, and guide individuals who placed society in danger.

Five days after the Knapp proclamation of occupation, Armando Pérez Perdomo, Dominican Minister in Washington, presented, upon instruction from the Dominican government, a protest to the State Department in which were found most of the arguments setting forth the illegality of American intervention in Santo Domingo elaborated by later writers.⁷⁰ The United States, as specifically mentioned in the 1907 Treaty, had always recognized the sovereignty of Santo Domingo. The third clause of the 1907 Convention imposed two obligations: (1) until the total amount of the bonds of the loan were paid, the Dominican public debt could not be increased without previous agreement between the two governments; and (2) the same agreement was necessary to modify the import duties. The second obligation was never under dispute. If the sovereign state of Santo Domingo had actually violated the third clause of the 1907 Treaty, the official, legal criterion for armed intervention according to the Knapp proclamation, by increasing its internal, or public debt— and the Dominicans maintained that they had not—then this “divergence of criterion” between the parties should have been, as the Dominicans desired, submitted to a tribunal of arbitration. It should never have been resolved by the authority of only one of the parties with the “absolute subjugation” of the other. The Dominicans, by citing precedents from civil law jurisdiction and “innumerable passages from treatises on international law in romance languages,” contended that “public debt” meant “bonded” or “contractual” debt, as the expression was “commonly used in languages of Latin derivation,” whereas Washington maintained that public debt included the floating debt, that is, all outstanding indebtedness. The Dominicans argued that the bonded debt had been paid punctually, and by quoting figures from the general receivership of customs managed by the United States they proved that the Dominican Republic was fulfilling the financial obligations of the convention in excess of the minimum stipulated.⁷¹ The Dominicans recognized that long-continued local disturbances or revolutions might have resulted in suspension of the service of the foreign debt, but, they argued, that had not occurred. A “debt arising from a deficit in estimates, by reason of necessary and unusual expenses of war, as well as those due to unforseen public calamities or to a diminution of income occasioned by bad crops or by fluctuations in merchandise, a debt irregular in its origin, involuntary and impossible to forsee” and upon which it was impossible to count, was “surely not the debt provided for in the third clause.” The United States found it, in the words of Carl Kelsey, “difficult to understand” and “much less accept such reasoning.” At any rate, the United States “preferred to use military force to secure national aims,” and finally backed its interpretation “with the force of bayonets.” In public arguments, however, the Dominicans—supported by Latin America and the liberal press of the United States—had a telling argument: they could always point out that the United States had refused arbitration.⁷²

Another argument presented in the Perdomo protest and later expanded by others, was that an alleged state of domestic unrest that threatened the “future observance” of the 1907 Treaty did not give any state the legal right to interfere in the internal affairs of another. An “admirable” domestic tranquility had existed under President Henríquez y Carvajal although the United States, by not recognizing him, had deprived his administration of money and army—a condition conducive to revolution. Numerous interviews with Minister Russell and Rear Admiral Pond in a “sincere effort” to correct the causes for political disturbances had failed because the United States refused to consider Dominican counter-proposals.⁷³

Since only a state of war could have justified the procedure of the United States towards Santo Domingo, and since no state of war existed between the countries, “the fundamental principles of public international law which laid down as an invariable rule of public order for the nations the reciprocal respect of the sovereignty of each and every one of the other states of the civilized world,” and the principles of Pan-Americanism “which . . . hallow the inviolability of American nationalities; principles which may be said to have found their highest authorities in the many official declarations of the learned President of the United States,” Woodrow Wilson, were violated.⁷⁴

As the occupation continued other arguments were advanced. The United States had openly proposed to obtain a treaty similar to the one with Haiti.⁷⁵ By interpretations of the 1907 Convention which “were hardly justifiable from a strictly legal point of view,” the United States wished to extend control over Dominican finances by authorizing the American General Receiver to take charge of internal revenues, and to establish an American-officered constabulary. Even Rear Admiral Snowden, generally optimistically favorable to the intervention, “emphatically” argued that “to permanently place the collection of internal revenue under the Receivership would be a direct and unjustified violation of the convention.”⁷⁶ Nevertheless, General Receiver C. H. Baxter informed the Dominican Secretary of State, Finances and Commerce that “with or without your cooperation” the United States would assume control over internal revenues. This demand was retracted only after the Receiver was asked to “withdraw from such control” by the State Department “in view of the fact that the Military Government of the Dominican Republic is a responsible Government and is faithfully carrying out its obligations as a successor of the Constitutional Dominican Government.”⁷⁷ Since intervention was brought about by the refusal of President Henríquez y Carvajal to accede to the demands of a constabulary and complete financial control not provided for in the treaty, the 1907 Convention, Dominicans argued, had been violated.⁷⁸

