The Monroe Doctrine: An Obsolete Shibboleth

JUNE, 1913

BY HIRAM BINGHAM

I

' The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by European powers. . . . We should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power, we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have declared their independence, and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration, and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling, in any other manner, their destiny, by any European power, in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States. . . . ’

THUS, in 1823, did President James Monroe, acting under the influence of his able Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, enunciate a doctrine which has been the most universally accepted foreign policy that we have ever had. No one questions the fact that the enunciation of this policy of ‘America for Americans,’and our firm adherence to it for so many years, has had a very decided effect upon the history of the Western Hemisphere.

There have been times when ambitious European monarchs would have liked nothing better than to help themselves to poorly defended territory in what is now termed Latin America. When the Doctrine was originated, the Holy Alliance in Europe was contemplating the overthrow of republican government in Spain, and unquestionably looked with extreme aversion at the new republics in South and Central America, whose independence we were hastily recognizing. Russia was reaching out beyond Alaska. The firm declaration of this policy of exclusion, backed up by England’s attitude toward the Holy Alliance, undoubtedly operated to give the American republics sufficient breathing space to enable them to get on their feet and begin the difficult process of working out their own salvation, — a process which was rendered all the more difficult by reason of Hispanic racial tendencies, of centuries of autocratic colonial government, and of geographical conditions which made transportation and social intercourse extremely arduous.

Journeys across Peru even to-day may be beset with more difficulties than were journeys from Mississippi to California sixty years ago, before the railroads. It still takes longer to go from Lima, the capital of Peru, to Iquitos, the capital of Peru’s largest province, and one which the Putumayo atrocities have recently brought vividly to our notice, than it does to go from London to Honolulu.

Had it not been for the Monroe Doctrine, the American republics would have found it very much more difficult to maintain their independence during the first three quarters of a century of their career. And this notwithstanding the fact that the actual words ‘Monroe Doctrine’ were rarely heard or seen.

In 1845, without mentioning this shibboleth by name, President Polk declared that the United States would not permit any European intervention on the North American continent. This, as Professor Coolidge has brought out,¹ pushed the theory further than it has been carried out in practice, although it restricted the original idea by leaving South America out of account.

A few years later, while we were engaged in civil war, Napoleon III attempted to set up a European monarch in Mexico. Scarcely had we recovered, however, from the throes of our great conflict, when Mr. Seward took up with the French government the necessity for the withdrawal of the French troops from Maximilian’s support. Here we were acting strongly in accordance with the best traditions of the Monroe Doctrine, and yet the mysterious words were not employed in the correspondence.

In fact, while it was generally understood that we would not countenance any European interference in the affairs of North and South America, it was not until 1895, during the second administration of President Cleveland, that a Secretary of State thought it expedient or necessary to re-state the Monroe Doctrine and to bring us to the verge of a European war by backing it up with an absolutely uncompromising attitude. Venezuela had had a long-standing boundary dispute with British Guiana. Nobody cared very much either way until it was discovered that in the disputed territory were rich gold fields. In the excitement which ensued, the Venezuelans appealed to the United States, and Secretary Olney, invoking the Monroe Doctrine, brought matters to a crisis.

Our defiant attitude toward Great Britain astonished the world, and greatly pleased the majority of American citizens. The very fact that we had not the slightest personal interest in the paltry sixty thousand square miles of jungle southeast of the Orinoco, added to our self-esteem. It raised our patriotism to the highest pitch when we realized that we were willing to go to war with the most powerful nation in Europe rather than see her refuse to arbitrate her right to her ancient possession of a little strip of tropical forest with a government which was not in existence when England took British Guiana, but which was an ‘American Republic.’ Fortunately for us, Lord Salisbury had a fairly good sense of humor, and declined to take the matter too seriously. Instead of standing, in the proverbial British manner, strictly for his honor and his rights, he politely ignored the Boundary Commission which we had impetuously called into existence, and, dealing directly with his neighbor Venezuela, arranged for an international court of arbitration.

In our exuberance over the success of Mr. Olney’s bold and unselfish enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine we failed to realize several aspects of this question.

In the first place, we had proudly declared the Monroe Doctrine to be a part of International Law, failing to distinguish between law and policy.

