Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1925, Volume II
838.00/2159
The High Commissioner in Haiti (Russell) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 17.]
Sir: I have the honor to enclose herewith, for the Department’s information, a copy of the Moniteur of August [October] 8, 1925, containing a circular letter addressed by the President to the Prefects of Arrondissements, concerning the question of national elections.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I had suggested to President Borno that he express the hope that national elections might, with the continued improvement of conditions throughout the country, be held in 1928. It will be noted that his remarks are not quite as strong as the above.
I have [etc.]
Circular Letter of President Borno to the Prefects of the Haitian Arrondissements
Mr. Prefect: The policy of the Government, as you know, is governed entirely by a sentiment of absolute sincerity. Having decided to spare no effort in organizing our democracy, firm and prosperous, in order and in liberty, the Government has for its first duty to consider the country as it is, to place itself resolutely before the reality of facts, and not to permit itself to be led astray by any empty declamations, by any lie.
What spectacle did we offer to the world when the intervention of the United States occurred, and what was the work of this intervention? Herewith is the official statement by President Dartiguenave in his proclamation of the 29th of August, 1916:
“The country was the prey to the most terrible anarchy. The cities and fields of the departments of the North, Northwest, Artibonite, and a large part of the West had been ravaged and stained with blood by an almost uninterrupted series of civil wars; anguish, desolation, and misery were everywhere. In less than four years, seven chiefs of state succeeded each other! The last, Vilbrun Guillaume, had just been violently torn from the French Legation, and sacrificed in the street by the blind and barbarous anger of a mob which had been exasperated by the unattoneable slaughter at the prison of Port-au-Prince.
The American Intervention put an end to this scandal, and the same National Assembly which, under the pressure of a victorious force, had ratified three “coups d’Etat” by electing successively three revolutionary chiefs, this same National Assembly, acting for the first time in its full and complete freedom, called to the first magistracy, Senator Dartiguenave. It was necessary henceforth, to secure in the ruined and blood-stained Republic, order and peace, security, a stable government, every condition in a word indispensable to work, to normal living, indispensable to the well being and the prosperity of the citizens. And the proof was given, definitely given, of the complete impotence of the leading nationals, too divided among themselves, to procure for this country these basic conditions.
The convention was then signed consecrating to the profit of the Republic of Haiti the powerful aid of the American Government.
That was certainly a sacrifice to national self-respect. But, between this sacrifice and the life of shame, misery, and ignominy from which it had rescued us, no citizen, having a true sense of national honor, could hesitate.
And since then what have we seen? Peace, inestimable benefit, has been reestablished. The laboring people have been able to devote themselves to their work; thanks to the order maintained everywhere, they have been able to realize from our agricultural potentialities the greatest advantages. The work of rehabilitation and sanitation, undertaken by degrees everywhere, has facilitated communications, benefited [Page 306] public health, and procured at the same time means of sustenance for thousands of our citizens; for the first time in years, families have known the joys of security and exercised the prerogatives of true social liberty.”
And I add to-day:
More than twelve hundred kilometers of roads have been constructed; new roads are still being opened; numerous bridges have been thrown across the water courses; important irrigation works have been undertaken; a technical service has been instituted to give us at last an organized agricultural system, demanded for over a hundred years; city and rural schools have already been built and a progressive program of school work is in operation; new laws have put into the hands of the authorities means of protecting the peasants against the despoiling methods of a certain class of rotten and heartless lawyers; the fine results of the public health service, in the towns and in the country, have procured, and are procuring each day, invaluable aid to citizens in every walk of life; the national magistracy, so long neglected, has, at last, initiated in its favor, better conditions which will develop in proportion; and the financial credit of the country is so high in foreign markets that it could be said “that it is virtually on the same plane as such conservative states as Holland, Sweden, and Switzerland.”
And, nevertheless, if the general situation offers so much satisfaction, how can it be denied that the work accomplished until now is but a beginning, when one considers all that still is left to be done to assure the continued development of agriculture, commerce, public education, health, seriously to guarantee public peace, public and private property, the home, and the security of all, against any possible return to our bad past, our past of bloody and destructive revolutions, scandalous pillage, and by the persecution of exploitations of the peasants by military satrapes, masters of life and property.
