1915, August 25–September 3: (Dr.

1915, August 25–September 3: (Dr. Bobo’s Gambit Fails: FDR’s Soft Message, the Counter-Proposal, and the Seizure of the Customs Houses): To soften Davis’s stern admonition, Lansing — aided by Acting Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt and by Captain Beach on home leave because of his wife’s ultimately fatal illness — drafted a personal message to Dartiguenave on August 25 over Beach’s familiar signature: should Dartiguenave wish to dissolve the assembly, fire his obstreperous cabinet and form a new government of patriots, he would be fully supported. Dartiguenave returned a soft answer, asking only that a few details in the treaty be amended by changes in phraseology to create the illusion of mutuality rather than American dictation. But when the Haitian details were submitted on August 27, they proved to be a general counter-proposal that undercut or simply omitted every provision of the original draft — this tactic, Dr. Bobo’s Gambit, had worked after a fashion in 1914 and against Paul Fuller earlier in 1915 but now it no longer availed. Within forty-eight hours Lansing sent word for Dartiguenave to conclude the treaty as written and be quick about it. Shortly before this, two far-reaching actions had been taken by Admiral Caperton: on August 21, in accordance with prior orders from Washington, American naval paymasters began taking charge of all customs houses; two weeks later, Caperton proclaimed martial law and press censorship throughout Haiti. Under instructions that revenues realized would be applied to public safety, public works, famine relief, demobilization, and supporting the Dartiguenave government, U.S. Navy paymasters moved in as customs collectors and port captains at Jacmel, Cayes, Jérémie, Miragoâne, Petit-Goâve, St. Marc, Gonaïves, Port-de-Paix, and the Cap. On September 2, capping the operation, Caperton took charge of the Port-au-Prince douane. American assumptions of customs control, however necessary and predictable, for the first time brought home to the elite some hard practicalities of foreign intervention — for that class, much of whose livelihood had been the public treasury, the blow was square in the pocketbook. For many with sincere patriotic feelings, to whom 1804 was a holy word, the shock of blan with machine guns assuming charge of Haiti’s ten principal cities was profound.