In the second place, we had assumed a new theorem. In the words of Mr. Olney: ‘The states of America, South as well as North, by geographical proximity, by natural sympathy, by similarity of Governmental Constitutions, are friends and allies, commercially and politically, of the United States.’

A few years earlier the then Secretary of State, Blaine, had brought into existence the International Union of American Republics, and had enunciated a doctrine of Pan-Americanism which has glowed more or less cheerfully ever since.

Mr. Olney’s words recognized this doctrine. But when he gave ‘geographical proximity ’ as one of the reasons for this Pan-American alliance, he overlooked the fact that the largest cities of South America are geographically nearer to Spain and Portugal than to New York and New England. He failed to consider that the rich East Coast of South America is no farther from Europe than it is from Florida, and that so far as the West Coast is concerned, it actually takes longer to travel from Valparaiso, the chief South American West Coast port, to San Francisco, the chief North American West Coast port, than it does to go from Valparaiso to London. Peru is as far from Puget Sound as it is from Labrador.

Most of our statesmen studied geography when they were in the grammar school, and have rarely looked at a world-atlas since. In other words, we began the new development of the Monroe Doctrine with a false idea of the geographical basis of the PanAmerican alliance.

Furthermore, the new Monroe Doctrine was established on another false idea, the existence of ‘natural sympathy’ between South and North America. As a matter of fact, instances might easily be multiplied to show that our South American neighbors have far more natural sympathy for, and regard themselves as much more nearly akin to, the Latin races of Europe, than to the cosmopolitan people of the United States.

How Spain feels was shown recently in the case of a distinguished Spanish professor who was able to find time to make an extended journey through Latin America, urging Pan-Hispanism, but could find no time to make an extended journey through the cities of the United States, although offered lavish hospitality and considerable honorariums. How Brazil feels was seen a few years ago in Rio Janeiro, when Brazil was holding a national exposition. Each state of that great Republic had a building of its own, but no foreign nations were represented, except Portugal, the mother country, which had her own building.

Of the difficulties of establishing any kind of an alliance between ourselves and the South American republics no one who has traveled in South America can be ignorant. As has been well said by a recent Peruvian writer: ‘Essential points of difference separate the two Americas. Differences of language, and therefore of spirit; the difference between Spanish Catholicism and the multiform Protestantism of the AngloSaxons; between the Yankee individualism and the omnipotence of the State natural to the South. In their origin, as in their race, we find fundamental antagonisms; the evolution of the North is slow and obedient to the lessons of time, to the influences of custom; the history of the Southern peoples is full of revolution, rich with dreams of an unattainable perfection.’

One of the things which make it and will continue to make it difficult for us to treat fairly with our Southern neighbors is our racial prejudice against the half-breed. As Señor Calderon bluntly says: ‘Half-breeds and their descendants govern the LatinAmerican republics’; and it is a wellknown fact that this leads to contempt on the part of the average Anglo-Saxon. Such a slate of affairs shows the difficulty of assuming that Pan-Americanism is axiomatic, and of basing the logical growth of the Monroe Doctrine on ‘natural sympathy.’

In the third place, the new form of the Monroe Doctrine declared, in the words of Secretary Olney, that the ‘United States is practically sovereign on this continent.’ This at once aroused the antagonism and the fear of those very Southern neighbors who, in another sentence, he had endeavored to prove were ‘ friends and allies, commercially and politically, of the United States.’

Less than three years after the enunciation of the new Monroe Doctrine we were at war with Spain. The progress of the war in Cuba and the Spanish colonies was followed in South America with the keenest interest. How profoundly it would have surprised the great American public to realize that while we were spending blood and treasure to secure the independence of another American republic, our neighbors in Buenos Aires were indulging in the most severe and caustic criticism of our motives! This attitude can be appreciated only by those who have compared the cartoons published week after week, during the progress of the war, in this country and in Argentina. In the one, Uncle Sam is pictured as a benevolent giant, saving the poor maid Cuba from the jaws of the ferocious dragon, General Weyler, and his cruel mistress in Spain. In the other, Uncle Sam in the guise of a fat hog is engaged in besmirching the fair garments of the Queen of Spain in his violent efforts to gobble up her few American possessions. Representations of our actions in the Philippines are in such disgusting form that it would not be desirable to attempt to describe some of the Argentine cartoons touching upon that subject.

