Chapter LXXIV: Section 3: of this law of 1903 recites ‘that whenever the (4)

In July, a new disclosure of the character of the Russian
secret service police was made, as revolting as that in the
Azeff case. A personage known as M. Harting, chief of that
Russian service in Paris, and so favorably regarded in the
French capital that he was about to be made an officer of the
Legion of Honor, was discovered to have been the leader of a
plot to assassinate the Tsar Alexander III. in 1890, during
that monarch’s visit to Paris; that he then bore the name of
Landesen; that he had escaped arrest and was condemned by
default to imprisonment for five years; that he subsequently,
under the new name, secured secret service employment in the
Russian police. All this was quickly proved to be fact by the
French Government, and officially announced.

{580}

RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (April).
The Agrarian Law.

On the basis of the decree relative to the communes which is
partly described above (see A. D. 1906), a law was brought
into force by the Government in 1906, known as the law of
November 9, which supposedly was provisional and subject to
ultimate ratification by the Duma. Writing of it in the New
York _Evening Post_ of May 28, 1909, S. N. Harper says:

"This law of November 9 aims directly at the destruction of
the commune. Before this law a two-thirds vote of the commune
was necessary for the granting of the petition of a member to
divide out. Now a local police official, whom by the way
another project of reform abolishes as irresponsible and a
source of abuse, can override the vote of a commune and grant
the petition. A peasant who divides out receives that portion
which he is using if there has been no redistribution for
twenty-four years. If there has been a redistribution within
twenty-four years, he receives what he would receive on the
basis of a new redistribution—what this would be is again
decided by the official. As we saw, no equitable reckoning is
possible here.

"The peasant can sell this land which he receives from the
commune, for it is now his private property. In one province
which I visited this summer, in over one-half of the cases of
dividing out the peasant had sold his land immediately—usually
to the village ‘fist’—the prosperous village usurer and boss
who holds his neighbors in his fist."

The law was operative for more than two years before it
received the sanction of the Duma, in April, 1909. Of the
parliamentary enactment then given to it the above writer
says:

"The outcome of the debates was certain. It had been secured
by the change of the electoral law for the third Duma, whereby
the landed gentry had been given the predominant vote. … No
more important than the vote of this assembly is the attitude
of the country at large toward this law. The landed gentry are
naturally for this measure. The village system is a source of
danger to them. The law will establish ‘peasant’ landlords,
whose interests will be much the same as theirs. But the
peasants have shown quite plainly their hostile attitude
toward this law. Only those peasants who are economically
provided for and those who, for one reason or another, have
become mere hangers-on of the local police officials are in
favor of the law. It is these that have taken advantage of the
law, with the support of the local official. But they have
done so in spite of the protest of the other peasants, only
their economic position making it possible, and their friend
the official has not been able to prevent, therefore, the
other peasants from giving a violent character to their
protest. Those who have insisted on dividing out have in many
instances been burned out the next week."

RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (April-July).
Advance of Russian Troops into Persia.

See (in this Volume)
PERSIA: A. D. 1908-1909.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (May).
New Russo-Chinese Agreement, establishing Municipalities on
the Line of the Chinese Eastern Railway.

See (in this Volume)
CHINA: A. D. 1909 (MAY).

RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (June).
"Dreadnought" building.

See (in this Volume)
WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: NAVAL: RUSSIAN.

RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (June).
Stringent Orthodoxy of the Tsar.

A Press despatch from St. Petersburg, June 4, 1909, reported:

"Premier Stolypin spoke in the Duma to-day in defence of the
government’s draft of a law dealing with the matter of
changing from one faith to another and against the
modifications removing all restrictions introduced in
committee. He said that the Emperor, as head of the Orthodox
Church, could not suffer backsliding from the orthodox to
non-Christian beliefs, and that if such amendments were
incorporated the bill would be vetoed. Continuing he defined
the relations between church and state. He conceded that the
church enjoyed full independence in matters of creed and
dogma, but insisted on state control. The speech was a
brilliant effort, but it fell upon cold ears, and brought out
no applause. The premier, for the first time in the history of
the third Duma, found himself fighting for a lost cause before
an adverse house."

RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (October-November).
Differing Accounts of Political Conditions, of the work of
the Duma, and of the Disposition of the Government.

The last weeks of 1909 brought from observers in Russia quite
differing impressions and representations of the existing
political conditions. Late in October a St. Petersburg
correspondent of _The Evening Post_, New York, wrote:

"Stolypin has given Russia a packed Duma, the predominant
party in which is elected by 130,000 rural gentry, who were
unable to get many more than a dozen members into the first
two Dumas. As might have been expected, this Duma has done
nothing for Russia. Its Land law has not been accepted by the
peasantry, its Religions law remains a dead letter, because,
according to the premier, the Tsar refuses to sign it. There
will be a deficit of about one hundred million in the new
budget, and the country is faced by bankruptcy.

"But, to return to the Duma, it has been proved during the
last session that the people have no control over the purse,
thanks to a ‘rule’ made by Count Witte before the meeting of
the first Legislature. This ‘rule’ says that if the Duma and
the Council of Empire fail to agree on the budget, then the
figures of the former year’s budget remain in force. As the
Council of Empire (or Russian upper house) must always have a
reactionary and bureaucratic majority, the Duma has no control
of the national expenditure and never can have. This was
brought home very forcibly to the lower house during the last
session, when a humble suggestion which it made about
including a sum of 350 million rubles in the extraordinary
expenditure account was rejected by the Council of Empire,
which thus taught the Duma that it has no control over even
the most important loan operations. When the Duma (with the
strong approval of even such conservative papers as the
_Novoe Vremya_) refused to sanction the naval budget
until the notoriously corrupt Ministry of Marine—the ministry
accountable for Tsushima—had been reformed, the government
laughed at it, and got the necessary money over the deputies’
heads."

