LITMIR.BIZ

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exiled, or executed. While possessing pleasant and affable manners, he was unrelenting in his persecution of conspirators and many stories are told of his harshness in this respect. It is related that when he was minister of the interior under Meriño he discovered that his brother-in-law was implicated in a plot; he therefore invited him to dinner and after they had dined, asked how his guest had enjoyed the meal. "Very well," was the answer. "I am glad of that," said Heureaux, "for I am about to have you shot. Take a cigar," he added pleasantly, "it will be your last." And it was, for the execution followed at once. On another occasion, so the story goes, after he had become president, a prominent general was his guest and after dinner they took a stroll. Coming to a place in the suburbs where workmen were digging a peculiar trench, the general inquired, "What are they digging here?" "They are digging your grave," answered Heureaux, and before the general could recover from his consternation a squad of soldiers appeared. He was shot and buried then and there. The governor of Macoris and the minister of war were both powerful men whose influence was feared by Heureaux. He therefore cunningly wrought up the latter against the former to such an extent that one fine morning the minister suddenly appeared in Macoris and had the governor summarily shot. An outcry was made by the governor's friends, and Heureaux, affecting indignation at the act, had the minister of war executed. Many of his prisoners mysteriously disappeared, and popular rumor points out one of the lower platforms of the fort "La Fuerza," where an aguacate tree formerly grew, as the place where prisoners were shot at night, their bodies being thrown to the sharks at the base of the cliff. Some of the dictator's suspects were assassinated in the public streets. Even exiles were not secure from his wrath and in one instance a Dominican writer named Eugenio Deschamps, who had been publishing articles against him in Porto Rico, was seriously wounded in the streets of Ponce by an assassin's bullet.

      Ability and unscrupulousness, courage and cruelty, resolution and cunning were mingled in the character of Heureaux. Over the country he exercised the powers of an absolute monarch. He was the fountain head of all government and the real chief of every department. The accounts of the government and his private accounts were treated by him as one and the same thing. His ambition to remain in power necessitated the expenditure of large sums which he obtained through improvident foreign loans and usurious contracts with local merchants. Those whom he favored grew rich; his enemies he ruined. In other ways also his morals swerved from the straight and narrow path, and an isolated town gloried in the distinction of being the only place in the Republic where the president did not have a mistress. He himself stated that he had no concern as to what history would say of him, since he would not be there to read it.

      During the latter part of Heureaux's administration the leaders of the opposition were recognized as Juan Isidro Jimenez and Horacio Vasquez, Vasquez was the chief of a large landholding family of the Cibao. Jimenez had been a prominent merchant, at one time carrying on mercantile houses in Monte Cristi, New York, Paris and Hamburg; his family had formerly been prominent in Dominican affairs, his father having been president of the Republic in 1848 and his grandfather one of the leading spirits of the revolution by which the Haitian yoke was thrown off. Jimenez was born in Santo Domingo City in 1846 and as a boy went to Haiti with his father, growing up in Port-au-Prince. As a youth he removed to Monte Cristi, where he established himself in business and took part in the War of the Restoration against the Spaniards. Having with Heureaux, he resided for a number of years in Cape Haitien, Haiti, and from there directed conspiracies against the dictator.

      In May, 1898, Jimenez made a bold attempt to overthrow the Heureaux government. He fitted out a small steamer, the "Fanita," in the United States and left ostensibly to aid the Cuban insurgents; and as the United States was then at war with Spain the expedition was not opposed by the American government. A landing was made at Monte Cristi with only twenty-five men, a general uprising being expected as soon as his arrival became known. Jimenez' followers took the town, but the governor of the district was able to escape to the country and returned with a large force, driving Jimenez back to his vessel with a loss of one-half of his companions. The "Fanita" had touched in the Bahamas on the way down and on returning to Inagua Island, Jimenez was arrested by the British authorities as a filibuster. Heureaux sent a man-of-war to Nassau and did all he could to have the case pressed. Jimenez was tried twice; at the first trial the jury did not agree, and the second time he was acquitted.

