1914–1915: (Farnham the Dangerous Counselor: Wall Street Whispers and the German Pretext): Farnham, in some senses an American Spenser St. John, in his own words afforded Bryan insights somewhat different f…

1914–1915: (Farnham the Dangerous Counselor: Wall Street Whispers and the German Pretext): Farnham, in some senses an American Spenser St. John, in his own words afforded Bryan insights somewhat different from the view one obtains from regular official reports. Dana Munro remarked that he was a dangerous counselor, and it gives ample testimony to Bryan’s credulity that, archpriest though he was of populism, he allowed his policies to be manipulated by a Wall Street banker who viewed Haiti across the ledgers of the National City Bank. A favorite theme of Farnham’s was that European intervention could be forestalled only if Washington was prepared to preempt Paris and especially Berlin, a proposition that gained credibility from Germany’s past brutalization of Haiti, from commercial penetration and political meddling, and from hardly disguised German aspirations toward the Môle and at least a share in customs control. The synchronous opening in 1914 of World War I and of the Panama Canal heightened U.S. concern over the West Indies as well as American sensitivity toward what Germany evidently saw as its special position in Haiti. As the war went on, this sensitivity changed to suspicion. It was against this background that the United States sought Haitian assent to customs receivership, with Bryan’s instructions including a regiment of Marines poised to take charge of Port-au-Prince. Ever since mid-1914, the Navy Department maintained contingency plans for taking over the capital. Such plans did not indicate long-matured secret designs to subjugate Haiti. They indicated that what these planners saw as Haiti’s instability, political degeneration, and sanguinary history made it a place of concern to men who prudently anticipated events.