Two weeks later than the above another St. Petersburg
correspondent was writing to London:

"To judge from to-day’s proceedings the present session of the
Duma bids fair to surpass the most sanguine hopes. Having
disposed of the last of the Agrarian Bills and of the First
Offenders Act, the Duma began the debate on the Bill reforming
the local Courts. This measure represents the foundation of
all political reform in Russia.

{581}

"The Duma Committee, after 35 sittings, adopted a proposal
considerably extending the scope of the Government Bill
besides providing for the re-establishment of elective
justices of the peace, introduced in 1804, but repealed in
1889 in favour of the arbitrary jurisdiction of the Communal
Court and the Zemsky Natchalnik--both long ago discredited
institutions. Just as the Agrarian reforms are calculated to
promote the private ownership of land and respect for the
rights of property, so the reform of the local Courts will
inculcate respect for the law.

"The details of the Bill may possibly give rise to differences
with the Government and the Upper House, but its substantial
features will be doubtless retained in the ultimate form which
will receive the Imperial sanction."

The writer of this had communicated to his journal, a few days
previously, the following report of an interview with "a
leading member of the Government," and apparently gave credit
to the sentiment it expressed. Said the Minister interviewed:

"You ask me what are the Government’s intentions regarding
Poland. I can only repeat what I said before the Joint
Commission on the Polish Municipal Reform Bill, which is to be
laid before the Duma. We have decided to give Poland the full
benefits of local government consistent with the interests of
the Empire, but not autonomy. We cannot trust the Poles to
that extent. We shall introduce a Bill creating a separate
province of Holm, where the great majority of the population
is of Russian stock, and extend to it the system of mixed
Russian and Polish _Zemstvos_ to be introduced in the
south-western provinces.

"I am satisfied with the progress of agrarian reform. You have
seen from the speech of M. Krivoshein in the Duma that one
million peasant households (about 5,000,000 souls) have
already abandoned the communal system.

"The continuance of executions is, I know, a source of
criticism. You know that the Emperor has given orders that
death sentences should be confirmed only in the worst cases.
Unhappily, I know of no constitutional method for putting down
revolution. Russia is so vast. It has taken a long time to
bring all the guilty to trial. I am also criticized for the
arbitrary acts of our local authorities, but, I ask you, does
the Government derive any interest from these arbitrary acts?

"Political reforms? Yes, they have been delayed. But what, for
instance, is the good of hurrying through a Bill on the
liberty of the person until we have first reformed the local
Courts?

"You have heard and read the statements that the Octobrists
have quarrelled with the Government; you have also been told
that Russia is on the eve of a reaction. Believe neither. The
Octobrists are taking a more advanced position. That is as it
should be. It is better for the Duma and by no means
disagreeable to the Government."

RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (December).
Assassination of the Chief of the Secret Police.

On the 22d of December Colonel Karpoff, Chief of the Secret
Police, was killed by an infernal machine at a suburban
lodging occupied by a certain Voskresensky, who is supposed to
be a revolutionary and a police spy like Azeff.

----------RUSSIA: End--------

RUSSO-CHINESE BANK.

See (in this Volume)
CHINA: A. D. 1901-1902.

RUTHERFORD, Professor Ernest.

See (in this Volume)
SCIENCE, RECENT: RADIUM; also
NOBEL PRIZES.

RYAN, Thomas F.:
Investing in a Concession in the Congo State.

See (in this Volume)
CONGO STATE: A. D. 1906-1909.

RYAN, Thomas F.:
Purchase of Controlling Stock of Equitable Life
Assurance Society.

See (in this Volume)
INSURANCE, LIFE.

RYAN, Thomas F.:
Sale of interests to Morgan & Co.

See (in this Volume)
FINANCE AND TRADE: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909-1910.

S.

SADR AZAM, The.

See (in this Volume)
PERSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.

SAGASTA, Praxedes Mateo:
Prime Minister of Spain.
His Death.

See (in this Volume)
SPAIN: A. D. 1901-1904.

SAGE FOUNDATION, The:
For the Improvement of Social and Living Conditions
in the United States.

See (in this Volume)
SOCIAL BETTERMENT: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1907.

SAGE, Mrs. Russell:
Gift to Yale University.

See (in this Volume)
EDUCATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1910.

ST. GOTHARD RAILWAY:
Acquisition by the Swiss Government.

See (in this Volume)
RAILWAYS: SWITZERLAND.

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI: A. D. 1900-1904.
The Unearthing of Thievery and Corruption by Attorney Folk.
Prosecutions, Confessions and Convictions.

See (in this Volume)
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI: A. D. 1904.
The Louisiana Purchase Exposition.

Except the World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago, in 1893,
the most important of the industrial exhibitions that have
been organized in America was that of 1904, at St. Louis,
which commemorated the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase
from France. The Exposition was opened on the 30th of April
and closed December 1st. An estimated total of $44,500,000 was
expended upon it in structures and management, of which sum
about $22,000,000 was raised by the Exposition Company. The
remainder was the expenditure of governments, Federal, State
and Foreign, and of concessionaires. The total attendance,
from first to last, was 18,741,073. The receipts fell far
short of the expenditure, and subscribers to the undertaking
can have had no returns; but the public gain from it was very
great. About sixty foreign countries and colonies and nearly
every State and Territory of the Union were represented in the
exhibits.

