Page:Haiti- Her History and Her Detractors.djvu/373

Rh continual struggle for supremacy between the civil and the military parties. The experience acquired in the past will help to facilitate this transition; meanwhile, the Haitians have secured many important points, viz., first, the definite triumph of the principle of equality over favoritism by adopting a form of government in which public offices are accessible to all; second, the curtailing of the power of the President by limiting his term of office and by the check on his executive duties of a Council of Ministers accountable to Congress; third, the division of the right of introducing laws between the President and Congress; fourth, the establishment of the annual enactment of the Budget; fifth, the adoption of trial by jury for all criminal cases and all violations of the law committed through the press; sixth, the organization of a Court of Accounts for the control of public expenses; seventh, rendering effective the personal responsibility of officeholders; and securing greater freedom for all citizens in the towns as well as in the country. The acquisition of these rights, although costing in some cases the sacrifice of many lives, is nevertheless a cause of self-congratulation. Civil wars in general are not to be approved of; but not all of those which have taken place in Haiti have been barren of good results, having in many instances promoted the cause of liberty. Enlightened by the experience of the past, the Executive Power will become less and less unyielding and will cease to oppose uncompromisingly the just reforms desired by the people; it will thus become easier for them to forge and to work out their destiny without further violence and bloodshed. A nation which has been through so many crises and has voluntarily endured so many hardships in order to improve its political regime cannot be considered degenerate and retrogressive. Like the countries of the Old World, Haiti will achieve the conquest of its ideal by the steadfastness of its faith in personal effort and the consciousness of its dignity and its duty toward the race whose rehabilitation it has willingly undertaken to secure.