Source: Daily Worker, August 26, 1929
Transcription/Markup: Paul Saba
Copyleft: Internet
Archive (marxists.org) 2018. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the Creative Commons License.
What is the reason for the presence of an “unofficial” commission, headed by General Dawes in the Dominican Republic in the spring of the year? After the repeated American marine interventions and the successful establishment of Vasquez dictatorship and the loans advanced by Wall Street bankers, the Dominican Republic has faced a series of terrific financial crises since 1924 coming to a climax in 1929. It is necessary now to put the national budget of this colony on a sound basis.
It is interesting to note the composition of the commission. Besides General Dawes we have the president of the Radio Corporation of America, a vice-president of the Indiana Radio Corporation Company, and several Chicago bankers. This commission, after a stay of 21 days, submitted to President Vasquez a 200-page report. The two salient points in this report can be summarized as follows:
(1) “It is the experience of the world that public utilities are more efficiently administered and more economically operated by private interests than government operation . . . (emphasis mine.)” Following this report, we receive news that the Southern Cities Utilities System, an American concern, completed arrangements to buy and operate the electric system of Puerto Plata, a principal port of the republic. The water systems of Santiago, the second largest city of the republic and the San Pedro de Macoris electric system were acquired by the Dominican Company, another imperialist concern.
(2) “To create a new Department of War and Marine.” President Vasquez has applied this part of the report – with Dawes�s consent – by giving it a more popular modern title: National Defense. What is the purpose of this? Simply that the American government is to keep and maintain the marine base and military forces in Santo Domingo at the expense of the workers and peasants of that colony.
The growing social unrest resulting from the American-owned national wealth is being worsened by the constant immigration of starving peasants from Haiti. It takes the form of an antagonism between the Dominican Mestizos and the Black Haitians. Haitian workers whose standard of living has been very much reduced since the American occupation of Haiti, are “imported” in the Dominican Republic and forced to toil for lower wages and thus bring into submission the Dominican workers. In order to effectively carry on this policy, American imperialism instigates racial hatred and diverts the workers away from the class struggle. The burden of the national deficit and the enormous capital required to maintain a marine base is undoubtedly weighing upon all workers irrespective of their color. The reformist CROM under the direct influence of Mr. Green helps the government to subdue the masses, making it a treason to strike against the deplorable conditions which are in existence. Following the same policy of the A. F. of L. the Black Haitian workers are kept out of the unions.
In spite of this intense exploitation and oppression the revolutionary workers and peasants of Santo Domingo have formed a militant trade union center affiliated with the Latin-American Confederation of Labor. The program of this trade union center calls upon the black, mestizo and white workers to enter the ranks of this organization and wage a struggle against the common enemy: American imperialism.