1 to 17 January 1915 · Haitianspan
The American flag goes up over Haiti's national bank
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On 1 January 1915 the French tricolour came down from the offices of the Banque Nationale on the Rue des Magasins de l'Etat in Port-au-Prince and the flag of the United States went up in its place. Washington had taken over the protection of the bank that held the Haitian treasury. It warned the government that the newsprint gourdes would not be honoured, and the government printed more, while officials said openly that the time had come for Haitians to take what belonged to them. The gold already shipped to New York aboard the gunboat Machias was defended in law by the bank's Haitian counsel Seymour Pradel, who observed that the Banque had moved its own money from one pocket to another and had earned interest on it. Solon Menos, the Haitian minister in Washington, told Bryan the removal was an arbitrary and offensive act and a flagrant invasion of the independence of the republic. None of the Americans on the spot believed the bank had been in danger of a raid.
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