Part 3

It is very difficult to establish any sort of efficient and just civil force because of the ignorance of the vast majority of the Haitian population. The number of intelligent, or partly intelligent men in a country district is small, and it is the intelligent men in these sections who are usually in league with the cacos, either openly or secretly. And with the magistrates there is another obstacle which prevents the execution of justice. Ever since the beginnings of Haitian history, graft has been so natural and accepted a thing with government officials that it is inborn in the present generation and time alone will ever wipe it out.

At present with a large number of the magistrates impartial judgment is unknown and the local law verdict goes to the highest bidder. First one side buys up the judge and then the other until finally one party is forced to give in through lack of resources. The chief drawback in attempting to eliminate such graft is the ridiculously low pay given to a magistrar. It is but natural for a judge to seek outside gains in order that he may earn a living. When a Haitian dies, and some of the more prosperous of them have accumulated fortunes of over a hundred thousand dollars, the heirs or even outsiders who are on the spot loot his wealth and leave nothing for any absent members of the family. The latter are unable to obtain justice later because the first-comers have carefully bought up the local officials with a portion of their new gains.

This unfair state of local government can be remedied only slowly and by the gradual elimination of the idea of graft as an expected right of a government official. But as I have pointed out the raising of the magistrate's salary is a prerequisite. The low salary now paid is of course due to the lack of funds which hinders the development of the country at every turn.

Under the provisions of the American treaty with Haiti, the entire financial situation was placed, during the duration of the treaty, in the hands of a financial advisor, who, having been nominated by the President of the United States, is appointed by the President of Haiti. Addison P. Ruan was the first appointee and served in Haiti for two years until he was transferred to take the same post in Panama. Following Mr. Ruan, John A. McIlhenny came to Haiti and, realizing like his predecessor the urgent need for money with which to develop the country, he has been steadily at work to put through a Haitian loan in the United States. This is of course at present impossible due to the abnormal financial situation in this country.

The financial advisor in Haiti has the authority to make all appropriations of the state money and his word is final as to their expenditure. In this respect Haiti is being run, during the treaty period, in very much the same way as India is governed by England, except that no treasurer is needed in Haiti, as the Haitian National Bank serves that purpose.

V

PUBLIC EDUCATION AND NORMIL CHARLES

M. Dantes Bellegarde, Minister of Public Instruction, had told us that he would be glad to show us through the schools of Port-au-Prince. We therefore arranged a date and set out one morning to make the tour. With us went also the American Advisor to the department, Mr. Bourgeois.

At the time the treaty was made between Haiti and the United States, no provision was arranged for the Department of Education, as was done with the Sanitary and Engineering Departments. Thus the development made possible through the more direct assistance from Washington has been unattainable in the school work, and although the work we saw being carried on was a remarkably inspiring demonstration of accomplishments, yet the small proportion which is being done of what could be done if greater means were available is quite discouraging. It is the same cry as one raises on every hand: If only they had the means!

Two years ago, three years after the treaty was signed, Mr. Bourgeois came to Haiti, but only in the capacity of an Advisor responsible to the Haitian Government alone and not as a league official. His force is largely restricted to negative powers.

It is indeed fortunate that a mind of remarkable keenness and a power for practical work exists in the person of the present Minister, M. Bellegarde. But should a man of lesser force take his place, as has happened within recent years, the result would be deplorable. Also, M. Bellegarde could carry his work much further if he had the proper financial and other material aid of the United States Educational Department.

Although compulsory educations is legally a fact, there is, in reality, a force of teachers and equipment for but 18,000 of the 200,000 children of the proper age. Many of these children are in the country districts where good teachers, who even in the city are at a premium, are almost an unknown factor. This feature is being remedied as far as practicable, all the time, and the teachers in the rural schools are being carefully examined. Some of these have been found to be utterly unable to correct their pupils' simple exercises and these teachers are being dropped. But, though it is thus very simple to drop an incompetent teacher, it is a manifold more difficult task to replace him. The pay for teachers is $6 per month and so, even low as wages are in Haiti, the position of teacher is not so lucrative as to have very many applicants.

The salaries cannot be raised. It is the old story of lack of money. Nearly half of the annual appropriation for public instruction is being swallowed up by the present salaries of the present number of teachers. The remainder is naturally barely sufficient to maintain the existing schools. No new advances are possible.

