1958–1963: (Repression Will Be Total: The Press Cowed, Labor Destroyed, Bankruptcy Prohibited, and Brandt’s Infallible Sense for Good Investments): To terrif…

1958–1963: (Repression Will Be Total: The Press Cowed, Labor Destroyed, Bankruptcy Prohibited, and Brandt’s Infallible Sense for Good Investments): To terrify the elite required little more than such episodes as those already described — however they hated the regime and despised it, henceforth they feared it more. The press, already cowed where not corrupt, posed few problems: opposition papers had been suppressed, troublesome journalists jailed or beaten into silence. From mid-1958 until its seizure in 1960, the Catholic La Phalange remained effectively the only voice of opposition. Surviving papers were controlled by government subsidies, TTMs in editorial positions, access to electricity and newsprint, and boilerplate editorials. The foreign press was obstructed by expulsions, censorship of outgoing cables, and postal scissoring of offending articles from incoming periodicals. Labor, despite its Estiméist roots, came under suspicious observation — after arresting the president of the Union Nationale des Ouvriers Haïtiens, Duvalier told a delegation: all popular movements will be repressed with utmost rigor, the repression will be total, inflexible, and inexorable. One by one unions were destroyed, driven underground, or taken over by macoute leaders; by 1963 they were dead, with one exception — the Syndicat des Chauffeurs-Guides, fostered years earlier by Duvalier and by 1958 mother lodge of the macoutes. Duvalier also prohibited declarations of bankruptcy, commercial default, or closing by any business without prior palace approval. Plucking the chicken in the style of Dessalines, the regime levied so-called spontaneous contributions from the business community through the Chamber of Commerce — even the slightest reluctance to pay was an invitation for bad trouble. Weathervane O. J. Brandt, showing his infallible sense for good investments, bought the entire $1 million government bond issue to repave the Grand’Rue, while HASCO chose to pay $400,000 in advance taxes after Duvalier drove an oaken stake through the heart of organized labor with his Code du Travail.