In 1966, Tribune editor Sir Etienne Dupuch and Bahamian Times editor Arthur Foulkes, engaged in a very public war of words. There were two such published exchanges in the Tribune newspaper of 22nd April 1966 and 3rd May 1966.
What may have started as political taunts, quickly turned personal.
The Bahamian Times was a relatively new publication having started around or shortly before 1964. It was a Progressive Liberal Party sponsored newspaper. The Tribune (Nassau), on the other hand, was one of the oldest dailies, began publishing in 1903.
Arthur Foulkes was born in 1928. Etienne Dupuch was born in 1899.
Foulkes had some knowledge of Dupuch from working with him at the Tribune and sharing personal information. Foulkes, as a PLP sponsored newspaper editor, appeared to have begun making, what Dupuch claimed, were personal attacks, in The Bahamian Times, against Sir Etienne and his family This was all part and parcel of ‘political unmasking or undressing,’ a new trend in local newspaper journalism, which had become commonplace in Bahamian society after the introduction of official political parties.
Dupuch as Tribune newspaper editor, derided the PLP as a political party. He did not like the PLP brand of politics, which Dupuch felt, stirred up racial hatred. This was public knowledge at the time. Dupuch also knew intimate, somewhat salacious details about Foulkes’s family life from 1927/1928, long before Arthur Foulkes was even born.
Both men, began hitting where it would hurt most, very quickly, and very publicly.
Among just about everyone in the country at that time, vinegary politics in The Bahamas, helped to ignite smouldering embers of long harboured bitternesses and resentments. Foulkes and Dupuch were just two of many.
“If you saved me from drowning tomorrow that would not make me leave the Progressive Liberal Party” writes an enraged Arthur Foulkes to Sir Etienne Dupuch 1966.
The Tribune Nassau 3rd May 1966
Politically speaking, Arthur Foulkes at that time, was a relative neophyte, when he decided to take on Dupuch, a highly regarded personality, in, of all places, the political arena. Foulkes would furiously add in a letter to Dupuch, published on 3rd May 1966, that in addition to all of his honorary accolades, being a liar should also be included.
The Tribune Nassau 3rd May 1966
Arthur Foulkes, working as editor of The Bahamian Times newspaper and preparing to be a PLP candidate in the 1967 general elections, had yet to make his mark in the country. Sir Etienne, on the other hand, had already made a number of historical achievements and was considered a senior statesman.
Sir Etienne Dupuch in 1966, was considered an elder Bahamian statesman, decorated and honoured, for business, political and civic achievements. In June of that year, Dupuch was receiving yet another honour, an honorary degree of doctors of laws.
Daily Argus, Monday 6th June 1966
How it began and some intimate details of Arthur Foulkes’s life are revealed
Etienne Dupuch writes that he came into Arthur Foulkes’s life long before he was even born.
Dupuch, in the early 1900s, had been elected as the representative for Inagua. One of Dupuch’s promises to constituents was to secure a permanently stationed doctor for Inagua, which is the farthest southerly island. After a Dr. Ferguson came and went, another doctor, a Jamaican by way of Chicago came. This new doctor’s name was Dr. William A. Foulkes.
As Dupuch writes, Dr. William A. Foulkes was a physician, which all but satisfied the employment criteria. However, his character, would soon be called into question after a local girl, an orphan from Haiti being raised by a loving family in Inagua, had been seduced by the new doctor’s charms.
As the historical record will reveal, Arthur Foulkes was born in May 1928. When young Arthur was born, his mother, Julie Maisoneuve originally from Cape Haitien, Haiti, would have been seventeen or eighteen years old, and his father, would have been around fifty-five years old. This would have been a seriously scandalous situation, in a small close knit island community, such as Inagua would have been in 1928.
Dr. William A. Foulkes was transferred out of Inagua in 1929, the year after young Arthur was born. There was no mention in the papers about a wife or child accompanying him to his new post in Andros.
Not only was Sir Etienne familiar with the circumstances surrounding the goings on in Inagua in 1928/1929, as well as probably having met, at some point, the parents of Arthur Foulkes because he was the representative in the House of Assembly for the area, Dupuch was also an editor and co-proprietor of the Tribune in 1929.
Arthur Foulkes, as these exchanges would further reveal, worked for the Tribune for a number of years. During his employment there, Foulkes had a good relationship with Etienne Dupuch, who, as the exchanges would reveal took a personal, almost paternal interest in young Arthur.
When Dr. William A. Foulkes, originally from Jamaica, died in Nassau in 1943 at age 70, Sir Etienne writes that Arthur had expected to be the heir as he was thought to the legitimate son. However, an older son from Dr. William Foulkes’s previous marriage appeared to claim the estate in its entirety. Arthur was given a paltry £100 from the legitimately entitled son.
We also learn of an infamous 1929 letter, published in the Tribune of 31st July 1929, which, according to Arthur Foulkes led to some sort of legal action between writer and Foulkes’s father.
Prior to his working at the Tribune, and in particular in 1943, when his father passed away, Foulkes writes that he was working at the Nassau Guardian.
Foulkes joined the Progressive Liberal Party. He left the employ of the Tribune to become editor of the Bahamian Times. Foulkes’s exact leaving date is not revealed, however, by 1964, we know from newspaper clippings, Foulkes was editor of the Bahamian Times. Dupuch also writes that he deducted expenses, owing to the Tribune, and related to the PLP from Foulkes’s final salary. Foulkes did not appreciate this.
22 April 1966 – Dupuch writes of a duplicitous Foulkes and says he treated him like a son because of his unfortunate circumstances
3rd May 1966 – Foulkes writes in response to Dupuch’s article of 22nd April 1966
Dupuch responds to Arthur Foulkes 3rd May 1966
1929 – The Infamous letter written about Dr. William A. Foulkes
Dr. William A. Foulkes was transferred out of Inagua in May 1929. He was sent to Andros. The doctor from Andros, a well respected Dr. Cumberbatch and Mrs. Cumberbatch were sent to Inagua.
What is rather interesting to note, were several newspaper articles about how splendid this Dr. Cumberbatch and his wife were. Nothing was mentioned of Dr. Foulkes. And nothing was mentioned about a wife and son (a baby boy Arthur) who would be accompanying Dr. Foulkes.
The Tribune Nassau, Saturday 18th May 1929
Another Tribune article from June 1929 on Dr. Cumberbatch, the new doctor for Inagua, while again nothing on Dr. Foulkes who had been transferred out of Inagua for Andros.
The Infamous 1929 letter which allegedly sparked a libel lawsuit between Dr. William Foulkes and Mr. W. W. Richardson
By all accounts, this young Haitian orphan Julie, who had come to be cared for in Inagua, was an innocent of just eighteen summers, when she was seduced by a dastardly more worldly man.
From the letter, it is obvious that a baby had been born and when the young woman awoke from anaesthesia, she cried out “you promised to marry me.”
The letter called for laws and justice to be handed down, in order to protect young vulnerable women, from unscrupulous men who got them pregnant and left them with illegitimate children.
A letter entitled “Protection for Young Girls” was sent to the Tribune and published. While there are no names or direct references made to anyone in particular, those who had knowledge of the affair knew the story.
From this, a libel lawsuit allegedly arose. Mr. William A. Foulkes allegedly sued Mr. W. W. Richardson for libel over what was written in this unnamed letter to the Tribune in 1929. Etienne Dupuch was also co-proprietor and co-editor of the Tribune in 1929.
