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Haiti's supply of government jobs at any given time is only about one-third as great as the number of people qualified by education or training to fill them. After any President has been in office three years, it is plain who the lucky ones are, and the hungry outsiders naturally begin to grumble, agitate, fire bitter charges of inefficiency and graft. Magloire's good friend, Chief of Police Marcaisse Prosper, has provided an unfortunate focus for criticism. The juiciest current gossip of Haiti concerns Prosper's new hilltop home in fashionable Petionville, big as a U.S. small-city high school, lavishly furnished by Manhattan's W. & J. Sloane. The prosperous Prosper's salary is $350 a month.
The 6,000-man army backs Magloire (Congress made him its commanding general), but might be helpless against a popular coup de langue. On the other hand, he has many strengths. Items: ¶ The price of coffee, Haiti's No. 1 cash crop, is up, as every U.S. housewife knows, and the 1954 crop is likely to be good. Despite price drops in sisal and sugar (production of which is almost back to where the French had it in 1791), exports plus imports should stay steady at the recent level of $80-$100 million yearly. Since most government revenue comes from import-and-export duties, the budget is likely to remain at around $26 million (v. $8,400,000 ten years ago). CJ Magloire has been able to get along with Trujillo on a general-to-general basis that lets ill-armed Haiti keep its selfrespect before its excessively well-armed neighbor, although there is virtually no trade across the border.
¶]f U.S.-Haitian relations are excellent. ¶ A promising tourist industry had doubled since 1951, bringing Haiti as much cash income ($2,750,000) as sugar did last year.
Successful Failure. Tourism may be Haiti's greatest single asset in the years just ahead. Holiday travelers, especially the kind who hope for something more than a kidney-shaped swimming pool at the end of their plane rides, quickly sense a warming magic in Haiti. Flaming poinsettias and throbbing drums can make the blood run quicker, even in a dowager from Des Moines. The heady amber rum, made from whole cane juice aged in old sherry casks, is so cheap that a big evening can cost just $1 — which is also the price of a savory dinner featuring flaming Haitian crayfish. The weather is good the year around, the scenery spectacular. Heroic history seems to hang in the air, especially in the north, around Cap-Hai-tien; it becomes almost tangible in the presence of the 3,000-lb. cannon, graved with the arrogant "N" of the Napoleon who lost them, in the gloomy gun galleries of the Citadel.
By the standards of 1954-model materialism, the world's first black republic should perhaps still be reckoned an insanitary, barefoot failure. But by less pragmatic standards, it must be counted a heart-warming success—gentle, peaceable, individualistic, persevering and utterly free. With an eye cocked on awakening Africa, Paul Magloire passionately argues: "Haiti has shown by its struggle for liberty and progress that the black race and small nations can . . . achieve a status equal to that of any other human group. Haiti has given the lie to those who pretend that certain races are unfit for liberty, equality and self-government."