Fortunately, besides the public schools of Haiti, there are numerous privately run ones, nearly always under religious or parti-religious supervision. The Catholics are the most frequent benefactors and are doing by far the greater part of the work. Originally, before the present public school system was created, these schools, missions, or convents were in part supported by the state; but gradually this assistance is being necessarily taken away.

Our first visit was to a school run by Belgian Sisters. It was a school for girls only and was still supported in part by the Government. For the younger children the work consists mostly of such studies as would be taught in a primary school in the States, great stress being laid upon the speaking of good French. This is particularly important because the natural tongue of the lower classes of natives is Creole, which in Haiti consists of an ungrammatical and corrupted language drawn principally from the French, but also with traces of English, Spanish and early Indian words. Some Creole words seem to defy a tracing of their origin. Although the natives may understand you if you speak French to them, it is impossible for you to make out what they say, though you may know French perfectly.

"Vini non" is a Creole expression used continually to mean "come here!" Its derivation is certainly obscure. Nor is Creole the same all over the republic. Each section has its own dialect which is distinct.

After the children learn the first elements of grammar school work, they begin to work a part of the day at embroidery, sewing and knitting. Thus the vocational work is gradually increased and before the girls graduate they are given training which fits them to be efficient servants. Vocational schools of this type are just what Haiti needs most of all. They serve the double purpose of training the natives to obtain a good living and they also furnish a means by which the better-off may secure good servants and workers.

Downstairs in the school building are the school and work rooms--upstairs the dormitory. The dormitory consists of one large room covering the entire top of the house and filled with cots for every boarder. For every two cots there is also provided a washstand which contains places where they may keep their personal articles. The entire effect was of an establishment thoroughly modern and scrupulously clean. Besides these girls who come from the country districts and board, the school has also a great many day pupils who live at their homes in town.

The next school we went to was a non-vocational one under the direction of an order of French Brothers. It was solely for boys, just as the first was only a girls' school, for the morals of the country do not permit the adoption of co-education, even though the pupils are of the earliest ages.

The priests who conduct this institution are certainly as fine a type of self-sacrificing men who are aiding a truly worthy cause as I can imagine. They see the tremendous possibilities and without limiting their efforts to what they could accomplish with a normal amount of work they undertake almost superhuman attempts. Of the Brothers who come to Haiti, their average length of life after arriving is but 12 years, so killing is their work. The normal amount of work for a professor in the United States is about 18 hours a week, but the Brothers in Haiti teach for 8 hours every single day. And every effort which they put into it is unwasted and has a telling effect in the result.

There are 11 grades of scholars taught by the Brothers, from the earliest kindergarten to the graduation class who would correspond to high school students. The boys are given work in geography, history, spelling, French, mathematics and other things which would be taught in any American school. I looked over the copy books of the younger boys and the neatness and excellent penmanship of even children of six was amazing. All of the children seemed to be naturally gifted at freehand drawing. One little boy of eight, when asked what his favorite subject was, replied: "My national emblem." He drew therewith a fine representation of a palm tree.

Although the order of Brothers is French, not all of them are Frenchmen. Several are Americans, a few Canadians and Portuguese, and one, a Haitian Brother.

Our third and last visit was to the Ecôle Normale d'lndustrie. The graduating pupils here act as teachers of the younger ones. This school is one of the public schools and as we went through it, M. Bellegarde proudly pointed to a particularly fine-looking little boy. "That is my son." We went through many classrooms full of scholars of different ages studying in very much the same way as children study in America. It seemed a cause for hope to look at this public school through which the Haitian children were being made to see the advantages of education and the opportunity to rise. When every Haitian child will be able to have such instruction and training then his generation will be able to throw off the yoke of past superstitions and dispel the ignorance which has been holding back the masses.

Following this tour of the few schools which time allowed us to visit, M. Bellegarde took us to the studio of Normil Charles. M. Charles is a Haitian sculptor who has remarkable genius and is one of the leading sculptors of the world. He studied in Paris for a number of years, and has received many decorations and honors. As we entered his studio, in front of us we saw a huge bronze which he is doing for the Government and which is to be placed in the Champ de Mars. It is called "The Benefactor" and is the statue of a great public-spirited man. At his feet kneels a peasant woman, with babe in arms, mourning his death. The piece would certainly be a work of the first class anywhere and the country may well be proud that one of its citizens is its author.

In the studio, too, was the bust of Dessalines, done by Charles, and which I had seen six months before in the Pan-American Building in Washington, where it remained for some time.