The list of violations due to American intervention grew gradually. Soon it was maintained that the following had been violated : (1) the 1907 Treaty in turning over to the marines and not to the Dominican Republic the balance of the customs receipts after taking out amortization and collection charges; (2) the United States Constitution in exceeding the executive prerogative to protect foreign lives and interests; (3) the Dominican Constitution in destroying the sovereignty recognized in it; (4) international law which respected national sovereignty; (5) the Monroe Doctrine, which guaranteed the independence of American nations; (6) the 1907 Hague “Agreement to observe some restrictions on . . . the use of force in the collection of ordinary public debts arising from contracts” presented by General Horace Porter on behalf of the United States Delegation; (7) Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteenth Point as well as other Wilsonian principles and pronouncements.⁷⁹

Arguments appealing to the emotions were also used. The “patriots” who were called “revolutionists” and “bandits” by United States officials “were the same kind of ‘revolutionists’ that fell before the British at Lexington and Bunker Hill”; they were patriots “of the famous Boston ‘tea party’ kind.” The Dominicans “were, in fact, more in the right in resisting our forces than we were in attacking the British.” The Dominicans could not “be blamed for entertaining exactly the same ideals about liberty and patriotism that Patrick Henry expounded to our forefathers.” Dominican Archbishop Nouel’s pleas for the return of Dominican sovereignty were compared to those of Belgium’s Cardinal Mercier. Prayers for Dominican and Haitian victims were recited along with prayers for German atrocity victims in Belgium and Rumania. The step by step conquest of Korea by Japan was compared as exact to the Dominican one. The island was compared to Ireland, Egypt, and India; it was called “Daniels’ tropical private estate,” and the Secretary of the Navy was called “Czar of Haiti and Lord Protector of Santo Domingo.” The Military Governor was referred to as “Viceroy.” The inconsistency and incongruity of Santo Domingo’s condition with the United States’ World War I fight for “self-determination” and “the rights of small nations” was pointed out and lamented.⁸⁰

Justification of American intervention and occupation was advanced by the United States to counteract Dominican arguments. One justification, the United States felt, was that when a nation “directly endangers the peace and safety of any other which has done no wrong,” the “state which is menaced is free to act . . . and justified in disregarding the political independence of the aggressor.”⁸¹

The idea that “no man is an island” was expanded to “no nation is an island.” When each nation is neighbor to many others, it was argued, turmoil and anarchy were no longer to be tolerated in adjoining countries. These were to be suppressed by the older and better organized nations, “whether there be any law to support such action or not.”⁸³

The right to protect foreign lives, property, or interests was also cited to justify intervention in Santo Domingo, as were the desire to forestall any attempt by a foreign power to obtain a foothold in American territory in flagrant violation of the Monroe Doctrine and the other exigencies of strategy and defense demanded by the possession of the Panama Canal.⁸⁴ Perhaps the most frequently used justification was the benefits derived from United States control— better schools, health, public works. Military Governor Snowden had pointed out that “if economic conditions are good and the people well off, the world will say the occupation justified itself.”⁸⁵

These justifications, as far as critics of the intervention were concerned, were faulty. The argument that the better-organized nation had a duty to help the less developed nation was countered with the argument that American tutelage in Santo Domingo was “purely particular,” serving “only the particular interests of one nation”; the United States had no “international mandate.”⁸⁶ Another fallacy pointed out in this argument was that without a doubt the United States was using harsh, dictatorial methods in order to teach Santo Domingo—by its example—how not to rule through revolution and corruption. Actually, the United States was in danger of supporting tyrants with its bayonets.⁸⁷ Native democracy could not spring up ex propio vigore immediately after the weeds of tyranny—if it could be done—were cleared away; democracy had to evolve.⁸⁸

