1930, March 6–28: (The Forbes Commission Hearings: The Merle Blanc, Eugène Roy, and the Failure to Plant Democracy by Drill and Harrow): The Forbes Commissio…

1930, March 6–28: (The Forbes Commission Hearings: The Merle Blanc, Eugène Roy, and the Failure to Plant Democracy by Drill and Harrow): The Forbes Commission, White House marching orders in hand, took twelve days of testimony — charges against the occupation were in every case heard by the full commission while rebuttals were taken by single commissioners or staff members, no treaty official was allowed to appear as witness during the first week, no opportunity to cross-examine witnesses was ever accorded Russell or treaty officials, and ninety percent of hearing time was allocated to those opposed to the occupation. Maître Georges Léger had orchestrated a deafening case — the same banners, scarcely varying a word from Port-au-Prince to Cap Haïtien, waved everywhere. As early as March 6, Russell warned Forbes that the opposition leaders had the bit in their teeth and were prepared to stop at nothing, then put forward a plan worked out with Colonel F. E. Evans, commandant of the Garde: ease Borno out in favor of a transitional, politically neutral provisional president to be chosen by the Conseil d’État, who would call for legislative elections and step down in favor of the National Assembly’s ultimate choice. On Forbes’s nod, Russell went to Borno, who with feelings that may be imagined acceded. Russell underscored that the idea must appear to have originated with the commission — Forbes and his colleagues then sent for the opposition leaders, who were informed that Borno was willing to accept a neutral non-partisan successor. Hudicourt asked with an air of finality: where are we to find this white blackbird? The commission suggested that each side prepare a list of five neutral men, and if one name appeared on both lists he would be the merle blanc. Borno never drew up a list — when he looked at the opposition names his eye stopped at Eugène Roy, and it was agreed that on April 14 the Conseil would elect that highly regarded elite exchange-broker, whom Forbes remembered as a man of dignity, white-haired and quite black. The central conclusion of the Forbes report was beyond argument: the failure of the occupation to understand the social problems of Haiti, its brusque attempt to plant democracy there by drill and harrow, its determination to set up a middle class — however wise and necessary it may seem to Americans — all these explain why the high hopes of good works in this land had not been realized. When the commissioners reached Washington, Forbes told Hoover they had offered a palliative and not a remedy, that conditions were fundamentally thoroughly unsound in Haiti, and that there was no guarantee the new government would be able to carry on. On March 28, Hoover announced acceptance of the commission’s recommendations as American policy. Russell’s rebuttal — well constructed, in places devastating, rightly laying at the doorstep of American policy the shortcomings of the United States in Haiti — was withheld from the press and ignored in the report because, as the New York Times later reported, it would have been politically disturbing. When Cotton read it, he minuted: this report should go to the Secretary and then be locked up.