{582}

A distinguished feature of the Exposition was the remarkable
number and character of the gatherings, international and
national, that were brought about in connection with it. The
most notable of these was the International Congress of Arts
and Sciences, which opened September 19th. "This Congress,"
said President Nicholas Murray Butler, of Columbia University,
in an article describing its plan, "is not such a series of
gatherings as took place at Chicago and at Paris, but is
rather a carefully elaborated plan to educate public opinion,
and the world of scholarship itself, to an appreciation of the
underlying unity of knowledge and the necessary
inter-dependence of the host of specialties that have sprung
up during the past century. … For participation in this
congress there will assemble a large body of the world’s
greatest scholars. They will come from all parts of the world
to contribute surveys of their several departments of
knowledge, planning those surveys so as to emphasize the
mutual relations of all the separate arts and sciences."

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI: A. D. 1904.
Meeting of the Interparliamentary Union.

See (in this Volume)
WAR: THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1904-1909.

ST. MARK’S CATHEDRAL, at Venice:
Fall of the Campanile.

See (in this Volume)
VENICE: A. D. 1902.

ST. PETERSBURG: DISTURBANCES IN.

See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA.

ST. PIERRE:
Volcanic Destruction of the City.

See (in this Volume)
VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS: WEST INDIES.

ST. VINCENT ISLAND:
Volcanic Eruption of La Souffrière.

See (in this Volume)
VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS: WEST INDIES.

SAKHAROFF, General:
Assassination of.

See (in this Volume)
RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.

SAKURAI, Lieutenant Tadayoshi, The story of.

See (in this Volume)
JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (MAY-JANUARY).

SALISBURY, Lord Robert Cecil, Marquis of:
Resignation of the Premiership in the British Government.

See (in this Volume)
ENGLAND: A. D. 1902 (JULY).

SALONIKA: A. D. 1903.
Dynamite Explosion by Insurgents.

See (in this Volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1902-1903.

SALONIKA: A. D. 1903.
Center of the "Young Turk" organization.

See (in this Volume)
TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER), and after.

SALOON QUESTION.

See (in this Volume)
ALCOHOL PROBLEM.

SALT TRUST, Dissolution of the.

See (in this Volume)
COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1901-1906.

SALTON SEA, The.

At a point not far from where it runs into Mexican territory
the Colorado River, for a long recent period, has been
deflected by bordering sand deposits from a great depression
in the neighboring desert, known as the Salton Sink. In 1901
an irrigation company began works for supplying water from the
Colorado to lands in that vicinity, and seems to have taken no
proper precautions for controlling the flow through its
canals. The result was a break through the sand hills, into
the Salton Sink, which converted it for the time being into
the "Salton Sea,"—so described in all accounts of the
catastrophe. For nearly two years the flood of the Colorado
was poured into the Sink, forming a sea or lake which covered
an area of about 400 square miles. It was not until February,
1907, that the combined exertions of the Southern Pacific
Railway Company, the California Development Co. (whose works
produced the trouble) and the engineers of the United States
Reclamation Service, succeeded in returning the Colorado to
the channel it had escaped from. Since that was done
evaporation has been steadily emptying the Sink, at the rate
of five or six feet annually, according to the Chief of the
Weather Bureau, which has maintained a station there. At the
end of a year of observations he was reported as saying: "We
will get the data we want within another year probably and
then we can cut off the Salton Sea station. The evaporation
data we expect to obtain will be valuable for calculations on
irrigation works and reservoirs."

SALVADOR.

See (in this Volume)
CENTRAL AMERICA.

SAM, Theresias Simon: President.

See (in this Volume)
HAITI: A. D. 1902.

SANBORN, Judge Walter H.:
Opinion in Suit for the Dissolution of the Standard Oil Company.

See (in this Volume)
COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &C.:
UNITED STATES: A. D. 1906-1909.

SANTIAGO, Chile:
First Pan-American Scientific Congress.

See (in this Volume)
SCIENCE AND INVENTION: INTERNATIONAL CONGRESSES.

SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1901-1905.
Financial Conditions.
Dissipation of Revenues.

"Many years ago the government, being unable to raise money on
ordinary security, adopted the practice of vesting the power
of collection in its creditors. Duties are settled in
_pagarés_, or promissory notes, duly indorsed, and
payable usually in a month or two months. In order to secure
loans, these _pagarés_ were handed over to the creditor,
who collected the money directly from the importer or
exporter. This expedient, which was designed to protect the
creditor against the government itself as well as against its
enemies, was in vogue when the government in 1888 sought
financial relief in Europe. Such relief was obtained from
Westendorp & Company, bankers, of Amsterdam, who in that year
underwrote and issued, at 83½ per cent., 6 per cent. gold
bonds of the Dominican government to the amount of £770,000
sterling, the government creating a first lien on all its
customs revenues, and authorizing the Westendorps to collect
and receive at the custom-houses all the customs revenues of
the republic. Under this contract, which was ratified by the
Dominican Congress, the Westendorps created in Santo Domingo
an establishment, commonly called the ‘Regie,’ which collected
the duties directly from the importer and exporter and
disbursed them, the Westendorps sending out from Europe the
necessary agents and employees. It was further stipulated that
the Westendorps should, in case of necessity, have the right
to constitute a European commission, which it was understood
was to be international in character. The power of collection
and disbursement was exercised by the Westendorps down to
1893, when it was transferred to the San Domingo Improvement
Company, of New York, which continued to exercise it till
January, 1901, when the company was, by an arbitrary executive
decree issued by President Jimenez, excluded from its function
of collecting the revenues, though its employees were
permitted to remain in the custom-houses till the end of the
year.

