Administration Under Governor Oliver Working on Health Sanitation and Labor Questions
By Grace Phelps
Virgin Islands, U. S.
A YEAR ago this month the Danish West Indies became the Virgin Islands of the United States. Today 30,000 natives enthusiastically call themselves American citizens. The German sentiment which, delayed our acquisition of the islands for many years has absolutely disappeared. Twelve months of American occupation has wrought many important social and agricultural changes, but none more important than the loyalty of the inhabitants which has crystallized under the American administration.
Tho Virgin Islands are about 1,400 miles southeast from New York and 60 miles east of Porto Rico. Their actual transfer to the United States occurred March 31, 1917, just before our entrance into the world war, and because of that fact little is known of the new territory which we acquired from Denmark at a cost of $25,000,000.
The Virgin Islands include St. Thomas, with an area of 18,000 acres; St. Croix (better known as Santa Cruz) with an area of 53,000 acres, and St. John, whose area includes about 12.000 acres. With these are a number of smaller islands, many of which are even unnamed. St. Thomas has a population of 10,000, while the inhabitants of St. Croix number 18,000. St. John has less than 2,000 inhabitants. Of this population, 97 per cent is black or colored. The remaining 3 per cent includes the American officials and their families, the Danes who remained to engage in agriculture or commerce, and English planters and agents, with a scattering of French and other nationalities.
Few Remained Danish Subjects
The majority of the Danish officials returned to Denmark shortly after the transfer, but many, especially those who had intermarried with the natives, remained in the islands. With "the blacks and-colored, these Danes automatically became American citizens January 17 of this year, when the treaty between the United States and Denmark was finally ratified. Provision had been made for those who wished to remain Danish subjects, but few availed themselves of this provision.
Citizenship Day, as it was called was celebrated as a gala occasion by the natives. In St. Thomas there Were games and athletic contests, parades and speeches, from early morning until the sunset gun was fired. Then every hat was off and every face was turned to watch the Stars and Stripes flutter down from old Christian's Fort, which for 251 years had borne the white cross of the Danneborg.
In the evening the blacks celebrated native fashion, with the Bamboula dance. They painted their faces white or wore white masks and in fantastic masquerade attire went dancing and singing up and clown the main street of the harbor town.
Congress has not yet determined the status of the islands, but under the treaty the old Danish laws were to be administered for one year. Admiral James E. Oliver was appointed Governor shortly after the transfer. It has been assisted by naval and Federal officers and a few Banish officials who comprised the former Colonial Council. A new code of laws is now being prepared, but the administration is laboring under a largo deficit, and very little constructive work can be done until Congress grants an appropriation sufficient to meet the needs of the islands.
War Has Cut Natives' Livelihood
Native living conditions in St. Thomas are especially acute. As a free port the island was the chief point of call in the West Indies before the war. Its harbor was the life of the island and the bread and butter of the natives, or more strictly speaking, the fish and cornmeal, The people depended almost entirely upon the shipping interest. Before the war fifteen steamers of the Hamburg-American Line called at St Thomas every month and coaled there on their way from Germany to South America. A French line connected it with other European ports, and steamers of many other lines visited it regularly, if less frequently. Since the war the German steamers have been interned, other traffic has been curtailed and save for the Quebec Steamship Company, which runs twice a month between New York and St. Thomas and connecting with the smaller islands of the West Indies, the island has been cut off from the rest of the world. Consequently the fortunes of the town have dwindled and the people are anxiously waiting the end of the war in expectation of American development. Prices are. very high, and many of the natives are in sore straits.
Poverty-stricken as they are and despite their disappointment that improvements have been so slow, the people are enthusiastically supporting the government in the war.
The natives have raised a volunteer company of soldiers which is being drilled by a sergeant of the American marine force in the island. 'Even the youngsters are drilling in the hope that they may some day have a chance to fight the Germans. Fifty of them have formed a company of Boy Scouts under the direction of a sergeant of the marines, and make weekly hikes into the hills.
Teaching Native Girls Nursing
The administration under Governor Oliver has done a great deal in the way of making investigations and studying conditions, and as much has been accomplished as is possible without funds. American surgeons connected with the navy or the naval reserves conduct the municipal hospitals in St. Thomas and St. Croix. A school for nurses has been established and thirteen native girls are taking the prescribed nursing course in St. Thomas. Dr. W. King, who came over from Porto Rico, has taken charge of the Health Department and Quarantine Service and has made several recommendations to improve the primitive sanitary conditions.
The water supply is inadequate and the inhabitants depend mainly on rainwater. Filtration plants are unknown. There are springs in the hills and water could easily be piped to the town, Government reservoirs are especially needed for the long, dry season.
The food of the people is poor and surprisingly unvaried, and this applies to all the islands. There is little or no food grown in any of the islands, Nearly everything has to be imported, A campaign has been begun under American auspices to teach the people to grew their own fruit and vegetables but the difficulties in the way arc enormous. St. Thomas is hilly and the soil is infertile. Years ago the island was heavily wooded, but the trees were destroyed by the planters to make more room for cane growing. With no roots to hold it, the rains washed the soil down the hills on either side into the Atlantic and the Caribbean.
In St. Croix the difficulties are of quite another kind. I shall refer to them in detail later.
The Remnants of Exiled Huguenots
One of the most interesting settlements in St. Thomas is Cha-Cha town as it is called. This settlement is peopled by descendants of a half dozen families of Huguenots, who fled from France to escape the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve. They have never associated with the natives, but have lived their own life apart from the other peoples of the island. Unfortunately, in their efforts to preserve their race they have intermarried among themselves within very narrow limits of consanguinity and reaped the usual fruits of mental amphysical degeneration.