Critics maintained that neither the lives nor the property of foreigners were at stake. No American citizen or other foreigner had been murdered, no American or foreign interests or property had been destroyed or jeopardized, and no appeal for aid or protection had gone forth from American residents in Santo Domingo to the State Department.⁸⁹ Most critics of the intervention conceded that there was a threat of German imperialism, but they maintained that no European threat existed after the World War.⁹⁰ Dominicans were conscious of the geographic position of their island and its defensive and strategic importance to the United States in relation to the Panama Canal and the southern coast of the United States, but they wished to recognize and make use of this by a treaty, not through a foreign military government.⁹¹ To discredit the argument that economic, educational, sanitary, and public works justified the intervention, critics pointed out that “Germans improved sanitation during their occupation of some of the villages of northern France, but no officer of the Marine Corps ever suggested that those reforms justified German presence in France.” Besides, the money that was used to build schools and effect other improvements was Dominican money, “and Americans had no business to be there spending it for them.” The “maladministration and extravagance of the American Military Government” had brought Santo Domingo “to the very verge of national bankruptcy” and “almost in desperation” it had attempted to obtain a loan.⁹²

Such were the at least seemingly logical, reasonable, and consistent arguments which critics of American intervention, especially Latin Americans, used before the world, arousing public opinion, and becoming an important factor in the withdrawal of United States marines from Santo Domingo. Wilfrid H. Callcott has suggested another possible factor. Perhaps the cost of intervention in relation to the “profits of empire” was disappointing.⁹³ This hypothesis is difficult to prove, but Democratic Senator William H. King of Utah used it as an argument against the further occupation of Haiti and Santo Domingo. He said:

A Senate resolution was introduced by Senator King asking the Navy Department to furnish data on the cost to the United States of the two naval occupations.⁹⁵ Parker Thomas Moon, editor of the Political Science Quarterly, secretary of the Academy of Political Science and an informed critic of American foreign policy, expressed the same idea, adding that “the public” was “asking an accounting for the lives taken in behalf of private business.”

Pro-interventionists, on the other hand, used the same argument to support their position. Alvin M. Gottschall, Director of Publicity for the Dominican Department of Commerce and Finance, pointed out that the intervention in Santo Domingo was “costing the United States more than $3,000,000 annually,” and that the debt of Santo Domingo was “scarcely that amount,” making it clear, therefore, that the United States was “not in Santo Domingo as a collector,” but as a “saviour,” “guiding” and “making Santo Domingo safe for democracy,” and getting it out of the “depths of barbarism and slavery.”⁹⁷ Editorially, the New York Times used the same argument. It pointed out that some estimated that “more than $1,000,000 a year” had been paid out of the Washington Treasury in aiding the West Indies and Central America. To clinch the argument it maintained that Cuba still owed the United States “millions for our expenditures in her behalf.” America had “been helping them, and at much expense, although it would not have been difficult to annex and rule them.”⁹⁸

Although both proponents and adversaries of intervention used the same cost vs. profit argument, the fact was still unchanged: the United States was losing money. Ludwell Lee Montague has proved that at least by 1928—and the above quotations indicate that by 1922 there was some concept of this—the promises of economic imperialism had been discredited. Bankers and merchants preferred to seek fortune in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. “The very fact of intervention was evidence of uninviting conditions in normal times.” It is true that between 1913 and 1929 American investments increased 350% and commerce 118% with Latin America. But in 1913 Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Nicaragua together drew less than 1% of the total American investments in the region comprising Central America (including Cuba, Mexico, and West Indies), and in 1928 the amount of all together was only 1.41%. The bulk of the greatly increased investments in 1928 were distributed among Mexico (28%), Cuba (27%), Argentina (11%), Brazil (9%), and Chile (7%). Not only did the policy of economic imperialism “fail to produce anticipated economic benefits,” but “the hostility it engendered in Latin America hindered economic activity in those regions where American interests were larger and reward of success greater.”⁹⁹

Along with the realization that perhaps intervention did not pay, there was a waning of missionary zeal or spirit.¹⁰⁰ One of the motives for intervention had been a genuine desire to substitute orderly democratic government for the chronic armed revolutions that afflicted most of the Caribbean states.¹⁰¹ But President de jure Francisco Henríquez y Carvajal, among others, pointed out that the United States might, without public backing, have been supporting tyrants and oppressors with its bayonets, and that, therefore, it might be held responsible as an accomplice of all the excesses and violences committed. “What a beautiful spectacle it would be to see the North American Government, gun in hand, sustaining inept, unashamed caudillos who cannot maintain themselves in power.”¹⁰² Along with this came the realization that intervention did not get at the main causes, that democracy does not come with one push, but must evolve, and that the example of dictatorial government given by the military government was not conducive to democracy.¹⁰³ The United States could neither police all of Latin America nor graft republicanism on an unprepared, unwilling patient.