{583}

"As an assurance to the foreign creditor, whose legal security
was thus destroyed, Jimenez constituted in the same decree a
‘Commission of Honorables,’ with whom the sums due to foreign
creditors, including the American companies, were to be
deposited; but their capacity as depositaries was not destined
to be tested. Late in 1901, it became known that out of the
reported revenues of the year, amounting to $2,126,453, the
percentages for the domestic debt had not been set aside, and
that no payment had been made on the floating interior debt,
but that the Jimenez ‘revolutionary’ claims had been paid
without previous warrant of law, and that there existed a
deficit. Since that time, with the exception of comparatively
small amounts, nothing whatever has been paid to the foreign
creditor. The omission, however, has not been due to lack of
revenues. It has been due to conditions which, if all the
debts of the republic were with one stroke wiped out, would
continue to prevent the government from meeting its ordinary
expenses. The revenues have been seized and dissipated by the
government and its enemies in ‘war expenses,’ and in the
payment of '_asignaciones_' and ‘revolutionary claims.’ …
That foreign governments will stand by and permit such
conditions to continue cannot be expected. They have already
manifested their desire to intervene."

_John Bassett Moore,
Santo Domingo and the United States
(American Review of Reviews, March, 1905)._

SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1901-1906.
Participation in Second and Third International Conferences of
American Republics.

See (in this Volume)
AMERICAN REPUBLICS.

SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1904-1907.
Years of almost Incessant Disorder and repeated Revolutions.
Jimenez, Vasques, Wos y Gil, Morales and Caceres in
succession at the Head of Government.
Menace from the Creditors of the Republic.
Appeal to the United States.
American Treaty.
President Roosevelt on the Situation.

The assassination of President Heureaux and the election of
President Jimenez are related in Volume VI. of this work (see
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC). Jimenez’s rule was not long, and he gave
way to a provisional government, under General Vasques, which
was upset by a revolt that broke out in March, 1903, and which
planted General Wos y Gil so obviously in power that his
Government was recognized by the United States in October. But
the rapidly revolving wheel of political events seems to have
soon whirled Wos y Gil out and brought Jimenez back, to be
tossed into private life again in 1904 by General Carlos F.
Morales, of whom Mr. Sigimund Krausz gave a most favorable
account in _The Outlook_, of September 17, 1904. "The
common idea," said Mr. Krausz, "that the population of Santo
Domingo consists exclusively of a horde of savages, and that
the generals and politicians causing the kaleidoscopic
sequence of revolutions are of the same class, and, without
exception, uneducated brutes and degenerates, is quite
erroneous, and has been created for the sake of
sensationalism, largely by journalists and magazine writers
without personal knowledge of Dominican conditions, or by
native exiles who, naturally, are always enemies of the party
in power. … While it is true that the vast majority of the
Dominican people in the interior of the island live in a
fearful state of ignorance, superstition, and even barbarism,
caused by many decades of internal warfare, there is, however,
also a class of natives who certainly ought not to be thrown
in the same pot with them. These are the better citizens of
the capital and the larger coast towns, among whom are many
intelligent and educated men who had the advantage of fairly
good schools and intercourse with foreigners. Among this class
are a number who have received all or part of their education
abroad, who speak two or three languages, and who, in their
social intercourse and manners, may safely be pronounced
gentlemen. They follow the occupations of merchants, planters,
lawyers, physicians, etc., and while, as a rule, they keep
aloof from politics, it is from their strata of society that
spring most of the military and political leaders of Santo
Domingo. There are few of these men who, by their appearance,
betray the strain of negro blood in them, and the type is
hardly distinguishable from that of Latin-Americans in
general.

"Carlos M. Morales belongs to the better class of Dominicans
mentioned before, masters French, English, and Spanish
fluently, and has the advantage of an ecclesiastical education
in a seminary of Santo Domingo City. He was, in fact, for
eight years a priest, before disagreement with various dogmas
of the Church and the desire to take an active part in the
political affairs of his country induced him to throw aside
the cassock. He is a close student of West Indian conditions,
and well acquainted with the affairs of the world in general.
While being an ardent admirer of the United States and its
institutions, and sincerely desiring its political friendship,
he is at the same time the strongest opponent of any policy
that would tend to make Santo Domingo a political dependency
of Uncle Sam, either in the form of annexation or a
protectorate."

Morales was soon beset with claims from insistent foreign
creditors, on account of debts which his predecessors had
incurred, and which they had left nothing to satisfy. Several
European governments were threatening forcible measures to
secure payment for their subjects, and Morales asked for help
from the United States. The situation and its outcome were
reported subsequently to Congress by President Roosevelt, as
follows:

"The conditions in Santo Domingo have for a number of years
grown from bad to worse until a year ago all society was on
the verge of dissolution. Fortunately, just at this time a
ruler sprang up in Santo Domingo, who, with his colleagues,
saw the dangers threatening their country and appealed to the
friendship of the only great and powerful neighbor who
possessed the power, and as they hoped also the will, to help
them. There was imminent danger of foreign intervention. The
previous rulers of Santo Domingo had recklessly incurred
debts, and owing to her internal disorders she had ceased to
be able to provide means of paying the debts. The patience of
her foreign creditors had become exhausted, and at least two
foreign nations were on the point of intervention, and were
only prevented from intervening by the unofficial assurance of
this Government that it would itself strive to help Santo
Domingo in her hour of need.
{584}
In the case of one of these nations, only the actual opening
of negotiations to this end by our Government prevented the
seizure of territory in Santo Domingo by a European power. Of
the debts incurred some were just, while some were not of a
character which really renders it obligatory on, or proper
for, Santo Domingo to pay them in full. But she could not pay
any of them unless some stability was assured her Government
and people.