M. Charles, himself, is a delightful man, well-mannered and interesting. But he is indeed a strange product of a country which for so many years has been kept down by revolution with the resulting isolation and lack of opportunity to devote time to the pursuits of peace.

VI

THE PRESIDENT

From the studio of M. Charles, M. Bellegarde took us to see the new palace. It is a huge structure, quite like a palace in appearance, and made of white stucco. It is more than twice the size of our White House and is shaped like the letter E, with the three wings running back from the front. In the main hall huge columns rise to the ceiling and at each side a staircase winds up to the second floor.

While we were starting to go through the palace the guard had apprised President Dartiguenave of our presence and we were surprised and delighted to have him send word that he would be glad to receive us. Although the left wing of the building is to be the President's private suite, it is as yet uncompleted and he is at present occupying the opposite end. We entered the President's office, where he rose from his desk to meet us, and to usher us through to the Cabinet room. This room is large, like all the rooms--perhaps 40 feet square--and with a long table in the center surrounded by chairs. Here the President meets his Cabinet.

The President is a man of medium height and has the bearing of an aristocrat. His hair and beard are gray which contribute to his good appearance. He is rather light in color and, indeed, is the first president for a long time who has not been a black. The President does not speak English but understands and speaks French perfectly. Altogether he is a delightful, cultured man and a suitable head for the Republic.

From the balcony of the palace there is an excellent view, overlooking the entire town and the harbor beyond. The next room to visit was the "Salle Diplomatique" where all official receptions are held. This had just been decorated but was as yet unfinished. The President personally escorted us to it and afterwards to his future private suite. He then showed us downstairs and out to the car, where we left both the President and M. Bellegarde.

VII

A MORNING HUNT

As I left the house one morning at two, the yard boys next door were already at work and in town the "white wings"--an American institution--were about. Three of us joggled along for 22 miles for an early duck shoot and talked of many things, among them concerning a proposed map of Haiti. The existing one is grossly inaccurate as is easily shown by an airplane flight or a ship attempting to follow many of the channels. There is no triangulation point in Haiti and so the present coast line on the maps is the result of a certain number of bearings from off shore, with the remainder a matter of freehand filling-in. The use of airplanes in heretofore untried ways will be employed to aid in the exact location of towns and be a means of a great saving of tedious traverse work.

In town, life was already stirring, as I have shown. This is nothing unusual for it is the customary hour for the Haitian to begin his day. By 6 the "gentlemen about town" are in the streets with their canes and Stetsons, debating the fall of the cabinet or the latest development in the gourde situation. But out in the country everything was still dark and the market women had barely started to bring their load into town. So we met no one--except twice the marine patrol car on its route.

Just outside the portals marking the limits of Port-au-Prince on which are inscribed the words: "Peace, Justice, Work," is the historic Pont Rouge. This is the spot where revolutionary troops coming down from the mountains and across the plains would first meet the forces of the existing government of Port-au-Prince. Here the great Dessalines, coming into town at the head of his troops, met what he believed to be a guard of his own troops. His own general was leading them, but had betrayed Dessalines, and the President was soon left wounded in the roadway to die. It had been Dessalines who, it is said, sported himself by pulling out the eyes of his prisoners with corkscrews.

The streets in Port-au-Prince are wide asphalt pavements and would be adapted for speeding but for the presence in the center and sides promiscuously of unruly "burros," naked babies playing in the dirt, odd Haitian pigs looking like some new species of animal, and pedestrians of strange sorts. This is true, also, for some distance out on the Hasco road, over which we went. But after a few miles we came out upon one of the new roads which has been put down throughout the island by the Haitian Government under the supervision of the Gendarmerie and of an engineering force loaned to them by the United States. In all, about 500 miles of excellent roadways have been put down since the American intervention.

In this work the budget system is now used and as every payment is actually handed out by one of the American engineers himself, the graft which was formerly rampant has been eliminated. In the days of pre-American intervention a sum of, let us assume, $50,000 was voted to build a road. $5,000 of this regularly went to the President and $500 to each Senator who would vote for the appropriation. This left, generally, about $10,000, or one-fifth, for actual road building work.

The Haitians have proven to be good engineers and except for the pay roll, large pieces of work are often carried on by them without assistance from the Americans.

The first part of the road which we struck was excellent but after branching off the main road to Pont Beudet we came to the new part. Roads of this type, which is the one generally used, are macadam with good foundation of different sized stones and 20 feet in width. The top dressing is a good binding gravel which can be found within short distances along almost all of the roads which they are now building. A temporary track is run from each gravel pit along the side of the road until a mile or so on another pit is dug and the rails taken up and laid down from the new pit on. The gravel is thus carried to where it is needed by a small engine and a few cars. There is in this way no long-distance hauling.

