838.5045/19: Telegram
The High Commissioner in Haiti (Russell) to the Secretary of State
[Received 6 p.m.]
106. All quiet. Reports indicate conditions throughout Haiti steadily improving.
No present evidence of unrest in central Haiti. Prominent Haitians at Cape Haitien state that they welcome a firm orderly government whether administered by Americans or their own Government.
Reassuring statements by garde are disseminated quieting the country people. Have requested Galveston to visit Aux Cayes, Jeremie, [Page 201] and Miragoane then to Port-au-Prince for fresh provisions if so desired. If conditions continue to improve as now seems highly probable, I shall release Galveston on arrival Port-au-Prince as desired by this week. Three-fourths of the school children at Cape Haitien have returned to school.
Many of the lawyers of Port-au-Prince have signed a petition which they presented to court of first instance here. The signed statement reads as follows:
“The Association of the Attorneys of the Bar of Port-au-Prince.
In view of the deployment of the armed forces which has thrown into agitation the city of Port-au-Prince;
Considering that this brutal intervention in the presence of the pacific and justified claims of the Haitian people is of a nature to disturb its serenity;
In consideration of the fact that machine guns are trained on the Palace of Justice from the barracks;
Believing in addition that the state of agitation existing in the Republic cannot permit it to live in lawfulness and peace;
Has decided until a new order to abstain from pleading before the courts. Port-au-Prince, December 5, 1929. Signed Lespinasse, Stenio Vincent, Pierre Hudicourt, Morel, T. Laleau.”
Every one of the points brought out in the above statement is directly contrary to facts and farcical. One of the signers was Minister of the Interior under Guillaume Sam when 167 political prisoners were murdered in the prison.