capital, and ten minutes later Webster, from the balcony of the
Palace, proclaimed Laguerre President and Military Dictator of
Honduras. Laguerre in turn nominated Webster, on account of his
knowledge of the country, Minister of the Interior, and made me Vice-
President and Minister of War. No one knew what were the duties of a
Vice-President, so I asked if I might not also be Provost-Marshal of
the city, and I was accordingly appointed to that position and sent
out into the street to keep order.

Aiken, as a reward for his late services, was made head of the
detective department and Chief of Police. His first official act was
to promote two bare-footed policemen who on his last visit to the
Capital had put him under arrest.

The General, or the President, as we now called him, at once issued a
ringing proclamation in which he promised every liberty that the
people of a free republic should enjoy, and announced that in three
months he would call a general election, when the people could either
reelect him, or a candidate of their own choice. He announced also
that he would force the Isthmian Line to pay the people the half
million of dollars it owed them, and he suggested that this money be
placed to the credit of the people, and that they should pay no taxes
until the sum was consumed in public improvements. Up to that time
every new President had imposed new taxes; none had ever suggested
remitting them altogether, and this offer made a tremendous sensation
in our favor.

There were other departures from the usual procedure of victorious
presidents which helped much to make us popular. One was the fact that
Laguerre did not shoot anybody against the barrack wall, nor levy