Office of the Historian

838.00/2770: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the High Commissioner in Haiti (Russell)

Washington, April 1, 1930—6 p.m.

38. For General Russell. The Department will later send you more detailed instructions regarding the execution of the recommendations of the President’s Commission. In the meantime we feel that you and the treaty officials should carry on substantially as heretofore so far as ordinary business is concerned.33 The maintenance of order and of the authority of the Haitian Government is of course the first consideration. The financial administration should also continue as nearly as possible in a normal manner. It is appreciated that it will be difficult to formulate the budget, but a budget should nevertheless be submitted providing for the normal requirements of the administration as at present conducted. The other treaty services should continue to function. Please inform the Department in some detail regarding the present situation of the treaty services and the immediate problems with which you are confronted, together with your recommendations regarding the steps which should be taken at once to prevent undue disorganization of government activities owing to the political situation, and regarding the manner in which the recommendations of the President’s Commission may be carried out most effectively and in a manner which will bring the most ultimate benefit to the government and people of Haiti.

We have just seen Cutts’ cable of yesterday to Marine Corps headquarters and we wish to emphasize (1) that the plan agreed upon by the political leaders with the President’s Commission must be carried through, and (2) that public order and the authority of the Haitian Government must be maintained in the meantime. Please keep the Department fully informed of all developments and of any recommendations which you think it advisable to make.

Cotton
  1. For summaries of reports of the treaty services, see Department of State, Latin American Series No. 3: Eighth Annual Report of the American High Commissioner at Port au Prince, Haiti, to the Secretary of State, 1929 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1930).↩