Republic Supervised

Last week as President Borno, of Haiti, heard the combined U. S. fleet boom out the full presidential salute of 21 guns in his honor Brigadier General John H. Russell, U. S. High Commissioner of Haiti, quietly sent his annual report to Secretary of State Kellogg at Washington. Praise he gave to President Borno's administration; his report on the judicial system was less favorable, more revealing. "Trials by jury" he said, "are farcical. The jury is always opposed to the government. . . " The customs receipts had increased, he reported, under U. S. supervision. Meanwhile at the Haitian border, Negro gendarmes under the command of U. S. onetime marines, waited in vain to arrest U. S. Senator King who announced he would not try to enter the country over President Borno's ban (TIME, March 21).

Puzzled U. S. citizens pondered. The Department of State had said: "Haiti is a sovereign republic." Thus, the U. S. expressed its inability to persuade President Borno to allow Senator King to enter on his tour of investigation. But, citizens argued, a U. S. High Commissioner passes judgment on President Borno's administration, the U. S. controls Haiti's customs, one-time U. S. marines command Haiti's gendarmerie.*

And though Haiti's juries are filled with men hostile to the government and to the President, Mr. Borno remains in power. Is it possible, they asked, that Senator King is right, that "Commissioner Russell is the power in Haiti," that there is there "an American bayonet rule"?

* The Republic of Haiti, a onetime French colony, was proclaimed independent Jan. 1, 1804 It is now governed by a constitution [ratified June 12, 1918]. In November, 1915 the Haiti Congress ratified a treaty with the U. S. that established a virtual U. S. protectorate.