      Though popular hatred against Heureaux was strong on account of his tyrannical conduct and his attempts to compel the circulation of a large issue of inconvertible bank notes with which he flooded the country, the fear in which he was held prevented any general uprising. There were many, however, among them Horacio Vasquez, who never ceased conspiring against the dictator. When it became known that Heureaux was resolved to bring about Vasquez' death, Ramon Caceres, a cousin of Vasquez, and other members of the Vasquez clan, were drawn into the conspiracies. The father of Caceres, once vice-president under Baez, had been killed, it is said, by order of Heureaux. In July, 1899, when Heureaux prepared for a trip through the Cibao, he was informed of a plot to kill him on the way. When he arrived in Moca he thought that no danger awaited him there, as he expected that if any attack were to be made on him it would be at some solitary portion of the road and not in a town in broad daylight. When about to leave Moca on July 26, 1899, he ordered the governor of the province to arrest Caceres and his companions. Caceres was informed of the order by the secretary of the governor, who was his friend, and knowing that the arrest would probably be followed by an execution, with several companions he repaired to a store where Heureaux was talking with the proprietor, the provincial treasurer. As soon as Heureaux appeared in the doorway Caceres began to shoot, and the other conspirators continued firing, although the first shot had been fatal. Heureaux before falling drew his revolver and returned the fire, but the darkness of death clouded his vision and the shots went wild, one of them, however, killing a beggar to whom he had a few moments before given alms. Caceres and his companions fled to the mountains, and the body of Heureaux was taken to Santiago, where it was afterwards interred in the cathedral. Juan Wenceslao Figuereo, vice-president of the Republic, an aged negro, succeeded to the presidency.

      The death of Heureaux precipitated a revolution headed by General Horacio Vasquez. President Figuereo made no resistance, but at the end of August resigned, together with his cabinet, first designating a committee of citizens to administer affairs until the arrival of Vasquez, who entered the capital on September 5, 1899, and became the head of the provisional government. Jimenez in the meantime hastened to the country and was everywhere received with rejoicing. The two leaders arranged that Jimenez should become president and Vasquez vice-president, and an election was held on October 20, by which this result was attained, the inauguration taking place November 20, 1899. Ramon Caceres, the slayer of Heureaux, was made governor of Santiago and delegate of the government in the Cibao.

      The Jimenez administration was the reaction of that of Heureaux. It deserved, more than any the Republic had had up to that time, the name of civil and constitutional government. The executive was not absolute, as in the time of Heureaux, nor were there sanguinary executions. Almost too little restraint was exercised, and the press, so long muzzled, began to convert its liberty into license. Jimenez, too, was so good-hearted that at times he yielded to importunities which had better been resisted. The financial problems left by the Heureaux administration caused considerable trouble and though the waste of the public revenues was curtailed, large sums were still absorbed in the payment of revolutionary claims and of pensions for local military chiefs.

      Jealousies soon ripened between Jimenez and Vasquez, who was known to long for the presidency and had only temporarily laid aside his aspirations on account of the overwhelming popularity of Jimenez. Each of the chiefs collected a group of friends about him and in this way originated the still existing political parties, Jimenistas and Horacistas, the respective followers of Jimenez and Horacio Vasquez. Several minor uprisings occurred but were suppressed by the government. In the beginning of 1902 the Dominican Congress, which was composed largely of Vasquez' friends, considered the advisability of impeaching President Jimenez on account of the financial transactions of the administration, and a vote of censure was finally passed. Jimenez believed Vasquez at the bottom of the agitation and endeavored to have the municipalities protest against the action of Congress. Rumors became current that Jimenez intended to imprison his vice-president and thus insure his own reelection. Vasquez, urged on by his friends, therefore started a revolution in the Cibao, and after a fight

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