Our neighbors felt that a decided change had come over the Monroe Doctrine! In 1823 we had declared that ‘with the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered, and shall not interfere’ (so runs the original Monroe Doctrine). In 1898 we not only interfered, but actually took away all of Spain’s colonies and dependencies, freeing Cuba and retaining for ourselves Porto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.

Without for a moment wishing to enter into a discussion of the wisdom of our actions, I desire to emphasize the tremendous difference between the old and the new Monroe Doctrine. This is not a case of theories and arguments, but of deeds. What are the facts?

In 1895 we declare that we are practically sovereign on this continent; in 1898 we take a rich American island from a European power, and in 1903 we go through the form of preventing a South American republic from subduing a revolution in one of her distant provinces, and eventually take a strip of that province because we believe we owe it to the world to build the Panama Canal. Again, let it be clear that I am not interested at this point in defending or attacking our actions in any of these cases, — I merely desire to state what has happened, and to show some of the fruits of the new Monroe Doctrine. ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’

Another one of the ‘fruits’ which has not escaped the attention of our neighbors in South America is our intervention in Santo Domingo, which, although it may be an excellent thing for the people of that island, has undoubtedly interfered with their right to do as they please with their own money.

Furthermore, within the past three years we-have twice landed troops in Central America and taken an active part by way of interfering in local politics. We believed that the conditions were so bad as to justify us in carrying out the new Monroe Doctrine by aiding one side in a local revolution.

Of our armed intervention in Cuba it is scarcely necessary to speak, except to refer in passing to the newspaper story, credited and believed in Cuba, that if American troops are again obliged to intervene in the political life of that country, they will not be withdrawn as has been the practice in the past.

The menace of intervention, armed intervention, the threatened presence of machine guns and American marines, have repeatedly been used by Latin-American politicians in their endeavors to keep the peace in their own countries. And we have done enough of that sort of thing to make it evident to disinterested observers that the new Monroe Doctrine, our present policy, is to act as international policeman, or at least as an elder-brotherwith-a-big-stick, whenever the little fellows get too fresh.

Is this Doctrine worth while?

Let us see what it involves: first, from the European, second, from the Latin-American point of view.

II

By letting it be known in Europe that we shall not tolerate any European intervention or the landing of European troops on the sacred soil of the American republics, we assume all responsibility. We have declared, in the words of Secretary Olney, that the United States is ‘practically sovereign on this continent, and that its fiat is law upon the subject to which it confines its interposition.’ Therefore European countries have the right to look to us to do that which we prevent them from doing. A curious result of this is that some of the American republics float loans in Europe, believing that the United States will not allow the governments of their European creditors forcibly to collect these loans.

Personally, I believe that it ought to be an adopted principle of international law that the armed intervention of creditor nations to collect bad debts on behalf of their bankers and bondholders is forbidden. If this principle were clearly understood and accepted, these bankers and underwriters would be far more particular to whom they lent any great amount of money, and under what conditions. They would not be willing to take the risks which they now take, and many unfortunate financial tangles would never have a beginning. It is natural for a republic which has great undeveloped resources, much optimism, and a disregard of existing human handicaps, to desire to borrow large amounts of money in order to build expensive railroads and carry out desirable public improvements. It is equally natural that capitalists seeking good interest rates and secure investments, should depend on the fact that if the debtor country attempts to default on its national loans, the government of the creditors will intervene with a strong arm. It is natural that the money should be forthcoming, even though a thorough, business-like, and scientific investigation of the possessions and resources of the borrowing nation might show that the chances of her being able to pay interest, and eventually to return the capital, were highly problematical, and to be reckoned as very high risks.

Millions of dollars of such loans have been made in the past. It is perfectly evident that many of these loans cannot be repaid; that the time is coming when the creditor nations will look to us as the policeman, or ‘elder brother,’ of the Western Hemisphere, to see to it that the little boys pay for the candy and sweetmeats they have eaten. Is it worth while that we should do this?

One cannot dodge the truth that the continuation of our support of this Doctrine implies that we will undertake to be responsible for the good behavior of all of the American nations. If we are the big-brother-with-the-club who will not permit any outsider to spank our irritating or troublesome younger brothers, we must accept the natural corollary of keeping them in order ourselves, for we cannot allow the American family to become a nuisance. And some members of it have a decided tendency in that direction. Is this task worth while? Will it not cost more than it is worth? Is there not a better way out of the difficulty?