And before this immense task which solicits, urges, and demands an active coalition of all good wills, what do we see today? Groups of politicians at bay, scattered through different parts of the country, who pretend to oppose the civilizing progress of the government by exerting themselves to create and to develop an agitation purely political under the lying pretext of “restoring democratic institutions”, that is to say, to be exact, to replace the present legislative Council of State by a Chamber and a Senate!
You are not ignorant of the fact, Mr. Prefect, that it is the firm design of the present government to realize fully the constitutional provision for the election of the two Legislative Chambers. But at what moment ought this election be brought about, which the constitution itself, in an evident view to prudence and wisdom, has made [Page 307] dependent upon a special convocation by the President of the Republic? That is the whole question between the Government and its adversaries. These latter say: “Immediately”, that is to say, “on January 10, next.” But the Government, which has no thought of deceiving itself or of deceiving anyone else, replies: No, the Haitien people are not ready. Democracy is the government of the people by conscious, popular suffrage, practiced with the greatest possible liberty. We have that liberty. Never in any period of our country, for more than a century, has there been in Haiti as much liberty as at the present moment. The liberty of circulation is absolute; without any passport, one crosses the country in every sense. The freedom of holding meetings is subject only to a previous notification to the local police. The freedom of the press which is, when summed up, the expression of all the others, is absolute; the law which governs it is made only to suppress abuses, defamation, outrage, provocation to crime, all those intolerable excesses by which the old revolutionary demon, impatient to break his chains, manifests himself from time to time.
We have liberty. But where then is our popular conscious suffrage?
Our rural population, which represents nine-tenths of the Haitien people, is almost totally illiterate, ignorant and poor; although its material and moral situation has been appreciably bettered in these last few years, it is still incapable of exercising the right of vote, and would be the easy prey of those bold speculators whose conscience hesitates at no lie.
As for the town population, one-tenth of the total population, those of its members who are capable of expressing an intelligent vote,—a little progressive minority formed of peaceful men, business men, artisans, citizens of different professions, belonging to different social classes,—have for a long time, for the most part, renounced their electoral right, disgusted by the immoral maneuvers and the insolent frauds which render, and would still render illusory their efforts as intelligent electors. The remainder is the small group of professional politicians, with their followers of every sort, who are mainly illiterate.
That is the present electoral body! It is characterized by an absolute lack of organization as to the little number of its useful elements, and, for the rest, by a flagrant inability to assume, in the decisive period through which we are passing, the heavy responsibilities of a political action.
Popular suffrage has not its raison d’etre, if it can only serve to elect individuals and nothing else. True democratic suffrage should serve, primarily, to elect in individuals definite principles, programs of action, and methods of government.
[Page 308]All this amounts to saying, that the rational and necessary foundation of democratic suffrage is, in a conscious electoral body, the organization of parties with platforms.
Our national history has only presented up to now two real parties, the National party which extols the principle of a strong executive authority, and the Liberal party, enthused by parliamentarism. Both have disappeared from the political scene through lack of interior discipline and of support by a real public opinion.
The Government is working to prepare the way to the intelligent and disciplined democracy, to the solid organization thereof. The present electoral law is recognized by all as incompatible with the sincere expression of popular will. A new law, now in the course of preparation, will be presented at the next Ordinary Session; it will offer all the possibilities for the full functioning of political parties, and for the constitution of an intelligent electoral body, capable of exercising, without danger to the Republic, the sovereign attributes of universal suffrage.
And when the hour shall have struck, an hour which will be hastened, let us hope, by the wisdom of our citizens, the President of the Republic will be proud to put into operation the solemn prerogative which the constitution has consigned to his patriotism, his judgement, and his conscience, to fix the date of the legislative elections.
Until that time, I advise you, Mr. Prefect, the Council of State will continue to follow the formal provision which, in this same constitution, has delegated to it the functions of the legislative power.
And you will take care that the approaching elections of January 10, 1926, shall be exclusively communal.