File No. 839.00/657.]
[Untitled]
Santo Domingo, September 19, 1912.
Replying to your September 14, I believe our Government should take immediate steps to occupy all the frontier customhouses, which were and are abandoned because the Dominican Government has not been able to maintain law and order. This would release troops for service elsewhere, whereupon the revolution would probably collapse. Such a result, however, would mean the complete supremacy of the Victoria administration, which is extremely unpopular and very detrimental to the country. Even some of Victoria’s cabinet officers have intimated that an effective intervention by our Government would be good for the country and intelligent Dominicans in general feel that they had a right to expect that under the convention the existing conditions would not have arisen. To enter into relations with the present leaders of the revolution is absolutely useless, and their success would be disastrous. Only complete control by our Government would permanently insure order and justice, but any degree of control would be beneficial; indeed, without our effective control, one administration here would be just as good as another. Once having landed men for protection of the customhouses, in accordance with our rights under the convention, we might be able to dictate a policy beneficial to the country. The main evils to be remedied are: the absolute subservience of the courts; forced recruiting for the army; wholesale imprisonment without trial; peculation of public funds.