By far the greatest factor in the early withdrawal of the United States from Santo Domingo was the union of liberal United States public and political opinion with the realization that Latin America, if ever united, could become a powerful foe. “The victory” was essentially the victory of public opinion.” The Dominican people, headed by Francisco Henríquez y Carvajal, with “formidable strategy” had “carried their story to the civilized world,” making occupation of Santo Domingo “increasingly embarrassing” for the United States “in the face of a growing world opinion.”¹⁰⁴ Although the anti-imperialists might have been a minority in the early 1900’s, it was “an energetic and articulate minority,” making it necessary, in the case of Santo Domingo, to pursue expansionist policies “by means of executive agreements which avoided the risk of their rejection by the Senate.”¹⁰⁵ The increasing desire on the part of the American public for a return to normal conditions in relations with the Dominican Republic brought about withdrawal.¹⁰⁶

This public opinion against intervention was accompanied and perhaps engendered by the realization that intervention and occupation were arousing resentment toward the United States throughout Latin America.¹⁰⁷ An alliance among united Latin American republics—and the united front presented by them against Dominican intervention proved that such an event was possible—and Europe, which at the time was also a debtor to the United States, leaving the United States isolated, was much feared by some Americans. A Chilean diplomat had been elected to the presidency of the League of Nations; a Brazilian had been chairman of the League’s Assembly; two of the six elected members of the League’s Council were Latin Americans; and of eleven judges forming the League’s World Court of Justice two were Latin Americans, only one American, one Briton, and one Frenchman. Such developments made the United States aware of the growing power and solidarity of Latin America since the war. “In 1910 it could be fairly said that Latin America had no friends. Today [1923] she is the fair Helen whose hand is sought from everywhere,” and who “has none of the prejudice against European alliances” that the United States had. Latin Americans were aware of their potential power. José Ingenieros, the “most widely read author of Argentina” at that time according to Samuel Guy Inman, feared the United States “because she is great, rich and strenuous,” and was interested in the “possibility of balancing her power in order that the independence and sovereignty of our nationalities shall be saved.” In November, 1921, Inman wrote that compliant Americans may “smile at the mention of the possibility of our losing our position of dominance on this continent, but the present situation at least suggests the development of a condition which will unite the rest of America with Europe rather than with us.”¹⁰⁸ The Independent, usually pro-interventionist in its editorials, conceded that “when Latin America concludes that debt collection means more to the United States than the principle of self-determination, we will have to reckon with a solidarity of hostile feeling among debtor Latin American states that may prove dangerous in any future emergencies.” Horace G. Knowles, former United States Minister to Santo Domingo, saw “no other peril to our country so great or so imminent” as the danger of an alliance to enable Latin America to break away from the unilateral Monroe Doctrine or to resist it. John Barrett, former Director General of the Pan American Union, stated that United States occupation of Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Nicaragua, “no matter how well-intentioned,” was “a most serious handicap to the Pan American influence and prestige of the United States.” Franklin D. Roosevelt considered “the net result” of intervention to be the lack of friends in the Western Hemisphere. Retired Rear Admiral W. F. Fullam, writing in the New York Times, granted that United States rule, although beneficent, caused too much Latin American antagonism. The New York Times itself, radically pro-interventionist, conceded that “there is no doubt that our commercial relations with the countries of South and Central America would be promoted by a rational and sympathetic policy in dealing with Santo Domingo.” Isaac J. Cox, writing in the HAHR in May, 1921, warned that anti-intervention propaganda in the press of Colombia would have a “psychological effect on a potential market of five million people” which was “not to be despised.” The Outlook, always protesting the benevolence of American intervention, was relieved to hear “on reliable authority,” that the announcement of evacuation had been “of a most helpful character in dispelling some of the illusions which had prevailed in some parts of Latin America as to the ultimate aims and purposes of the United States, which were believed to be of a selfish nature.” The State Department itself, we have seen, prefaced its instructions to publish the 1920 withdrawal plan with the following admission of preoccupation over Latin American opinion: “the anxiety expressed by the governments of other American republics as to our intentions in Santo Domingo, have caused the Department of State to give very thoughtful consideration” to withdrawal. Secretary of State Colby felt sure that the effect of the suspension of the Fabio Fiallo sentence would “prove most helpful to our interests throughout Latin America.” State Department instructions to appoint “a commission composed of the leading men of Santo Domingo” to formulate corrective legislation preparatory to withdrawal were prefaced with the following: “The Department is convinced that it would have an excellent effect, not only in Santo Domingo but throughout Latin America, if, as a first step, the Military Government were to appoint a commission.. . .” The Yankeephobia engendered by intervention was now regretted and through withdrawal repudiated.¹⁰⁹

