Less drastic but quite as effectual a method of assuring order and regularity in administration was the action taken by the United States in another Caribbean island. A little country like the Dominican Republic, in which few Presidents managed to retain their offices for terms fixed by changeable constitutions, could not resist the temptation to rid itself of a ruler who had held power for nearly a quarter of a century. After he had been disposed of by assassination in 1899, the government of his successor undertook to repudiate a depreciated paper currency by ordering the customs duties to be paid in specie; and it also tried to prevent the consul of an aggrieved foreign nation from attaching certain revenues as security for the payment of the arrears of an indemnity. Thereupon, in 1905, the President of the United States entered into an arrangement with the Dominican Government whereby, in return for a pledge from the former country to guarantee the territorial integrity of the republic and an agreement to adjust all of its external obligations of a pecuniary sort, American officials were to take charge of the custom house send apportion the receipts from that source in such a manner as to satisfy domestic needs and pay foreign creditors. * * See "The Path of Empire", by Carl Russell Fish (in "The Chronicles of America"). CHAPTER IX. THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA Even so huge and conservative a country as Brazil could not start out upon the pathway of republican freedom without some unrest; but the political experience gained under a regime of limited monarchy had a steadying effect. Besides, the Revolution of 1889 had been effected by a combination of army officers and civilian enthusiasts who knew that the provinces were ready for a radical change in the form of government, but who were wise enough to make haste slowly. If a motto could mean anything, the adoption of the positivist device, "Order and Progress," displayed on the national flag seemed a happy augury. The constitution promulgated in 1891 set up a federal union broadly similar to that of the United States, except that the powers of the general Government were somewhat more restricted. Qualifications for the suffrage were directly fixed in the fundamental law itself, but the educational tests imposed excluded the great bulk of the population from the right to vote. In the constitution, also, Church and State were declared absolutely separate, and civil marriage was prescribed.