"Accordingly the Executive Department of our Government
negotiated a treaty under which we are to try to help the
Dominican people to straighten out their finances. This treaty
is pending before the Senate. In the meantime a temporary
arrangement has been made which will last until the Senate has
had time to take action upon the treaty. Under this
arrangement the Dominican Government has appointed Americans
to all the important positions in the customs service, and
they are seeing to the honest collection of the revenues,
turning over 45 per cent to the Government for running
expenses and putting the other 55 per cent into a safe
depositary for equitable division in case the treaty shall be
ratified, among the various creditors, whether European or
American. …

"Under the course taken, stability and order and all the
benefits of peace are at last coming to Santo Domingo, danger
of foreign intervention has been suspended, and there is at
last a prospect that all creditors will get justice, no more
and no less. If the arrangement is terminated by the failure
of the treaty chaos will follow; and if chaos follows, sooner
or later this Government may be involved in serious
difficulties with foreign governments over the island, or else
may be forced itself to intervene in the island in some
unpleasant fashion. Under the proposed treaty the independence
of the island is scrupulously respected, the danger of
violation of the Monroe Doctrine by the intervention of
foreign powers vanishes, and the interference of our
Government is minimized, so that we shall only act in
conjunction with the Santo Domingo authorities to secure the
proper administration of the customs, and therefore to secure
the payment of just debts and to secure the Dominican
Government against demands for unjust debts. The proposed
method will give the people of Santo Domingo the same chance
to move onward and upward which we have already given to the
people of Cuba. It will be doubly to our discredit as a nation
if we fail to take advantage of this chance; for it will be of
damage to ourselves, and it will be of incalculable damage to
Santo Domingo."

_President’s Message to Congress,
December 5, 1905._

Twenty days after the above was sent to Congress President
Morales was a fugitive from his capital, expelled by a sudden
revolutionary movement in which Vice-President Caceres and
most of the Morales Cabinet appear to have taken a leading
part. Some fighting occurred; but the Morales forces were
beaten decisively in the first week of January, 1906, and
their General, Rodrigues, was killed. Morales, wounded, sought
protection at the American Legation and resigned the
Presidency, January 12. Caceres succeeded to the office, and a
treaty of peace between the contending parties was signed on
the 17th, on board an United States vessel of war. The new
Government of San Domingo adhered to the arrangement made by
Morales with the United States.

As ratified ultimately, in the spring of 1907, by the United
States Senate and the Dominican Congress, the treaty provided
for the conversion of the embarrassed republic’s debt and the
floating of a new issue of bonds, through the agency of a firm
of New York bankers which had undertaken the management of the
affair; while the Government of the United States, by its
agents, was to continue its supervision of the collection of
revenue.

SAN DOMINGO: A. D. 1905-1907.
The American Receivership of Dominican Revenues.
The Modus Vivendi of 1905 and the Treaty of 1907.
The working of the Arrangement.

"By the _modus vivendi_ of March 31, 1905, it was
provided that until the Dominican Congress and the Senate of
the United States should act upon the convention of February
7, 1905, the President of the Dominican Republic, on the
nomination of the President of the United States, should
appoint a person to receive the revenues of all the
custom-houses of the Republic. Of the net revenues collected,
45 per cent was to be turned over to the Dominican Government,
and used in administrative expenses. The remainder, less the
expenses of collection, was to be deposited in a bank in New
York to be designated by the President of the United States,
and to remain there for the benefit of all creditors of the
Republic, Dominican as well as foreign, and not to be
withdrawn before the Dominican Congress and the Senate of the
United States should have acted upon the convention then
pending. During the operation of the _modus vivendi_ all
payments were to be suspended, without, however, in any way
interfering with or changing the substantial rights of
creditors. This _modus vivendi_ went into effect on April
1, 1905. Under the receivership created by this _modus
vivendi_ there has been collected, to August 31, 1907,
$7,183,397.56. Of this amount 45 per cent was turned over to
the Dominican Government, and $3,318,946.97, to bear interest
while on deposit, has been remitted to New York. This is in
striking contrast with the results of the customs operations
of former years, when, having control of the entire revenues
of the Republic, the Dominican Government had not only been
unable to pay its current expenses, but found its apparent
public debt increased at an average rate of almost $1,000,000
a year for some thirty odd years. The convention between the
United States and the Dominican Republic, signed at Santo
Domingo City on February 8, 1907, was transmitted to the
United States Senate on February 19, 1907, by the President,
for ratification, and was ratified on the 25th of the same
month. After formal ratification by the President of the
United States and the Dominican Republic, ratifications were
exchanged July 8, 1907, and formal proclamation made by the
President on the 25th of the same month. Regulations have been
drawn up for the application of its provisions. The treaty
sets forth that the debts of the Dominican Republic amount to
more than $30,000,000, nominal or face value, which have been
scaled down by a conditional adjustment and agreement to some
$17,000,000, including interest, in the payment of which the
Government has requested the assistance of the United States.
{585}
The latter agrees to give this assistance subject to certain
conditions set out in the treaty, the principal among which
are

(a) the President of the United States shall appoint the
general receiver of the Dominican customs and his assistants;
and

(b) that the Dominican Government shall provide by law for the
payment to such general receiver of all the customs duties of
the Republic.

The money collected is to be applied as follows:

(1) To paying the expenses of the receivership;

(2) to the payment of interest on bonds issued by the
Dominican Government in connection with the settlement of its
debts;

(3) to the payment of the annual sums provided for
amortization of said bonds, including interest upon all bonds
held in the sinking fund;

(4) to the purchase and cancellation or the retirement and
cancellation, pursuant to the terms thereof, of any of said
bonds as may be directed by the Dominican Government, and

(5) the remainder to be paid to the Dominican Government.

