HAITI: Bon Papa

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Decline & Fall. The President lost control of his ministers; some of the followers he had enriched turned on him and the newspapers called his government a "tremendous scorpion." Frustrated and frenzied, but sure that he was still the choice of the blacks, Estime tried to alter the Constitution so that he could run for a second six-year term; to back him, 20,000 of his supporters rioted in the streets of Port-au-Prince. But the disorder was quelled, and presently the same junta that had deposed Lescot marched again on the same red carpet to Estime's office and sped him on his way to Manhattan (where he died last year, a lonely exile).

For Magloire, the moment of decision had come. The boy who had played in the ruins of Haiti's glory below the Citadel, who had ushered in one President and sent two on their travels, resolved to be President himself. He had the election law changed to allow direct vote of the people, staged a sure-fire campaign with festive bamboches with free rum, food and dancing. By 151,115 votes to 2,000 for his opponent, an obscure architect, the people voted him in.

Magloire took office—and took with him his conviction that 1) neither blacks nor mulattoes should dominate Haiti at the expense of the other group, and 2) he must avoid quick, flashy works (e.g., Estime's Exposition) and concentrate on long-haul technological advances.

No Little Troubles. "Zafair nèg pas jamm piti" say the Haitians. "Negro troubles are never small." But before facing the troubles of his country upon taking office, Magloire counted his assets. The economy was stable at its simple, garden level; the currency was sound (and convertible) at five gourdes to a dollar. The culture, traditions and national vitality were so rich and varied that only overwhelming reasons could justify much social tinkering. And land reform, the crying need of most of Latin America and the Far East, had been a fact in Haiti for more than a century. Nevertheless, the central problem was land and agriculture, partly because the population was shooting up (at the present rate of growth, it will reach 6,300,000 by the year 2000). Magloire singled out more efficient food production as his No. 1 task.

Man with a Plan. In 1951, Magloire announced a five-year development plan emphasizing agriculture. Its cost—$40 million—was a measure of his political daring; in impact it was as though the U.S. were to put $100 billion toward a single end. The plan's axis is the damming of Haiti's biggest (and only main) river, the central Artibonite, and the irrigation of some 80,000 acres that are now dusty desert in the dry season and muddy lakes in the wet. The U.S. Export-Import Bank lent $14 million, Haiti voted $8,000,000, and last year the engineering contract was let to Houston's Brown & Root, Inc. Concrete work is about to start on the storage dam, to be 225 ft. high and 1,075 ft. long. Downstream, a diversion dam and a net of canals will distribute the Artibonite's tamed waters, better the lives of 160,000 peasants. Forty thousand kilowatts of power can be added later, doubling Haiti's present output of electric energy.