The Take

As President of Haiti from 1950 until he was forced out of office last month, Paul Eugene Magloire was able to spare enough time from his official duties to become a spectacularly successful businessman as well. With Magloire in Jamaican exile (TIME, Dec. 24), Haitians last week were learning for the first time the full extent of his success. Estimates of the take ran from $12 million to figures higher than the country's 1956-57 budget of $28 million. Last week Joseph Nemours Pierre-Louis, Magloire's temporary successor, slapped all Magloire's assets into trusteeship and started an inquiry into the President's riches.

Magloire's most obvious money-makers were companies that manufactured soap, cement and sisal bags. He held a monopoly on all three products, and kept the profit margin high. Meanwhile his two brothers were uncommonly successful in a variety of enterprises, including the country's largest tobacco exporting firm. Another money-making deal involved the new Delmas Road leading out of Port-au-Prince; real-estate records show that before the road was built Magloire and his cronies bought up big blocks of the land along each side. And as the stories began to come out, dozens of businessmen stepped forward to confess that profit-sharing with the President had been for years the only way to operate.

The probe was not likely to prove a real hardship for the ex-President. His children have already reached Paris, and he is expected to set up housekeeping with them there within the month. Bank accounts in Boston, Miami, Paris and Geneva should enable him to live in the manner he has become accustomed to.

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