Hughes and Peynado sign an exit deal; U.S. occupation of the Dominican Republic has a way out

Six years after U.S. Marines landed in Santo Domingo to "restore order," the occupation had produced a guerrilla war, congressional investigations into prisoner mistreatment, and a swell of anti-American sentiment that reached Washington itself. On June 30, 1922, Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes and Dominican Ambassador Francisco J. Peynado signed an agreement in Washington setting the terms for American withdrawal — a provisional president, U.S.-supervised elections, and a phased handover of authority. The Marines finally left on September 18, 1924, though a customs-control treaty signed that December ensured the United States kept a financial grip on the island for another seventeen years…