Furthermore Europe knows that in order to continue to execute our selfimposed and responsible mission we must run counter to the most approved principles of the law of nations.

The Right of Independence is so fundamental and so well established a principle of international law, and respect for it is so essential to the existence of national self-restraint, that, armed intervention, or any other action or policy tending to place that right in a subordinate position, is properly looked upon with disfavor, not only in Latin America, but by all the family of civilized nations. The grounds upon which intervention is permitted in international law differ according to the authority one consults. But in general they are limited to the right of selfpreservation, to averting danger to the intervening state, and to the duty of fulfilling engagements. When, however, the danger against which intervention is directed is the consequence of the prevalence of ideas which are opposed to the views held by the intervening state, most authorities believe that intervention ceases to be legitimate. To say that we have the right to intervene in order to modify another state’s attitude toward revolutions is to ignore the fundamental principle that the right of every state to live its life in a given way is precisely equal to that of another state to live its life in another way.

In the last analysis, no intervention is legal except for the purpose of selfpreservation, unless a breach of international law has taken place or unless the family of civilized states concur in authorizing it.

If, then, our adherence to the Monroe Doctrine means, practically, disregard of the principles of the accepted law of nations, is it worth while to continue? Why should we not abandon the Monroe Doctrine, and publicly disclaim any desire on our part to interfere in the domestic quarrels of our neighbors? Why should we not publicly state to Europe that we shall not intervene except at the request of a Pan-American Congress, and then only in case we are one of the members which such a Congress selects for the specific purpose of quieting a certain troublesome neighbor?

III

From the Latin-American point of view, the continuance of the Monroe Doctrine is insulting, and is bound to involve us in serious difficulties with our neighbors. We seem to be blind to actual conditions in the largest and most important parts of Latin America such as Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. We need to arouse the average citizen to study the commercial situation and the recent history of those three Republics. Let him ponder on the meaning of Brazil’s one hundred million dollars of balance of trade in her favor. Let him realize the enormous extent of Argentina’s recent growth and her ability to supply the world with wheat, corn, beef, and mutton.² Let him examine Chile’s political and economic stability. Let him ponder whether or not these nations are fit to take care of themselves, and are worthy of being included in an alliance to preserve America for the Americans, if that is worth while, and if there is any danger from Europe. Let him ask himself whether or not the ‘A B C’ powers, that is the Argentine, Brazilian, and Chilean governments, deserve our patronizing, we-will-protect-you-fromEurope attitude.

The fact is, we are woefully ignorant of the actual conditions in the leading American republics. To the inhabitants of those countries the very idea of the existence of the Monroe Doctrine is not only distasteful, but positively insulting. It is leading them on the road toward what is known as the ‘A B C’ policy, a kind of triple alliance between Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, with the definite object of opposing the encroachments of the United States. They feel that they must do something to counteract that well-known willingness of the American people to find good and sufficient reasons for interfering and intervening; for example, for taking Porto Rico from Spain, for sending armies into Cuba, for handling the customs receipts of Santo Domingo, for taking a strip of territory which (South Americans believe) belongs to the Republic of Colombia, for sending troops into Nicaragua, and for mobilizing an army on the Mexican frontier. (In regard to the latter point, it may be stated in passing that it is not the custom for South American nations to mobilize an army on a neighbor’s frontier merely because that country is engaged in civil war or revolution.)

To the ‘A B C’ powers, even the original Monroe Doctrine is regarded as long since outgrown, and as being at present merely a display of insolence and conceit on our part. With Brazil now owning the largest dreadnoughts in the world; with Argentina and Chile building equally good ones; with the fact that the European nations have long since lost their tendency toward monarchical despotism, and are in fact quite as democratic as many American republics, it does seem a bit ridiculous for us to pretend that the Monroe Doctrine is a necessary element, in our foreign policy.

If we still fear European aggression, and desire to prevent a partition of South America on the lines of the partition of Africa, let us bury the Monroe Doctrine and declare an entirely new policy, a policy that is based on intelligent appreciation of the present status of the leading American powers; let us declare our desire to join with the ‘ABC’ powers in protecting the weaker parts of America against any imaginable aggressions on the part of European or Asiatic nations.

