1916 to 1922 · Haitianspan
The loan Haiti was promised in 1915 arrived seven years late
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The occupation could not arrange the foreign loan Haiti needed. The plan, begun by Paymaster Conard and taken up by the financial adviser Addison Ruan in 1916, was to consolidate the French debts of 1875, 1896 and 1910, whose face value came to about 23.3 million dollars and whose market price was about 16 million. Buying in those bonds, clearing the internal debt, restarting payments suspended since 1914 and finding capital for reconstruction called for an American loan of 30 million. Washington did not assemble it until 1922, seven years after the landing, and the delay hardened Haitian feeling against the United States. The administrative record explains part of the failure. Between 1915 and 1922 Haiti passed through two financial advisers, four gendarmerie commandants, six commanders of the Marine brigade and four senior naval officers, while the State Department's Latin American division had six chiefs of its own. Arthur Millspaugh, himself a later financial adviser, judged that a more disorganised state of affairs could hardly be imagined.
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