The Assassination of Caceres
In April 1905 the USA established the General Customs Receivership, the office through which the United States government administered the finances of the Dominican Republic. The government of Ramón Arturo Cáceres Vasquez became the financial beneficiary of this arrangement. Freed from the burden of dealing with creditors, Caceres attempted to reform the political system. Constitutional reforms placed local ayuntamientos (town councils) under the power of the central government, extended the presidential term to six years, and eliminated the office of vice president. Caceres also nationalized public utilities and established a bureau of public works to administer them.
The curtailment of local authority particularly irked those caciques who had preferred to rule through compliant ayuntamientos. The continued financial sovereignty of the "Yankees" also outweighed the economic benefits of the receivership in the minds of many Dominican nationalists. His rule brought prosperity to the country, but he had many enemies, among them Morales and Jiménez, former vicepresident. In April, 1911, Cáceres received definite information that his assassination had been planned and that his government was to be overthrown by Morales and Jiménez. They were arrested, tried, and released. Cáceres was shot by two political malcontents, Luis Tejara and Jaime Mote, Jr., who fired at the president as he was leaving the house of a relative. He was removed to the American legation, where he died.
The assassins fled to San Cristóbal. The murderer of the President, Luis Tejera, was captured and shot. An accessory, Gen. Pimentel, was also killed, and many arrests were made. The minister of fomento, a brother of Luis Tejera, was removed from the Cabinet.
Caceres was assassinated at the end, but then he was only following in the footsteps of the man he had himself assassinated. President Caceres lost his life by the same means that raised him to power in the politics of the Dominican Republic. About twelve years earlier, Caceres was a cowboy. He and a number of companions, including his cousin, Horacio Vasquez, later President of the Republic, got together one day and decided that they would end the long tyranny of President Ulysses Heureaux, who laid tribute on every industry and killed all who dared to thwart his plans. The assassination of Caceres led to another period of political turmoil and economic disorganization that was to culminate in the republic's occupation by the United States. The fiscal stability that had resulted from the 1905 receivership eroded under Caceres's successor, Eladio Victoria y Victoria, with most of the increased outlays going to support military campaigns against rebellious partisans, mainly in the Cibao.
The continued violence and instability prompted the administration of President William H. Taft to dispatch a commission to Santo Domingo on September 24, 1912, to mediate between the warring factions. The presence of a 750-member force of United States Marines apparently convinced the Dominicans of the seriousness of Washington's threats to intervene directly in the conflict; Victoria agreed to step down in favor of a neutral figure, Roman Catholic archbishop Adolfo Alejandro Nouel Bobadilla. The archbishop assumed office as provisional president on November 30.
Nouel proved unequal to the burden of national leadership. Unable to mediate successfully between the ambitions of rival horacistas and jimenistas, he resigned on March 31, 1913. His successor, Jose Bordas Valdes, was equally unable to restrain the renewed outbreak of hostilities. Once again, Washington took a direct hand and mediated a resolution. The rebellious horacistas agreed to a cease-fire based on a pledge of United States oversight of elections for members of local ayuntamientos and a constituent assembly that would draft the procedures for presidential balloting. The process, however, was flagrantly manipulated and resulted in Bordas's reelection on June 15, 1914.
Bordas reached out to the jimenistas, naming one of their leaders, Desiderio Arias, as government delegate to the Cibao. However, horacistas soon revolted, declaring a new provisional government under Vasquez. Subsequent mediation by the United States government led to municipal and congressional elections in December 1913. However, these elections were blatantly manipulated by Bordas, leading to renewed tensions with not only horacistas but also jimenistas.
The United States government, this time under President Woodrow Wilson, again intervened. The "Wilson Plan" — delivered as an ultimatum — essentially stated: elect a president or the United States will impose one. Bordas resigned, and the Dominicans accordingly selected Ramon Baez Machado (the son of Buenaventura Baez) as provisional president on August 27, 1914, to oversee elections. Comparatively fair presidential elections held on October 25 returned Jimenes to the presidency. However, a combination of continued internecine political infighting and United States pressure made Jimenes's position untenable soon after his inauguration on December 6, 1914.
The United States government wished him to regularize the appointment of a United States comptroller, who was overseeing the country's public expenditures, and to create a new national guard, which would be under the control of the United States military, thus eliminating the existing army controlled by Arias. At the same time, Jimenes found himself with less and less political support, as he confronted opposition first from horacistas and then from his own secretary of war, Desiderio Arias. Arias spearheaded an effort to have Jimenes removed by impeachment so that he could assume the presidency.
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