Some people think that the most natural outlet for the crowded Asiatic nations is to be found in South America, and that Japan and China will soon be knocking most loudly for the admission which is at present denied them. If we decide that they should enter, well and good; but if we decide against such a policy, we shall be in a much stronger position to carry out that plan if we have united with the ‘A B C’ powers.

If these ‘A B C’ powers dislike and despise our maintenance of the old Monroe Doctrine, it is not difficult to conceive how much more they must resent the new one. The very thought that we, proud in the consciousness of our own self-righteousness, sit here with a smile on our faces and a big stick in our hands, ready to chastise any of the American republics that do not behave, fairly makes their blood boil. It may be denied that this is our attitude. Grant that it is not; still our neighbors believe that it is, and if we desire to convince them of the contrary, we must definitely and publicly abandon the Monroe Doctrine and enunciate a new kind of foreign policy.

We ought not to be blind to the fact that there are clever authors residing in Europe who take the utmost pains to make the Latin Americans believe — what they are unfortunately only too willing to believe — that we desire to be not only practically, but actually, sovereign on the Western Hemisphere. A recent French writer, Maurice de Waleffe, writing on ‘The Fair Land of Central America,’begins his book with this startling announcement of a discovery he has made: —

‘The United States have made up their mind to conquer South America. Washington aspires to become the capital of an enormous empire, comprising, with the exception of Canada, the whole of the New World. Eighty million Yankees want to annex, not only forty million Spanish Americans, but such mines, forests, and agricultural riches as can be found nowhere else on the face of the globe.'

Most of us, when we read those words, smile, knowing that they are not true; yet that does not affect the fact that the Latin American, when he reads them, gnashes his teeth and believes that they are only too true. If he belongs to one of the larger republics, it makes him toss his head angrily, and increases his hatred toward those ‘Yankis,’whose manners he despises. If he belongs to one of the smaller republics, his soul is filled with fear mingled with hatred, and he sullenly awaits the day when he shall have to defend his state against the Yankee invaders. In every case the effect produced is contrary to the spirit of peace and harmony.

In another book, which is attracting wide attention and was written by a young Peruvian diplomatist, there is a chapter entitled, ‘The North American Peril,’and it begins with these significant words: ‘To save themselves from Yankee imperialism, the American democracies would almost accept a German alliance, or the aid of Japanese arms; everywhere the Americans of the North are feared. In the Antilles and in Central America hostility against, the Anglo-Saxon invaders assumes the character of a Latin crusade.' This is a statement not of a theory but of a condition, set forth by a man who, while somewhat severe in his criticism of North American culture, is not unfriendly to the United States, and who remembers what his country owes to us. Yet he asserts that in the United States, ‘against the policy of respect for Latin liberties are ranged the instincts of a triumphant plutocracy.'

The strident protest in this book has not. gone out without finding a ready echo in South America. Even in Peru, long our best friend on the Southern Continent, the leading daily papers have during the past year shown an increasing tendency to criticize our actions and suspect our motives. Their suspicion goes so far as actually to turn friendly words against us. Last September a successful American diplomat, addressing a distinguished gathering of manufacturers in New York, was quoted all over South America as stating that the United States did not desire territorial expansion, but only commercial, and that the association should combat all idea of territorial expansion if any statesman proposed it, as this was the only way to gain the confidence of South America. This remark was treated as evidence of Machiavellian politics. One journalist excitedly exclaimed, ‘Who does not see in this paternal interest a brutal and cynical sarcasm? Who talks of confidence when one of the most thoughtful South American authorities, Francisco Garcia Calderon, gives us once more the cry, no longer premature, “let us be alert and on our guard against Yankeeism.”'

Even the agitation against the Putumayo atrocities is misunderstood. ‘To no one is it a secret,’ says one Latin-American writer, ‘that all these scandalous accusations only serve to conceal the vehement desire to impress American and English influence on the politics of the small countries of South America; and they can scarcely cover the shame of the utilitarian end that lies behind it all.'

