1915–1918: (A Confused State of Affairs: The Gendarmerie, the Treaty Services, and the Marine Who Became Chief of Police): American authority had now been es…

1915–1918: (A Confused State of Affairs: The Gendarmerie, the Treaty Services, and the Marine Who Became Chief of Police): American authority had now been established de jure by treaty and de facto by the Marines. The president was not alone in his dilemmas — the American government still seemed unaware that Haiti posed no ordinary problems and that the work ahead would require some special organization in Washington, functionally a colonial office and a viceroy in Port-au-Prince. Instead, the State Department preferred to let the Navy somehow carry on. Of the five treaty services provided for — Financial Adviser, Customs Receivership, Public Works, Public Health, and Gendarmerie — the last came first. The old army was forthwith disbanded and on February 1, 1916, the new Gendarmerie d’Haïti, expanded to 1,500, took over police responsibilities for the entire country. French-speaking Marine and naval officers were assigned to senior posts with Gendarmerie rank, while Marine NCOs and navy hospital corpsmen became junior officers. The first commandant was Major Butler, who for his new post was commissioned général de division by Dartiguenave — in Butler’s later words, that made him chief of police. There was no difficulty getting recruits, many of them ex-Cacos — pay promptly and fully paid and decent rations sufficed to attract what Butler rated as the best men in the country. By June 1916 the Gendarmerie numbered 2,553 with 115 American officers. Navy doctors set to work under conditions truly Augean: beggars afflicted with leprosy, elephantiasis, and open sores thronged the streets; 95 percent of Gendarmerie recruits proved on examination to have malaria, yaws, or syphilis, and 85 percent had intestinal parasites. The first financial adviser, Addison T. Ruan, opened shop on July 9, 1916, and almost immediately came into conflict with Finance Minister Émile Élie — not until 1918 did Ruan finally establish complete fiscal control, at the cost of his own further usefulness. The Marine who became an officer in the Gendarmerie, an American civilian wrote in 1919, found himself clothed with practically unlimited power in his district — judge of all civil and criminal cases, paymaster for all national government funds, ex-officio director of the schools, and controller of the mayor and city council. Little wonder that American intervention soon began to be called Marine occupation.