Finally we turned off the new road to a clearing through a cactus desert at the edge of Lake Troucaiman. Above either shore two mountain ranges run parallel for miles, far above the lake. The lake itself is open water in the central portion but by far the greater part is filled with a mass of lily, mangrove and reed growth. Often it is so dense as to be entirely impenetrable.

When we arrived at Troucaiman it was not yet daylight and only the candles in the few "cailles" along the road could be seen. Upon the approach of the car, five or six natives appeared, knowing from past experience what we had come for, and with our French and their Creole, interspersed by numerous gestures, we made our plans. Each of us started out, alone in his own tiny dugout of about a foot wide and four feet long and with his own native in the back to pole him about. The guides had taken off the few rags which they wore and one by one we were shoved off. Part of the time we were poled, part of the time the craft stuck and the native had to wade along beside to keep us going.

We went on and on in the blackness until finally one could distinguish black shapes arising from the water or whirring past. It came at last--the gray dawn for which we had been waiting. A teal went overhead with its characteristic rapid flight. A slower-flying redhead and later a scaup passed. And all around were hundreds upon hundreds of Egrets, great white forms which flappingly arose when we approached too near.

To the natives there are four kinds of ducks: "gens-gens," which is a species of tree duck; "cécele" or blue-winged teal; "cucurem" or ruddy duck; and any other duck is known as "canard generale." All of the first three species are abundant, as are also the scaup, baldpate, redhead and Bahaman pintail.

We met at nine on the shore, which by daylight looked very different than when we had left it, and after some refreshments and comparing of our respective bags, we started home. There are no game laws in Haiti, so that your bag is only limited by your lack of skill. Half way in to Port-au-Prince is the spot where two months before three Haitian engineers had been murdered in the "caille" where they were spending the night. The men were working on the road I have spoken of, but as the caco trouble had been active in that district just before the men were murdered, these men had been duly forewarned not to spend the night.

Frequently I used to go out on these shooting trips, but not always to Troucaiman. Two other spots were alternated, Miragôane in the west and the salt lakes beyond Troucaiman. These salt lakes are two decidedly brackish bodies of water which lie on the border of Haiti and Santo Domingo. They are at the end of the Plain of the Cul-de-Sac, and a few miles beyond the town of Thomaseau. The water is as clear as a crystal and the scenery amid these wonderful lakes and the mountains above them is splendid.

In the opposite direction, and 70 miles west of Port-au-Prince, is Lake Miragôane. It is just beyond Petit Gôave. The lake is large, being about eight miles long. In a part of the lake we had particularly good teal shooting and by moonlight thousands of "gens-gens" would come in to feed in the shallows overnight. Long before dawn they had vanished again.

It is a difficult lake to shoot upon, however. The mud flats from the shore are long and reach far out into the lake so that it is practically impossible to use a dugout for some distance. Thus it was necessary to walk out in shallow water and deep mud. The water, very unlike the salt lake water, was thick, filthy and always gave one an itching sensation for hours after having been in it.

Beside the duck shooting at Miragôane, there is excellent snipe shooting during certain seasons and good guinea shooting also. It is a strange thing to have guineas in Haiti. The guinea is a native of Africa which only reached the new world in a domesticated state. The present birds are descendants of the domesticated ones left by the French planters during the revolution and which have reverted to the wild state in the intervening generations. Doves, as everywhere in Haiti are also abundant, and form a good shoot and a good meal.

VIII

PINE NEEDLES

The mountains had changed from green to violet and from violet to black and the new moon silhouetted the peaks from 10,000 foot summits to the sea. From Furcy, the next range to the east seemed within hands' reach across the valleys and hills as its mountains rose ten miles or ten hours by trail away. Our sweaters and blankets felt barely enough as the wind howled around us. With closed eyes we knew from its tell-tale sound that pine trees surrounded us and that the winds were blowing stronger and stronger through their needles.

We climbed the hill with difficulty over the slippery matting of pine needles to pick bananas along the road. And we were in the tropics, with pine cones, palm and bananas growing side by side. Thanking Providence that I am alive while such country still exists, untouched by man's civilization, I gazed for dozens of miles over several mountain ranges with their valleys and hills overlapping to the sea on two sides of the island. These bits of water looked far away indeed.