On the 1st day of each calendar month the sum of $100,000 is
to be paid over by the receiver to the fiscal agent of the
loan, and the remaining collection of the last preceding month
paid over to the Dominican Government, or applied to the
sinking fund for the purchase or redemption of bonds, as the
Dominican Government shall direct. Should the revenues thus
collected exceed $3,000,000 for any one year, one-half of the
surplus is to be applied to the sinking fund for the
redemption of bonds."

_Report of the Chief of the Bureau of Insular Affairs,
October 31, 1907
(Abridgment, Message and Documents, 1907, page 797)._

----------SAN DOMINGO: End--------

SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1901-1909.
Water Supply.
The Hetch Hetchy Project.

"Under this name is designated a plan for obtaining a water
supply for the city of San Francisco from the head waters of
the Tuolumne River in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The Hetch
Hetchy Valley is one of the most widely known regions of the
high Sierras, second only to Yosemite in scenic interest. It
is formed by a widening of the gorge of the Tuolumne River,
about 30 miles westerly from the crest of the Sierras. It is
thus described in the United States Geological Survey, 21st
Annual Report.

"‘The valley proper is about three and one-half miles long and
of a width varying from one-quarter to three-quarters of a
mile. The rugged granite walls, crowned with spires and upon
battlements, seem to rise almost perpendicular upon all sides
to a height of 2500 feet above this beautiful emerald meadow.

"‘The Tuolumne River leaves this valley in a very narrow
granite gorge, the sides of which rise precipitously for 800
or more feet, thus providing naturally a most favorable site
for a masonry dam.’ As the result of exhaustive
investigations, in 1901, having reference to the procuring of
an adequate water supply for the City of San Francisco, that
city, through its proper officers, selected, surveyed, filed
upon and made application for the reservoir rights of way in
the Hetch Hetchy Valley and Lake Eleanor, which lie within the
reservation known as Yosemite National Park. These reservoir
sites were recognized and surveyed as such by the United
States Geological Survey, in 1891, and the survey filings and
application were made in conformity with the act of Congress
of February 15, 1901, relating to rights of way through
certain parks, reservations and other public lands.

"Lake Eleanor is situated 136 miles east of San Francisco on
the west slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It is about 300
acres in extent and lies in a broad, flat valley enclosed by
precipitous walls of granite, narrowing at the lower end of
the valley. It is 4,700 feet above sea level and receives the
direct drainage from 83 square miles, and by a diverting canal
6 miles long from 103 square miles additional of uninhabitable
mountain slopes which reach an altitude of 11,000 feet, and
receive a mean annual precipitation of from 40 to 50 inches,
most of which is snow. About a mile and a quarter below the
lake, the valley closes into a granite walled gorge and offers
an excellent site and material for a dam. …

"Hetch Hetchy reservoir (site) is about 140 miles from San
Francisco on the main fork of the Tuolumne River and is about
3,700 feet above sea level. It receives the drainage from 452
square miles of the uninhabitable slopes of the Sierra Nevada,
reaching to elevations of over 13,000 feet. …

"The Hetch Hetchy project proposes to conduct the water
liberated from these reservoirs by way of the gorge of the
Tuolumne River 16 miles and thence by canals, tunnels and
pipes."

_Frederick H. Clark,
Head of History Department, Lowell High School._

The application of the City to the United States Government
for the Lake Eleanor and Hetch Hetchy reservoir sites was
denied, in the first instance (1903), by the Secretary of the
Interior, the Honorable A. E. Hitchcock, but subsequently
granted, on a reopening of the case and a rehearing, by
Secretary James R. Garfield, in whose decision, rendered May
11, 1908, the considerations for and against the proposed use
of these famous seats of natural beauty and sublimity were
discussed at length and concluded to have the greater weight
in favor of the application.

One stipulation made by Secretary Garfield was that within two
years the City should submit the question of water supply to
the vote of its citizens, as contemplated in its Charter. This
was done on November 11, 1908, and the voters of San
Francisco, notwithstanding the strenuous efforts of the
private water company, recorded their approval of the Hetch
Hetchy Project by the overwhelming vote of 34,950 for, to 5708
against the proposition. At the same election a sale of
municipal bonds to the amount of $600,000 was authorized in
order to enable the City to proceed to perfect its titles.
These bonds have been sold and at this date (June, 1909) the
acquisition of the required land is under way.

Almost passionate protests and pleadings against this use of
the beautiful Hetch Hetchy Valley have been uttered by John
Muir, the word-painter of "The Mountains of California," and
many earnest voices from all parts of the country have been
joined to his in the expostulation. Mr. Muir writes: "It is
impossible to overestimate the value of wild mountains and
mountain temples. They are the greatest of our natural
resources, God's best gifts; but none, however high and holy,
is beyond reach of the spoiler. These temple destroyers,
devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect
contempt for Nature, and instead of lifting their eyes to the
mountains, lift them to dams and town skyscrapers. Dam Hetch
Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people’s cathedrals
and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated
by the heart of man.

{586}

"Excepting only Yosemite, Hetch Hetchy is the most attractive
and wonderful valley within the bounds of the great Yosemite
National Park and the best of all the campgrounds. People are
now flocking to it in ever-increasing numbers for health and
recreation of body and mind. Though the walls are less sublime
in height than those of Yosemite, its groves, gardens, and
broad spacious meadows are more beautiful and picturesque. It
is many years since sheep and cattle were pastured in it, and
the vegetation now shows scarce a trace of their ravages. Last
year in October I visited the valley with Mr. William Keith,
the artist. He wandered about from view to view, enchanted,
made thirty-eight sketches, and enthusiastically declared that
in varied picturesque beauty Hetch Hetchy greatly surpassed
Yosemite. It is one of God’s best gifts, and ought to be
faithfully guarded."

