Istwa Nou

Five days after the marines landed, Robert Lansing told Woodrow Wilson that the Haitian situation was distressing and very perplexing and that he was not at all sure what the United States ought to do or could lawfully do. Wilson answered within a day. Send a force large enough to control the capital and the country immediately around it that fed the capital. Tell the Haitian Congress that the United States would protect it and would recognise no government it formed unless the men put in charge were men Washington could trust to end revolution. Warn everyone holding office or seeking it that the United States would block payment of debts contracted to finance revolutions, which was aimed at the German merchant houses. Wilson added that the United States considered it a duty to insist on constitutional government in Haiti and would take charge of elections if that was what it took. The whole programme reads as high principle except for one clause, the phrase about men Washington could trust.