CHAPTER IV

THE BLACK REPUBLIC (continued)

As in every Haytian town, in Port-au-Prince the royal palm, or palma nobilis, rises out of the midst of the great public square. It is surrounded by ancient cannon, relics of the French war, or of the British attempts to lay hands upon the islands, which continued for several years at the beginning of the last century. Here Nord Alexis would often take his stand and talk in a rambling way to his people-rambling seemed his discourse, but it held the attention and charmed the faculties of all his listeners whose skins were black. In this place of assembly, under the blue sky, in the shadow of that palm which is the national emblem, the President often got into what he doubtless thought (I certainly did) was close touch with his people. Here he would talk to them about Dessaline, that arch-murderer of the independence wars, whose slogan, "Liberty or death," is on every childish tongue in Hayti, while the name of Toussaint l'Ouverture, the Haytian with the godlike character, who will live as long as history, is forgotten there altogether.

Nord Alexis was an accessible man. The doors to the palace were wide open every day in the week to those who took the trouble to announce their coming the day before, and on Thursday of every week you or any other man could drop in quite unannounced and you could show him your fighting gamecock or your jack

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knife-anything, indeed, that you might flatter yourself would please or interest the old man, who was so childish in some ways, so extremely shrewd in others.

Still my long-plotted interview seemed destined never to take place. "Only his duty to his country and his people, says the President," reported a breathless aide, "prevents his Excellency from receiving the callers to whose visit he had looked forward with much anticipation of pleasure." But to-day his time must be wholly devoted to the service of the State; the next day and the next were wholly at my disposal. Some misled bands of ignorant peasants were, under the guidance of a man unworthy of the proud name of Haytian, assembled at Carrefour or Mirliton, and the President would shortly proceed to chastise them.

I made no attempt to join this foray; the probable clash of two black armies left me quite cold or probably cautious. Here was a mix-up in which even the most unobtrusive correspondent could not fail to be conspicuous, and I passed it up, as the battle never came off, without eternal regrets. As we walked away I caught my second view of the President, who has now passed out of Haytian politics.

He was then tall and immensely broad-shouldered, and in spite of his almost incredible age, on the eve of ninety, he was as quick and active on his feet as a jungle-cat. Rainbow-clad adjutants were thrusting under his nose, where he sat on the second-story veranda, map after map and telegrams and notes from the front, but the kindly old man for one moment turned from it all and transported our Consul to the seventh heaven of delight by a formal bow in his direction. He looked like a fighter then, and there can be no doubt that such

he was. His enemies doubtless were well advised when they waited until he had passed the age of the Psalmist by twenty-five years before they set about the overthrow of Nord Alexis.

When I made my second visit to Port-au-Prince, the day and the hour of our meeting had been fixed, but the dark horseman came between. Mme. Nord Alexis, though long ailing, died unexpectedly, and the mind of the survivor of this wedlock, which had lasted for sixty-eight years, became a blank. They had lived so long together and in such singular harmony that when the separation came the aged President would not believe in it. On the day after his wife's funeral he had in quick succession three fainting spells, from which he recovered physically, but his mind wandered far from the capital, back to Cape Haytien and the scene of his youth, to the great castle in the clouds above the village of Millot, near the north coast, where the great Christophe lived as a real emperor in all matters of life and death at least, and Nord Alexis was his favourite page.

But while I was never so fortunate as to enter the inner sanctum of the Black House and see the President "under four eyes," I have seen the pen with which he signed his decrees and his death warrants, and the little manikins of clay which he so often consulted when in doubt upon a course of action.

A man, of course a general, is in prison for treason or a détournement of funds. (This is the delicate way they speak of stealing in Hayti when they will speak of it at all.) It is a question of such minor importance, simply whether the man shall live or die, that the President will not refer it to the papaloi or Voodoo priest,

who lives in the hills behind the city, so he drops a manikin of clay upon the floor. If it breaks, the man dies; if it remains intact, then he lives-as long as the noisome atmosphere of a Haytian prison will let him. Again in doubt, the President would draw a line across the floor of his sanctum and then pitch manikins, this time made of wood and attired in the gaudy glory of Haytian generals. If the puppets passed the line, it meant one thing; if they lagged behind, it meant another, and so the State papers were fashioned and the presidential decrees inspired in Hayti.

But of course upon the graver questions the papaloi and the mamaloi, the high priest and the high priestess of the Voodoo sect, sat in judgment. The papaloi, or Guinea coast prophet, with his fetich worship and his Congo prayers, is the one solid, substantial fact in Hayti. Around about him turn Haytian life and politics. In some administrations the doors of the Black House have not been as wide open to these prophets of the night as they were while Nord Alexis ruled, but never have they been closed except in the reign of the mulatto Geffard some forty years ago, and his was a short and little day and ended with exile to Jamaica, where, under the guidance of intelligent and sympathetic white men, the Afro-American is accomplishing more, perhaps, than anywhere else.

Nord Alexis fought off until late in life the degrading superstitions and the disgusting rites which are the Voodoo prophet's gospel and daily practice. While for many years governor of various northern provinces he was almost, if not entirely, free from the taint of Voodoo. It was only, indeed, when he became President, when the cunning papalois promoted his wife,

Mère Alexis, to be a red-mitred priestess of their sect, that the old man's good sense was undermined. His great age and the coming of second childhood aiding, he became in their hands a puppet as pitiful as were the manikins of clay in his own.

In Hayti, the land overflowing with generals,—the overflow being most conveniently observed in the saloons and dives of Kingston, St. Thomas, and Puerto Plata, -the form of government is that of a republic with popular representative institutions, while the practice, the invariable practice for many years, is that of a military despotism enforced by banditti, who all their lives, in or out of office, live by brigandage.

The constitution* requires that the President should be elected by the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate in joint session, and provides that his term should expire on May 15 in the seventh year after his election. The practice, however, is just the reverse. The President selects the senators and the deputies, and they in turn, out of gratitude for the salaries received, the junketings enjoyed, and the bribes which they have. pocketed, reëlect their patron, or hail with joy the successor he nominates.

When a military chief executes a state stroke, as did Nord Alexis nearly eight years ago, he presents the legislators with the alternative of a banquet and a continuance of good times, or of facing a shooting party in a convenient cemetery. Invariably he finds the parliamentarians amenable to this line of reasoning.

The administrative scheme of the republic has been worked out in a way which easily adjusts itself to the

*A fuller description of the form of government will be found in Appendix B, Note III, page 410.