America and Haiti (1933)

From the May 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Valuable “inside” evidence of the capitalistic aims at the back of the professedly “humanitarian” intervention in Haiti by the U.S.A. was recently revealed by a gentleman who is not at all likely to overstate his case. We lift the following from the Nation, New York, January 18th, 1933: —

   “That the military forces of the United States are merely 'a glorified bill-collecting agency’ was the declaration of Major-General Smedley D. Butler, U.S.M.C., retired, before a Brooklyn forum, according to the New York Herald-Tribune. He related further that he had been 'canned’ in Haiti because ‘I didn’t want to make the Haitians raise sugar’ for a New York bank. . . . The authorship of this testimony makes it valuable. General Butler served extensively both in Nicaragua and in Haiti. He was reputed to be the roughest of all the treat-’em-rough marine officers. The Nation has long contended that the whole Haitian episode was motivated by the desire of American concessionaires to cash in on their dubious investments.”

No wonder the Japs give a half-veiled sneer when the U.S.A. protests against their intervention in Manchuria in order to make their economic interest secure. The Haitian affair, and those in Nicaragua and Panama were merely Manchurian affairs on a smaller scale as the Japs have been unblushingly bold enough—in defiance of traditional diplomatic “tact”—to openly point out.

R. W. Housley