Another instance of the attitude of the Latin-American press is shown in a recent article in one of the leading daily papers in Lima, the government organ. In the middle of its front page in a two-column space is an article with these headlines: ‘ NORTH AMERICAN EXCESSES7emdash; THE TERRIBLE LYNCHINGS — AND THEY TALK OF THE PUTUMAYO!’ The gist of the article may easily be imagined. It begins with these words: ‘While the Saxons of the world are producing a deafening cry over the crimes of the Putumayo, imagining them to be like a dance of death, and giving free rein to such imaginings; while the American Government resolves to send a commission that may investigate what atrocities are committed in those regions, there was published, as regards the United States, in La Razón of Buenos Aires a fortnight ago the following note, significant of the “ lofty civilization and high justice ” of the great Republic of the North.’ Here follows a press dispatch describing one of the terrible lynchings which only too often happen in the United States. Then the Peruvian editor goes on to say, ‘Do we realize that in the full twentieth century, when there is not left a single country in the world whose inhabitants are permitted to supersede justice by summary punishment, there are repeatedly taking place, almost daily, in the United States, lynchings like that of which we are told in the telegraphic dispatch?’

IV

Is it worth our while to heed the ‘writing on the wall?’

Is it not true that it is the present tendency of the Monroe Doctrine to claim that the United States is to do whatever seems to the United States good and proper so far as the Western Hemisphere is concerned? Is there not a dangerous tendency in our country to believe so far in our own rectitude, that we may be excused from any restrictions either in the law of nations, or in our treaty obligations, that seem unjust, trivial, or inconvenient, notwithstanding the established practices of civilized nations? Our attitude on the Panama tolls question, our former disregard of treaty rights with China, and our willingness to read into or read out of existing treaties whatever seems to us right and proper, have aroused deep-seated suspicion in our Southern neighbors which it seems to me we should endeavor to eradicate if we have our own highest good at heart.

Are we not too much in the state of mind of Citizen Fix-it, who was more concerned with suppressing the noisy quarrels of his neighbors than with quietly solving his own domestic difficulties? Could we see ourselves as our Southern neighbors see us in the columns of their daily press, where the emphasis is still on the prevalence of murder in the United States, the astonishing continuance of lynching, the freedom from punishment of the vast majority of those who commit murder, our growing disregard of the rights of others, bomb outrages, strikes, riots, labor difficulties, — could we see these things with their eyes, we should realize how bitterly they resent our assumed right to intervene when they misbehave themselves or when a local revolution becomes particularly noisy.

So firmly fixed in the Latin-American mind is the idea that our foreign policy to-day means intervention and interference, that comments on the splendid sanitary work being done at Panama by Colonel Gorgas are tainted with this idea.

On the West Coast of South America there is a pest-hole called Guayaquil, which, as Ambassador Bryce says, ‘ enjoys the reputation of being the pesthouse of the continent, rivaling for the prevalence and malignity of its malarial fevers such dens of disease as Fontesvilla on the Pungwe River in South Africa and the Guinea coast itself, and adding to these the more swift and deadly yellow fever, which has now been practically extirpated from every other part of South America except the banks of the Amazon . . . It seems to be high time that efforts should be made to improve conditions at a place whose development is so essential to the development of Ecuador itself.’ Recent efforts on the part of far-sighted Ecuadorian statesmen to remedy these conditions by employing American sanitary engineers and taking advantage of the offers of American capital, were received by the Ecuadorian populace so ill as to cause the fall of the Cabinet and the disgrace of the minister who favored such an experiment in modern sanitation.

Peru suffers from the conditions of bad health among her northern neighbors, and yet the leading newspapers in Peru, instead of realizing how much they had to gain by having Guayaquil cleaned up, united in protesting against this symptom of ‘Yanki’ imperialism, and applauded the action of the Ecuador mob.

Is it worth while to continue a foreign policy which makes it so difficult for things to be done, things of whose real advantage to our neighbors there is no question?

The old adage, that actions speak louder than words, is perhaps more true in Latin America than in the United States. A racial custom of saying pleasant things tends toward a suspicion of the sincerity of pleasant things when said. But there can be no doubt about actions. Latin-American statesmen smiled and applauded when Secretary Root, in the Pan-American Congress at Rio Janeiro, said, ‘We consider that the independence and the equal rights of the smallest and weakest members of the family of nations deserve as much respect as those of the great empires. We pretend to no right, privilege, or power that we do not freely concede to each one of the American Republics.’ But they felt that their suspicions of us were more than warranted by our subsequent actions in Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Nicaragua. Our ultimatum to Chile on account, of the long-standing Alsop claim seemed to them an unmistakably unfriendly act and was regarded as a virtual abandonment by Secretary Knox of the policy enunciated by Secretary Root.

