1921, August 5 – 1922, February 11: (The Senate Hearings and the Creation of the High Commissioner: McCormick’s Investigation, Hughes’s Dissatisfaction, and …

1921, August 5 – 1922, February 11: (The Senate Hearings and the Creation of the High Commissioner: McCormick’s Investigation, Hughes’s Dissatisfaction, and the Appointment of Russell): The 1920 American elections, combined with The Nation’s continuing campaign, served to light a fire under Congress. Convening in Washington on August 5, 1921, a Senate committee held exhaustive hearings on U.S. activities in Haiti and Santo Domingo — running through 1,842 printed pages of testimony and exhibits and ending with a final report nearly eleven months later. Conscientiously chaired by Senator McCormick, a cultivated Chicagoan who spoke fluent French, the hearings included every leading figure of the occupation as well as its main opponents, Haitian and American. To ensure fair play, the Union Patriotique and the NAACP were accorded adversary status including rights of cross-examination, freely exercised both in Washington and subsequently in Port-au-Prince, which the committee visited in November 1921. The Union, although protesting numberless abominable crimes, made only a weak case with testimony the senators frequently found to be gossip or hearsay where not obviously coached or suborned. While the hearings developed a mine of primary information, the results disappointed those who expected Congress to bring forth much more than a mouse. Forecasting the committee’s finding that what was needed was improved administration rather than withdrawal, McCormick had written in December 1920 that they were there and ought to stay for at least twenty years; a year and hundreds of witnesses later he privately told Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes of a want of policy and no centralization of responsibility. To supply the wanted policy, McCormick called on Hughes to create a new post: an American high commissioner with plenipotentiary powers who would supervise treaty officials, Gendarmerie, Marines, the legation, and all. On February 11, 1922, President Harding did exactly that. The Haiti-Santo Domingo Independence Society wanted a civilian — they thought the name should be James Weldon Johnson — while Secretary Hughes, with rare impercipience, all but settled on Smedley Butler, a catastrophe averted only when Dana Munro made common cause with McCormick to torpedo the appointment. As a result, to everyone’s surprise including that of the appointee himself, the lot fell to John Henry Russell. Back in December 1920, Russell had written confidentially to the Chief of Naval Operations: the question naturally uppermost in everyone’s mind was where this would lead the United States — two people could ride a horse but one must ride behind, and if the United States in its dealings with Haiti was going to ride behind it would soon be ready for a fall and would be much better to get off now. By 1922 the decision had been made: the United States would not get off, and nor was Russell the man to ride behind.