Five More Years for Stenio

President Stenio Vincent of Haiti is a silver-haired, silver-tongued politician who is supported as loyally by the lesser politicians of Port-au-Prince as he is hated by Haitian exiles in Harlem. His friends say he is a statesman; his enemies call him a dictator; both agree that he likes a pleasant job. Such a job is the Presidency of Haiti.

More Spanish than any other kind of blood fills the veins of Haiti's Stenio Vincent. He is a natural orator and his oratory has carried him far. On the strength of it he had become President of the Chamber of Deputies when, in 1915, after years of ferment, President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam was massacred with 167 political prisoners and the U. S. Marines marched in. To a Marine officer who ordered the Chamber dismissed, Stenio Vincent answered: "Merde." That made him a sort of hero.

Out of a job, Stenio Vincent went to the U. S. to lobby for withdrawal of the Marines. He got nowhere and drifted back to Haiti. By 1930 he had convinced a majority of the people that he could get rid of the Marines, and so they elected him President. Three years later Franklin Roosevelt inaugurated his Good Neighbor Policy: the next year Stenio Vincent went to see him and President Roosevelt withdrew the Marines. In his campaign Stenio Vincent had also plumped for a single five-year Presidential term, but when 1935 rolled around he changed his mind, ordered a plebiscite and was voted another five years in office. These five years will be up next May 15.

Under President Vincent Haiti has enjoyed one of the quietest periods of its history. The President's friends attribute this to his ability; his enemies attribute it to despotism. Whatever the reason, last week President Vincent's loyal Chamber of Deputies considered a resolution to the effect that "exceptional circumstances that confront the nation" make it imperative to continue him in office. Not a voice was raised in dissent. Four days later the Senate passed the same resolution, also unanimously. Unless dissatisfied palace plotters and the Harlem exiles get together and oust Stenio Vincent by force, he will continue to bask in office until 1946.

A criticism often voiced against the Good Neighbor Policy of President Roosevelt and the U. S. State Department is that their good neighborliness encourages Latin American caudillos to perpetuate themselves in office. The State Department's answer: U. S. policy is neither to encourage nor discourage any political factions in other countries, but to let those countries work out their own problems without interference. U. S. abandonment of interventionism has coincided with an epidemic of continuismo throughout Central America. Reading from north to south:

In Guatemala President Jorge Ubico, elected in 1931, held a plebiscite in 1935, extended his term until 1943. In El Salvador Vice President General Maximiliano Hern`andez Martinez took office in 1931 after an Army revolt had deposed President Arturo Araujo. Refused recognition by the U. S., he resigned in 1934, ran for the Presidency, was elected in 1935. In 1939 a constitutional convention extended his term until 1945. President Tiburcio Carias Andino of Honduras took office in 1933, has suppressed at least five attempted revolutions since then. In 1939 Congress extended his term for ten years. In Nicaragua President Anastasio Somoza took office in 1937 and promptly revamped the constitution. By resigning the Presidency (after appointing himself Acting President during his absence from office) he was able to have himself inaugurated a second time in 1939 for a longer (eight-year) term, ending in 1947. Panama's President Arnulfo Arias pushed through a new constitution within three months of his election last year (TIME, Dec. 30), is now President until 1946.

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