Carl Kelsey, after an investigation of Dominican affairs, felt puzzled first as to why we intervened and second as to why we withdrew. He wrote in 1922:

The American withdrawal from Santo Domingo in 1924, ten years before the withdrawal from Haiti and Nicaragua, must be viewed in terms of American concern for Latin American opinion, the tremendous and successful Dominican propaganda campaign based on the absolute right of sovereignty, the making of the occupation a political and partisan issue, and the diminished strategic value of the Dominican portion of the island.

Why, it may be asked, did the United States continue to occupy Haiti until 1934? Haiti had been dragged into partisan politics in 1920 and it also had an effective propaganda organization—the Union Patriotique d’Haiti. It, too, appealed to the emotions by pointing to atrocities committed by Americans. But not all of the factors in the withdrawal from Santo Domingo were present in Haiti in 1924. Glaringly absent was the ability to plead that its sovereignty was unjustifiably denied or abrogated. Haiti had signed the Treaty of 1915 which gave the United States preponderant if not exclusive control of Haitian finances and allowed for an American-officered constabulary. Six months later the United States had tried to exact such a treaty from Santo Domingo, by non-recognition and withholding of public funds and salaries, but Santo Domingo had already seen the results of such a treaty and refused to “sign away her sovereignty.” The Dominican Republic’s legal status was thus different from that of her neighbor. Haiti could only argue that she had been unwillingly forced to sign the treaty—a position difficult to prove and maintain in view of her past history.¹¹¹

Another factor lacking in the case of Haiti was that she did not belong to the Hispanic American family of nations, and was not bound by ties of race, culture, and language to that potential body of resistance to American intervention. Although Hispanic America saw in both Haiti and Santo Domingo an augury of a possible fate, its encouragement and sympathy naturally went to the country which spoke the same language. The Dominican morale received constant sustenance, the Haitian did not.¹¹² Besides this lack of continental unity, the Haitians, unlike the Dominicans, lacked unity. The fact that a Haitian president—not a Military Governor as in Santo Domingo—was kept in power by the United States to the exclusion of other political aspirants made opposition to American intervention weak and disunited. It was to the interest of the incumbent president that Americans remain to sustain him in power; he and those of his party would not clamor for sovereignty as loudly as if they had been entirely deposed. This governing elite, although comprising a small percentage of the total population and a small pro-intervention minority, nevertheless was powerful when backed by the United States. In Santo Domingo, to give another example, the archbishop and all the priests were Dominicans, and the church was strongly patriotic. In Haiti, by the Concordat of 1860, the church had to sustain the government, and the government in turn had to support the church. The church did not and would not officially and openly run counter to the “prevailing national sentiment by endorsing the occupation,” and it could not and would not oppose the occupation.¹¹³ Haiti had no Cardinal Mercier as the Dominicans had an Archbishop Nouel.

