Hard-Boiled

Citizens of Haiti who suspect that their newly elected President Eugene Roy is "a tool of Wall Street and Washington" had their worst fears confirmed last week when he began to act in a strange, un-Haitian fashion.

The day had come for observance of an old Haitian custom. A crowd gathered with itching palms before the Presidential Palace at Port-au-Prince. Tradition bade the President to appear, inquire whether his people had any grievance, listen to any complaints which might be made, and finally--this being the real point of the old Haitian custom--finally to fling several bagfulls of small but handy coins.

Docile and expectant, the crowd waited nearly all day in the hot sun last week, but President Roy had evidently plugged his ears to the voice of Tradition. It is not an old Wall Street custom to be lavish even with coppers; the U. S. Presidents' only observance of a custom in any way analogous is to roll hard-boiled Easter Eggs on the White House lawn for children to take home.

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