ies, who for the moment seemed best able to speak
for the country, by which these custom-houses were placed under American
control. The arrangement was that we should keep order and prevent any
interference with the custom-houses or the places where they stood, and
should collect the revenues. Forty-five per cent of the revenue was then
turned over to the Santo Domingan Government, and fifty-five per cent
put in a sinking fund in New York for the benefit of the creditors. The
arrangement worked in capital style. On the forty-five per cent basis
the Santo Domingan Government received from us a larger sum than it
had ever received before when nominally all the revenue went to it. The
creditors were entirely satisfied with the arrangement, and no excuse
for interference by European powers remained. Occasional disturbances
occurred in the island, of course, but on the whole there ensued a
degree of peace and prosperity which the island had not known before for
at least a century.

All this was done without the loss of a life, with the assent of all
the parties in interest, and without subjecting the United States to
any charge, while practically all of the interference, after the
naval commander whom I have mentioned had taken the initial steps in
preserving order, consisted in putting a first-class man trained in our
insular service at the head of the Santo Domingan customs service. We
secured peace, we protected the people of the islands against foreign
foes, and we minimized the chance of domestic trouble. We satisfied the
creditors and the foreign nations to which the creditors belonged; and
our own part of the work was done with the utmost efficiency and with
rigid honesty, so that not a particle of scandal was ever so much as
hinted at.

Under these circumstances those who do not know the nature of the
professional international philanthropists would suppose that these
apostles of international peace would have been overjoyed with what we
had done. As a matter of fact, when they took any notice of it at all it
was to denounce it; and those American newspapers which are fondest
of proclaiming themselves the foes of war and the friends of peace
violently attacked me for averting war from, and bringing peace to, the
island. They insisted I had no power to make the agreement, and demanded
the rejection of the treaty which was to perpetuate the agreement. They
were, of course, wholly unable to advance a single sound reaso