Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies
From the End of the United States Occupation to
Duvalier, 1934-57
The 1930 presidential election was the first since the occupation
began in which the marines did not interfere. The winner
was Stenio Vincent, a former senator with populist tendencies.
A charismatic speaker, Vincent was the first Haitian head of
state to make official speeches in Creole rather than French.
Beyond efforts to remove the marines from Haiti and
improve infrastructure and services, President Vincent increasingly
used his office and the Garde to increase his own power
and wealth. In 1935 he forced a new constitution through Congress
that allowed him sweeping powers to dissolve the legislature,
reorganize the judiciary, appoint ten out of twenty-one
senators, and rule when the legislature was not in session.
Then, he held a plebiscite that transferred economic matters
from the legislature to the executive. Vincent repressed opposition
and censored the press, but when he sought to remain in
office for a third term, the United States objected. He relinquished
the presidency to Elie Lescot in 1941.
Elie Lescot was a light-skinned mulatto like his three predecessors.
His previous experience as ambassador to the Dominican
Republic and in other government jobs seemed promising.
However, Lescot exacerbated racial sensitivities by placing
light-skinned people at all levels of the government irrespective
of their competence. He exacerbated religious sensitivities by
facilitating an anti-superstition campaign (1941-42) that the
Roman Catholic Church organized against voodoo. Lescot also
became increasingly authoritarian. He declared himself commander
in chief of the military, repressed the people, censored
the press, and compelled Congress to grant him extensive powers
to handle the budget and fill legislative vacancies without
elections.
Lescot's declining popularity sank further when correspondence
was made public that revealed that he had been under
the influence and pay of Dominican President Trujillo when
he was ambassador to the Dominican Republic, and that
Trujillo's money might have helped get him elected. After
Lescot jailed the Marxist editors of a journal called La Ruche
(The Beehive) in early January, students took to the streets to
protest and demand more civil liberties. Then, on January 11,
1945, army officers, led by Major Paul E. Magloire, forced
Lescot to resign, and the Garde took power. The Garde acted
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