Another unfriendly act was the neglect of our Congress to provide a suitable appropriation for the Second PanAmerican Scientific Congress.

Before 1908 Latin-American Scientific Congresses had been held in Argentina (Buenos Aires), Brazil (Rio Janeiro), and Uruguay (Montevideo). When it came Chile’s turn, so kind was her feeling toward Secretary Root, that the United States was asked to join in making the Fourth LatinAmerican Scientific Congress become the First Pan-American. Every one of the four countries where the international scientists met had made a suitable, generous appropriation to cover the expenses of the meeting. Chile had felt that it was worth while to make a very large appropriation in order suitably to entertain the delegates, to publish the results of the Congress, and to increase American friendships. This First Pan-American Scientific Congress selected Washington as the place for the Second Congress, and named October, 1912, as the appointed time for the meetings. But when our State Department asked Congress for a modest appropriation of fifty thousand dollars to meet our international obligations for this PanAmerican gathering, our billion-dollar Congress decided to economize and denied the appropriation. When the matter came up again during the Congress that has just finished its sessions, the appropriation was recommended by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, but was thrown out on a technical point of order.

Now, you cannot make a Latin American believe that the United States is so poor that it cannot afford to entertain International Scientific Congresses as Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Chile have done. They argue that there must be some other reason underlying this lack of courtesy. No pleasant words or profuse professions of friendship and regard can make the leading statesmen and scientists throughout Latin America forget that it was not possible to hold the Second Pan-American Scientific Congress because the United States did not care to assume her international obligations. Nor will they forget that Chile spent one hundred thousand dollars in entertaining the First Pan-American Scientific Congress and that the ten official delegates from the United States government enjoyed the bounteous Chilean hospitality and were shown every attention that was befitting and proper for the accredited representatives of the United States.

In short, here is a concrete case of how our present policy toward Latin America justifies the Latin-American attitude toward the country that has been maintaining the Monroe Doctrine.

V

Finally, there is another side to the question.

Some of the defenders of the Monroe Doctrine state quite frankly that they are selfish, and that from the selfish point of view, the Monroe Doctrine should at all costs be maintained. They argue that our foreign commerce would suffer were Europe permitted to have a free hand in South America. Even on this very point it seems to me that they make a serious mistake.

You can seldom sell goods to a man who dislikes you except, when you have something which is far better or cheaper than he can get anywhere else. Furthermore, if he distrusts you, he is not going to judge your goods fairly, or to view the world’s market with an unprejudiced eye. This can scarcely be denied. Everyone knows that a friendly smile or cordial greeting and the maintenance of friendly relations are essential to ‘holding one’s customers.’ Accordingly, it seems that even from this selfish point of view, which some Americans are willing to take, it is absolutely against our own interests to maintain this elder-brother-withthe-stick policy, which typifies the new Monroe Doctrine.

Furthermore, Germany is getting around the Monroe Doctrine, and is actually making a peaceful conquest of South America which will injure us just as much as if we had allowed her to make a military conquest of the Southern republics. She is winning South American friendship. She has planted colonies, one of which, in Southern Brazil, has three hundred and fifty thousand people in it, as large a population as that of Vermont, and nearly as large as that of Montana. Germany is taking pains to educate her young business men in the Spanish language, and to send them out equipped to capture Spanish-American trade. We have a saying that ‘Trade follows the flag.’ Germany has magnificent steamers, flying the German flag, giving fortnightly service to every important port in South America, — ports where the American flag is practically never seen. She has her banks and business houses which have branches in the interior cities. By their means she is able to keep track of American commerce, to know what we are doing, and at what rates. Laughing in her sleeve at the Monroe Doctrine as an antiquated policy, which only makes it easier for her to do a safe business, Germany is engaged in the peaceful conquest of Spanish America.

To be sure, we are not standing still, and we are fighting for the same trade that she is, but our soldiers are handicapped by the presence of the very doctrine that was intended to strengthen our position in the New World. Is this worth while?

At all events let us face clearly and frankly the fact that the maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine is going to cost the United States an immense amount of trouble, money, and men.

