Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1906 — LIGHT ON SANTO DOMINGO. [ARTICLE]

LIGHT ON SANTO DOMINGO.

Trwe Inwardness of the Polley of President Roosevelt. One of the real causes of Mr. Roosevelt’s interference in Santo Domingo has at last come to light. Bonds are to be Issued to take up the entire foreign indebtedness of Santo Domingo and of its United States creditors, including the Santo Domingo Improvement Company of New York. It la significant that it is stated that the 55 per cent of the money already collected by the United States collectors at Santo Domingo ports is to be used to pay interest and provide a sinking fund to provide for these bonds. It is also stated by the administration officials that this programme will be carried out without the consent of the senate, for it can be accomplished without a treaty as long as the de facto Santo Domingo government acts in accord with the government of the United States on the plan agreed upon. This fastening of an enormous bonded indebtedness upon the people of Santo Domingo with the assistance of the military power of the United States by preventing by force the attempt to overturn the de facto patriots in possession will surely lead to complications that may compel the United States to assume the bonded debt or allow the foreign bondholders to collect it by force. Suppose that some fine moaning in spite of the United States a revolution overthrows the present government, there being no treaty in existence, the successful revolutionists could repudiate the "arrangement” and refuse to pay the bonds. It is quite possible that a future administration. Democratic or otherwise, might by force of public opinion leave the Dominicans to decide who shall govern them and as to whether they are righteously called tipon to pay a debt the inception of which is clouded with usury if not fraud of the baldest kind. That is the vortex the administration is pushing us into with its Santo Domingo policy. There is no Monroe doctrine about it, the question being simply, Shall we be the debt collectors for our own speculators and those of Europe and saddle the poor darkies of Santo Domingo with an enormous debt for which they have never had value received?