How Wall Street Sleaze Led to Roosevelt’s Famed Corollary
This article is for subscribers only.
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- United Fruit Co. in Guatemala. Aramcoin Saudi Arabia. Blackwater in Iraq. We are familiar with a fewprivate American companies that decisively shaped foreignpolicy. One of the first and ultimately most influential,however, is also the least known.
In December 1892, a group of Wall Street businessmenarrived by ship in the Dominican Republic. Earlier that year,the group had created the San Domingo Improvement Co. and boughtall of the country’s foreign debt from a European financialcompany. Now the men came to Santo Domingo on a delicate mission-- coming to terms with Ulises Heureaux, the Caribbeanrepublic’s fearsome dictator.