Carried out to its logical conclusion, it means a policy of suzerainty and interference which will earn us the increasing hatred of our neighbors, the dissatisfaction of Europe, the loss of commercial opportunities and the forfeiture of time and attention which would much better be given to settling our own difficult internal problems. The continuance of adherence to the Monroe Doctrine offers opportunities to scheming statesmen to distract public opinion from the necessity of concentrated attention at home, by arousing mingled feelings of jingoism and self-importance in attempting to correct the errors of our neighbors.

If we persist in maintaining the Monroe Doctrine, we shall find that its legitimate, rational, and logical growth will lead us to an increasing number of large expenditures, where American treasure and American blood will be sacrificed in efforts to remove the mote from our neighbor’s eye while overlooking the beam in our own.

The character of the people who inhabit the tropical American republics is such, the percentage of Indian blood is so great, the little-understood difficulties of life in those countries are so far-reaching, and the psychological tendencies of the people so different from our own, that opportunities will continually arise which will convince us that they require our intervention if we continue to hold to the tenets of the Monroe Doctrine.

It is for us to face the question fairly, and to determine whether it is worth while to continue any longer on a road which leads to such great expenditures, and which means the loss of international friendships.

That international good will is a desideratum, it needs no words of mine to prove to any one. Looked at from every point of view, selfishly and unselfishly, ethically, morally, commercially, and diplomatically, we desire to live at peace with our neighbors and to promote international friendship. Can this be done by continuing our adherence to the Monroe Doctrine?

From the unselfish point of view, and from the point of view of the world’s peace and happiness, there seems to be no question that the Monroe Doctrine is no longer worth while. Mr. Bryce, in an able exposition in his recent South America, has clearly pointed out that the Spanish American’s regard for the United States, and his confidence in its purposes, have never even recovered from the blow given by the Mexican War of 1846, and the annexation of California. For many years, a political tie between ourselves and the other American Republics was found, says Mr. Bryce, in our declared intention ‘to resist any attempt by European Powers either to overthrow republican government in any American state or to attempt annexation of its territory. So long as any such action was feared from Europe, the protection thus promised was welcome, and the United States felt a corresponding interest in their clients. But circumstances alter cases. To-day, when apprehensions of the old kind have vanished, and when some of the South American States feel themselves already powerful, one is told that they have begun to regard the situation with different eyes. “Since there are no longer rainclouds coming up from the east, why should a friend, however well-intentioned, insist on holding an umbrella over us? We are quite able to do that for ourselves if necessary.”’ Mr. Bryce continues: ‘It. is as the disinterested, the absolutely disinterested and unselfish, advocate of peace and good will, that the United States will have most influence in the Western Hemisphere, and that influence, gently and tactfully used, may be of incalculable service to mankind.'

Old ideas, proverbs, catchwords, national shibboleths, die hard. No part of our foreign policy has ever been so continuously held and so popularly accepted as the Monroe Doctrine. Hoary with age, it has defied the advance of commerce, the increase of transportation facilities, and the subjugation of the yellow-fever mosquito. Based on a condition that has long since disappeared, owing its later growth and development to mistaken ideas, it appears to our South American neighbors to be neither disinterested nor unselfish, but rather an indisputable evidence of our overweening national conceit. The very words ‘Monroe Doctrine’ are fraught with a disagreeable significance from our neighbors’ point of view. There is no one single thing, nor any group of things, that we could do to increase the chances of peace and harmony in the Western Hemisphere comparable with the definite statement that we have outgrown the Monroe Doctrine, that we realize that our neighbors in the New World are well able to take care of themselves, and that we shall not interfere in their politics or send arms into their territory, unless cordially invited to do so, and then only in connection with, and by the coöperation of, other members of the family.

If it is necessary to maintain order in some of the weaker and more restless republics, why not let the decision be made, not by ourselves, but by a Congress of the leading American powers? If it is found necessary to send armed forces into Central America to quell rebellions that are proving too much for the recognized governments, why not let those forces consist not solely of American marines, but of the marines of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile as well? In some such way

as this we can convince ‘ the other Americans’ of our good faith, and of the fact that we have not ‘made up our minds to conquer South America.' By adopting a foreign policy along these lines we can establish on a broad and solid foundation the relations of international peace and good will for which the time is ripe, but which cannot arrive till we are convinced that the Monroe Doctrine is not worth while.