When this work went to press, in May, 1910, Secretary
Ballinger was giving hearings on the question of revoking the
permit to San Francisco.

SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1901 1909.
The Struggle with Political Corruption.

See (in this Volume)
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: SAN FRANCISCO.

SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1902.
The Chinese Highbinder Associations.
Report of the Industrial Commission on their Criminal
and Dangerous Character.

"Investigations made under the directions of the Industrial
Commission reveal the dangerous importance to be attached to
the existence of the so-called associations of ‘highbinders’
among the Chinese population of San Francisco. It is variously
estimated that of the total number of Chinese in that city,
amounting to 25,000 or 30,000, there are about 1,000 members
of the highbinder associations who represent the worst class
of criminals. Many of them have been compelled to flee from
their native country on account of crimes committed there.
They are organized under the semblance of benefit societies,
but for the purpose of blackmail and violation of the
immigration laws. They impose fines arbitrarily upon the
hard-working and prosperous Chinese, and enforce their decrees
through criminal violence and even assassination. They nullify
the judgment of American courts through their own secret
tribunals and their paid assassins; they make a business of
bringing to the United States slave girls and coolie laborers,
and through their system of intimidation it is difficult, and
often impossible, to secure witnesses who will testify to the
truth. It is generally believed by those who have given
attention to this matter, that if the country could be rid of
this criminal class of Chinese, and the highbinders societies
be permanently suppressed, one of the greatest factors in the
commission of fraud in the administration of the Chinese
exclusion laws would be eliminated. An eminent authority
asserts that fully 75 per cent of all the frauds committed at
the present time against the exclusion law can be traced
directly to the highbinder associations. So perfect is the
organization of these societies, and so thorough their reign
of terrorism, that the efforts of the authorities to suppress
them have never been successful. The only thing which they
fear above all others, holding it in greater dread than our
laws, our courts, and jails, is deportation to China. The only
decisive remedy in that case is legislation through Congress,
which should render aliens who are members of such societies,
or any society having for its purpose the commission of crime
or the violation of our laws, liable to deportation. What is
true of the highbinders of San Francisco is probably true also
of certain anarchistic societies which are recruited from
Europe."

_Final Report (1902) of the Industrial Commission,
page 1009._

SAN FRANCISCO: A. D. 1906.
The Earthquake Shock of April 18, 1906.
The Geological Explanation.
Stupendous Destruction by Fire following the Earth Tremor.
Conditions produced by the Fire.
Relief Measures.

"On the morning of April 18, 1906, the coastal region of
Middle California was shaken by an earthquake of unusual
severity. The time of the shock and its duration varied
slightly in different localities, depending upon their
position with reference to the seat of the disturbance in the
earth’s crust; but in general the time of the occurrence may
be stated to be 5h 12m A. M., Pacific standard time, or the
time of the meridian of longitude 120° west of Greenwich;
and the sensible duration of the shock was about one minute.

"The shock was violent in the region about the Bay of San
Francisco, and with few exceptions inspired all who felt it
with alarm and consternation. In the cities many people were
injured or killed, and in some cases persons became mentally
deranged, as a result of the disasters which immediately
ensued from the commotion of the earth. The manifestations of
the earthquake were numerous and varied. … Springs were
affected either temporarily or permanently, some being
diminished, others increased in flow. Landslides were caused
on steep slopes, and on the bottom lands of the streams the
soft alluvium was in many places caused to crack and to lurch,
producing often very considerable deformations of the surface.
This deformation of the soil was an important cause of damage
and wreckage of buildings situated in such tracts. Railway
tracks were buckled and broken. In timbered areas in the zone
of maximum disturbance many large trees were thrown to the
ground and in some cases they were snapped off above the
ground.

"The most disastrous of the effects of the earthquake were the
breaking out of fires and, at the same time, the destruction
of the pipe systems which supplied the water necessary to
combat them. Such fires caused the destruction of a large
portion of San Francisco, as all the world knows; and they
also intensified the calamity due to the earthquake at Santa
Rosa and Fort Bragg. The degree of intensity with which the
earthquake made itself felt by these various manifestations
diminished with the distance from the seat of disturbance, and
at the more remote points near the limits of its sensibility
it was perceived only by a feeble vibration of buildings
during a brief period.

{587}

"The area over which the shock was perceptible to the senses
extends from Coos Bay, Oregon, on the north, to Los Angeles on
the south, a distance of about 730 miles; and easterly as far
as Winnemucca, Nevada, a distance of about 300 miles from the
coast. The territory thus affected has an extent, inland from
the coast, of probably 175,000 square miles. If we assume that
(he sea-bottom to the west of the coast was similarly
affected, which is very probably true, the total area which
was caused to vibrate to such an extent as to be perceptible
to the senses was 372,700 square miles. Beyond the limits at
which the vibrations were sufficiently sharp to appeal to the
senses, earth waves were propagated entirely around the globe
and were recorded instrumentally at all the more important
seismological stations in civilized countries.

"Various manifestations of the earthquake above cited,
including the cracking and deformation of the soil and
incoherent surface formations, were the results of the earth
jar, or commotion of the earth’s crust. The cause of the
earthquake, as will be more fully set forth in the body of
this report, was the sudden rupture of the earth's crust along
a line or lines extending from the vicinity of Point Delgada
to a point in San Benito County near San Juan; a distance in a
nearly straight course, of about 270 miles. For a distance of
190 miles from Point Arena to San Juan, the fissure formed by
this rupture is known to be practically continuous. Beyond
Point Arena it passes out to sea, so that its continuity with
the similar crack near Point Delgada is open to doubt; and the
latter may possibly be an independent, tho associated, rupture
parallel to the main one south of Point Arena. It is most
probable, however, that there is but one continuous rupture.
The course of the fissure for the 190 miles thru which it has
been followed is nearly straight, with a bearing of from North
30° to 40° West, but with a slight general curvature, the
concavity being toward the. northeast, and minor local
curvatures. The fissure for the extent indicated follows the
old line of seismic disturbance which extends thru California
from Humboldt County to San Benito County, and thence
southerly obliquely across the Coast Ranges thru the Tejon
Pass and the Cajon Pass into the Colorado Desert."