The Nation gave two hints as to possible reasons why the United States remained longer in Haiti. One was that Haiti was “too small to stay in the headlines” and the other the fact that Haiti was “only a backward Negro state.”¹¹⁴ These are possibilities that cannot be proved. Santo Domingo was almost as small as Haiti, and to detect color prejudice in official documents was difficult. The Forbes Commission appointed by President Herbert Hoover to investigate Haitian affairs in 1930, however, reported that race antipathies lay behind many of the difficulties which the United States military and civil forces had met in that country.¹¹⁵

Chester Lloyd Jones, an historian of the Caribbean, suggested that the technical skills to maintain the administrative functions of government—police, public health, communication, education, and public finance—were, to a greater extent, lacking in Haiti. These skills had to be developed before complete control was returned.¹¹⁶ In 1923 Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, apparently in response to a general demand for a definite, set policy, and again in 1928 while campaigning in behalf of Hoover, explained that

Wilfrid H. Callcott suggested that besides the “less well-trained” local leaders of Haiti as a factor in the later withdrawal of the United States from Haiti, the United States had obtained control of Haiti “much more” recently than Santo Domingo.¹¹⁸ American control and aid in Santo Domingo, although only partial at first, had started with the modus vivendi of 1905, whereas complete control of Haiti had started with the Treaty of 1915. Thus, technical skills under American supervision were more developed in the Dominican Republic than in Haiti. In 1920 Colonel George C. Thorpe, an officer connected with the public works system under the military government, compared the problems in Santo Domingo and Haiti, and concluded that “the problem in Haiti is the most discouraging of all, for it is the most difficult.” The solution, he felt, would “take a much longer time” than in Santo Domingo, since the Haitians were “so much farther removed from social competence.”¹¹⁹

Perhaps the most important justification advanced by the United States for staying ten years longer in Haiti was that the United States had intervened in and withdrawn from Santo Domingo; the Dominican Republic became a sort of an official showcase of the blessings and good intentions of United States intervention. Charles E. Hughes remarked in 1925:

We have no desire to take advantage of this regrettable condition [of internal dissensions and revolutions instead of fair elections] in neighboring countries, either to acquire territory or to assume political control. Nothing could demonstrate this attitude more completely than our recent withdrawal from Santo Domingo. Of course we could have remained in control had we desired, but instead of doing so we have been solicitous to aid in the establishment of an independent government so that we could withdraw and, such a government having been established through our efforts, we have withdrawn. . .. In Haiti we are only waiting to see a reasonable promise of internal peace and stability to effect our withdrawal. And meanwhile we are doing our utmost to promote the interest of the people of Haiti without selfish considerations.¹²⁰

While campaigning on behalf of Hoover in 1928, Hughes asserted that “the Republican Administration . . . demonstrated its anti-imperialistic policy by perfecting arrangements for withdrawal from Santo Domingo, which was effected. We would leave Haiti, if we could.”¹²¹ Henry Kittredge Norton, a pro-interventionist Caribbean historian, repeated the same idea in 1929, when he wrote:

Santo Domingo was not the only example of benevolent withdrawal pointed to by the United States. By 1925 the United States had been in Puerto Rico for a quarter of a century, where it had “won Spanish-American friendliness” while retaining its territory; and it had been in Cuba since 1898, where it had not only won Spanish American friendliness but had also “respected national boundaries.”¹²³ The premature, abortive withdrawal from Nicaragua in 1925 occasioned a revolution, and the United States felt justified in remaining longer in Haiti. This was evident from the instructions which President Herbert Hoover gave to the Forbes Commission:

Secretary of State Hughes probably had the Nicaragua withdrawal in mind when he wrote:

We wish to leave Haiti as soon as we can do so with assurance that there will not be a recurrence of bloodshed and a disregard of the obligations of international intercourse which might require renewed interposition on the part of our Government.¹²⁵

Haiti lacked the main causes of early withdrawal that Santo Domingo had in its favor—a pool of technically-trained personnel, provable (at least from the Dominican standpoint) violation of its sovereignty, and Hispanic American support for its cause.

Withdrawal in Santo Domingo, then, was achieved in 1924 because (1) the island’s strategic value and the threat of foreign invasion were diminished with the end of World War I; (2) public attention was focused on the republic by means of effective, emotional, and legalistic propaganda at home and abroad which brought about, in turn, a Senate investigation; (3) “imperialism” accidentally became an issue in the 1920 election; (4) military occupation was unprofitable; (5) the government realized that democracy cannot be forced on an unwilling people without the danger of the enforcer becoming dictatorial; (6) the Dominicans presented logical arguments based on the absolute-sovereignty theory which the United States could not reject since it had fought a war for the rights of small nations; (7) the State Department became aware of the potential though unlikely danger of a united debtor Latin America allied with a debtor Europe.

Author notes