The Cha-Chas live in little hovels and earn a precarious livelihood by fishing, net making and hat weaving. They speak the purest French, but very few can either read or write. The name Cha-Cha was given to them by the blacks, and is a corruption of the French word "chercher," which the refugees used frequently in telling the natives that they had come to seek home in the island.
It Is in St. Croix that the administration has been able to do its best work. During the last few years labor conditions on the island have been acute. The cane workers were grossly underpaid, they claimed, and overworked, and their housing conditions were the worst that I have seen in any of the West Indian islands. A labor union was formed, with a well educated black, Hamilton Jackson, often called by outsiders who have done business with him "the black Jim Larkin," as its head. Through his efforts wages were raised recently from 20 to 40 cents a day. But prices of food were rising steadily, and soon this wage could not buy any more than the 20 cents of before the war. The food of the people was restricted to "coco," a dish made of cornmeal and okras, and dried salt fish. Fruit trees had been sacrificed in St. Croix as in St. Thomas, but because of the low rolling hills the land was not denuded of its soil, and fruit can still be raised.
The agricultural experiment station was, and still is, in the hands of an Englishman from Barbados. The work done there is devoted entirely to the needs of the planters and experiments with cane. Nothing is done to teach or help the people to raise their own foodstuffs, and as a result of the unvaried carbonaceous diet, the health of the people is deteriorated.
Elephantiasis, a disease which, as its name indicates, causes the limbs to swell to the proportions of an elephant's, is prevalent among the workers as a consequence of their long years of malnutrition. Just what causes the disease is not known here. Some physicians in the West Indies blame it on the tsetse fly, others on the mosquito, but all agree that its spread among the natives is due to their inability to resist the disease in their weakened-physical condition.
Strikes and Lockouts Now Prohibited
These are some of 'the problems which the new American administration faced. To settle the labor troubles Acting Commissioner of the Interior Edmund Enright was brought over from Porto Rico to make a study of conditions. Mr. Enright, accompanied by a representative of the planters and a representative of the unions, made a two months' study of working conditions, visiting all the estates and sugar centrals on the islands. As a result of these tests, a day of nine hours was agreed upon, and the exact amount of work which should constitute a full day was settled to the mutual satisfaction of planters and workers alike, a solution deemed impossible by the Danes.
To a Northern mind the wage of fifty cents a day, which was agreed upon, will seem very small. None the less it is a decided advance over previous conditions. If the worker does more than a day's work in the nine hours he receives an increase in proportion to his work. If he does less he receives less. Provision is also made for the workers to receive a bonus in proportion to the increased price which the planters receive for the sugar. In case of a possible decrease in the price the planter is protected by an automatic reduction of wages.
Strikes or lockouts are prohibited now, and disputes are settled by a board of arbitration, chosen equally by the union and the planters.
The planters are bound to keep in repair the huts of the estate workers and on the other hand the workers are bound to keep the premises clean. The planter is also bound to provide an adequate water supply. Five cents a day extra is paid to workers who are not provided with huts or rooms on the estate.
A naïve provision of the agreement states that both laborer and employer shall treat each other with due respect and that abusive language shall not be used on either side.
The percentage of illiteracy among the people of the Virgin Islands is very small. The Danes had a compulsory school law, but unfortunately their education system seldom went beyond the mere learning to read and write. The natives are intelligent and crave education, and it has been a bitter disappointment to them that changes have been made in their school system. The school commissioner is a bishop of the Moravian Church, most of the teachers are poorly educated themselves, and the school books are English, of the early Victorian period. There are no schools above the primary and intermediate grades, and even these are often on half time.
Color Line Not Definitely Drawn
The color question is one which has not troubled the islands as yet. It is the one point on which the natives had any hesitation in becoming Americans. The Danes never drew the color line, but mingled with the natives on equal terms in social as well as business life. Many Danes intermarried with the natives and took their black or colored wives back to Denmark with them. With a Democratic Administration at Washington it was feared that the officials who would be appointed would be Southerners who would draw the line decidedly against the blacks. The present Administration, however has shown great tact in dealing with the question, and the natives have not been offended in any way.
Hamilton Jackson, the black Jim Larkin, said to me: "It is political equality and economic opportunity that we want most. Give us schools and American teachers; give us a simple code of American laws and a just administration; give us good sanitary conditions and doctors, and help us to grow our own foodstuffs, so that the islands will be self-supporting, and we shall not trouble you with demands for social recognition."
(New York Tribune 17. marts 1918.)
New-York Tribune blev grundlagt 1841 af Horace Greeley (Whig Party), som også var bladets udgiver de næste 30 år. Han var modstander af slaveri, alkohol, spil prostitution og dødsstraf, og støttede Abraham Lincoln under borgerkrigen. Blandt avisens gæsteskribenter var navne som Henry J. Raymond, Charles A. Dana, Bayard Taylor, George Ripley, Margaret Fuller Karl Marx. Det blev en af de mest indflydelsesrige aviser i USA. Efter Greeleys død i 1872 blev det videreført af Whitelaw Reid (1873-1912).
På artiklens tidspunkt var det dennes søn, Ogden Reid som var udgiver. Avisen havde da udviklet sig væk fra skandale- og kriminalsager til politiske nyheder, specialartikler, litteratur m.m. Ogden Reid stod 1924 for fusionen med New York Herald til New York Herald Tribune. New York Herald Tribune blev kendt for højt kvalitetsjournalistik de næste fire årtier. Med journalister som Joseph Barnes, Homer Bigart, Russell Hill, Joseph Driscoll, Joseph Mitchell, Tom Wolfe, Walter Lippman, David Lawrence, Joseph Alsop og Roscoe Drummond. Efter Ogden Reids død i 1947 kom bladet ind i en nedgangsperiode, og det gik ind i 1966.