_Report of the California State Earthquake Investigation
Commission, Volume 1, pages 1-2._

SAN FRANCISCO:
The Great Conflagration.

General Frederick Funston, commanding the United States troops
at San Francisco, lost no time in ordering them out for
service in the emergency, and his report gives many
interesting particulars of the struggle with outbreaking and
spreading fires, in which they took an heroic part.

"By 9 A. M.," he wrote, "the various fires were merging into
one great conflagration, and were approaching the Palace
Hotel, Grand Hotel, Call Building, Emporium, and other large
buildings from the south. … By the morning of the 19th the
fire had destroyed the main portion of the wholesale and
retail section of the city, and was actively burning on a line
from about the corner of Montgomery avenue and Montgomery
street southwest on an irregular line to Van Ness avenue at
Golden Gate avenue. … The progress of the fire was very slow.
It averaged not more than one block in two hours. … By the
night of the 19th about 250,000 people or more must have been
encamped or sleeping out in the open in the various military
reservations, parks, and open spaces of the city.

"On the night of the 19th, when the fire reached Van Ness
avenue, Colonel Charles Morris, Artillery Corps, in command of
the troops in that portion of the city, authorized Captain Le
Vert Coleman to destroy a number of buildings far enough ahead
of the fire to make a clearing along Broadway, Franklin and
Gough streets, which space the fire was unable to bridge, and
in this manner was stopped after it had crossed Van Ness
avenue and the fire department seemed powerless. It is my
opinion that if it had not been for the work done at this
place the entire Western Addition of the city would have been
destroyed.

"By the morning of the 20th the Western Addition, as that part
of the city lying west of Van Ness avenue is called, was
considered safe, except from the danger arising from a very
threatening conflagration working along the slopes of Russian
Hill toward that part of Van Ness avenue lying north of
Broadway. All day of the 20th an heroic fight was made by the
soldiers, sailors, firemen, and citizens to stop this fire,
which had a frontage of about half a mile, and was working its
way slowly against the wind. A number of buildings were
destroyed here by high explosives, and back firing was
resorted to. The fight, at this place was greatly aided by
water pumped from the bay at Fort Mason. …

"By the most tremendous exertions the flames were prevented
from crossing Van Ness avenue between that port (Fort Mason)
and the point where they had once crossed and been fought out.
By the morning of the 21st the Western Addition was considered
safe, and the advancing flames south from the Mission district
had been stayed; but a rising wind caused the fire to turn
northeastward from Russian Hill and destroy a portion of the
city along the bay shore that had hitherto been spared."

Of the work of dynamiting that was done, mainly by the
soldiers, Major General A. W. Greeley, in a special report,
says: "The authority for demolitions was in every case derived
from the Mayor or his representatives. During all of the 18th
and until the afternoon of the 19th the city authorities
withheld their permission to blow up any buildings, except
those in immediate contact with others already ablaze.
Consequently, although we were able to check the fire at
certain points, it outflanked us time and again, and all our
work had to be begun over in front of the fire. … By
[afternoon of April 19th] the Mayor gave permission to take
more drastic measures to stop the fire."

SAN FRANCISCO:
After the Fire.

Of conditions after the fire General Greeley gives a vivid
description, partly as follows:

"On April 18 this was a city of 500,000 inhabitants, the
commercial emporium of the Pacific coast, a great industrial
and manufacturing center, adorned with magnificent buildings,
equipped with extensive local transportation, provided with
the most sanitary appliances, and having an abundant water
supply. On April 21 these triumphs of human effort, this
center of civilization, had become a scene of indescribable
desolation, more than 200,000 residents having fled from the
burnt district alone, leaving several hundred dead under its
smoldering ashes. …

{588}

"The burnt area covered 3,400 acres, as against 2,100 in
Chicago and 50 in Boston. … Even buildings spared by the fire
were damaged as to chimneys, so that all food of the entire
city was cooked over camp fires in the open streets.

"Two hundred and twenty-five thousand people were not only
homeless, losing homes and all personal property, but also
were deprived of their means of present sustenance and future
livelihood. Food, water, shelter, clothing, medicines, and
sewerage were all lacking. Failing even for drinking purposes,
water had to be brought long distances. Every large bakery was
destroyed or interrupted. While milk and country produce were
plentiful in the suburbs, local transportation was entirely
interrupted so that even people of great wealth could obtain
food only by charity or public relief."

SAN FRANCISCO:
Loss of Life and Property.

General Greeley "gives the loss of life in San Francisco,
including some who subsequently died from injuries received,
as 304 known and 194 unknown. In addition, 415 persons were
seriously injured. Estimates of the value of property
destroyed made up from the reports of settlements by the
insurance companies are given as follows in Best’s Special
Report on San Francisco Losses and Settlement, published in
New York, February 25, 1907:

‘The total loss to insurance institutions throughout the world
was from $220,000,000 to $225,000,000. It is probable that the
sound value of the property represented by this loss was
nearly or quite $100,000,000 greater than the last named
figure, so that this conflagration takes rank as the largest
in history in point of values destroyed. The loss fell on 243
insurance institutions, plus those foreign companies (twenty
or more in number) which have made no report to us.’"

SAN FRANCISCO:
Maintenance of Order.