security of the United States and of their peaceful isolation, has
to-day not the slightest validity; on the contrary, it is the
superstitious faith in this doctrine which might conceivably endanger
the peace of the country. Of course, this is only in so far as the
doctrine applies to South America, not to Central America. It would
indeed be impossible for the United States to allow, say Cuba, in
passing from Spanish hands, to come into possession of another European
nation; in fact, no part of Central America could become the seat of new
European colonies without soon becoming a seat of war. The construction
of the canal across the isthmus confirms and insures the moral and
political leadership of the United States in Central America and the
Antilles. But the situation is quite different in South America. The
Americans are too apt to forget that Europe is much nearer to the United
States than, for instance, the Argentine Republic, and that if one wants
to go from New York to the Argentine Republic, the quickest way to go is
by way of Europe. And the United States have really very little
industrial intercourse or sympathy with the Latin republics. A European
power adjoins the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean;
and the fact that England, at one time their greatest enemy, abuts along
this whole border has never threatened the peace of the United States;
but it is supposed to be an instant calamity if Italy or England or
Holland gets hold of a piece of land far away in South America, in
payment of debts or to ensure the safety of misused colonists.
So long as the United States were small and weak, this exaggerated fear
of unknown developments was intelligible; but now that the country is
large and strong, and the supposed contrast between the Old and New
Worlds no longer exists, since the United States are much more nearly
like the countries of Europe than like the South American republics, any
argument for the Monroe Doctrine on the ground of misgivings or fear
comes to be downright hysterical. In the present age of ocean cables,
geographical distances disappear. The American deals with the
Philippines as if they were before his door, although they are much
farther from Washington than any South American country is from Europe.
Occasions for dispute with European countries may, on the other hand,
come up at any time without the slightest reference to South America,
since the United States have now become an international power; it
requires merely an objectionable refusal to admit imports, some
diplomatic mishap, or some unfairness in a matter of tariff.
If, on the other hand, the European countries were to have colonies in
South America, as they have in Africa, no more occasions for complaint
or dissatisfaction would accrue to the United States than from the
similar colonies in Africa. No Russian or French or Italian colony in
South America would ever in the world give rise to a difficulty with the
United States through any real opposition of interests, and could only
do so because a doctrine forbidding such colonies, which had been
adopted under quite different circumstances, was still bolstered up and
defended. If the Monroe Doctrine were to-day to be applied no farther
than Central America, and South America were to be exempted, the
possibilities of a conflict with European powers would be considerably
decreased. That which was meant originally to guarantee peace, has,
under the now wholly altered conditions, become the greatest menace of
war.
But the main point is not that the motives which first led to the Monroe
Doctrine are to-day invalid; the highest interests of the United States
demand that this moribund doctrine be definitely given up. In the first
place, it was never doubted that the exclusion of the Old World
countries from the new American continents was only the conclusion of a
premise, to the effect that the Americans themselves proposed to confine
their political interests to their own continent. That was a wise policy
in the times of Washington and Monroe; and whether or not it would have
been wise in the time of McKinley, it was in any case at that time
thrown over. The Americans have united with the European forces to do
battle in China; they have extended their own dominion toward Asia; they
have sent men-of-war to Europe on political missions; in short, the
Americans have for years been extending their political influence around
the world, and Secretary Hay has for a long time played an influential
part in the European concert of powers. The United States have too often
defended their Monroe claim on the ground of their own aloofness from
these powers to feel justified in urging the claim when they no longer
do keep aloof.
There is another and more important consideration. The real interest of
the United States with regard to South America is solely that that land
shall develop as far as possible, that its enormous treasures shall be
exploited, and that out of a prosperous commercial continent important
trade advantages shall accrue to the United States. This is possible
only by the establishment of order there—the instant termination of
anarchy. As long as the Monroe Doctrine is so unnecessarily held to, the
miserable and impolitic stagnation of that ravaged country can never be
bettered, since all the consequences of that doctrine work just in the
opposite direction. It is sufficiently clear that progress will not be
made until fresh, healthy, enterprising forces come in from outside; but
now so soon as an Englishman or German or other European undertakes to
earn his livelihood there, he is at once exposed to the shameless
extortion and other chicanery of the so-called governments. And when
European capital wishes to help the development of these countries, it
is given absolutely no protection against their wretched politics. And
all this is merely because the chartered rascals in power know that they
can kill and steal with impunity, so long as the sacred Monroe Doctrine
is there, like an enchanted wall, between them and the mother countries
of their victims; they know only too well that no evil can come to them,
since the statesmen at Washington are bound down to a prejudice, and
required scrupulously to protect every hair on their precious heads. All
this prevents any infusion of good blood from coming into these
countries, and so abandons the land entirely to the indolence of its
inhabitants. The conditions would be economically sounder, in almost
every part of South America, if more immigrants came in, and more
especially if those that came could take a larger part in the
governments.
It would be somewhat different if the United States were to admit, as a
consequence of the Monroe Doctrine, its own responsibility for the
public administration of these countries, for their debts and for
whatever crimes they commit; in other words, if the United States were
virtually to annex South America. There is no thought of this; the
United States have recently, in the Venezuela matter, clearly declined
all responsibility. If, while declining the responsibility, the United
States persist in affirming the Monroe Doctrine, they are to be charged
inevitably with helping on anarchy, artificially holding back the
progress of one of the richest and least developed portions of the
earth, and thereby hurting their own commercial outlook more than any
European protective tariff could possibly do. The greater part Europe
takes in South America, so much the more will trade and commerce
prosper; and in this pioneer labour, as history has shown, the patient
German is the best advance-agent. Almost all the commercial relations
between the United States and the South American republics are meditated
by European, and especially German, business houses. The trade of the
United States with South America is to-day astonishingly small, but when
finally the Monroe barrier falls away it will develop enormously.
In all this America has not, from its previous policy, derived even the
modest advantage of endearing itself to the inhabitants of these South
American republics. Quite on the contrary, the Monroe Doctrine sounds
like the ring of a sword in the South American ear. The American of the
south is too vividly reminded that, although the province of the United
States is after all only a finite portion of the New World, the nation
has, nevertheless, set itself up as the master of both continents; and
the natural consequence is, that all the small and weak countries join
forces against the one great country and brood continually over their
mistrust. The attempts of the United States to win the sympathies of the
rest of America have brought no very great results—since, in the States,
sympathy has been tempered with contempt, and in South America with
fear. In short, the unprejudiced American must come back every time to
the _ceterum censeo_ that the Monroe Doctrine must finally be given up.
One point, however, must always be emphasized—that all the motives
speaking against the doctrine will be efficient only so far as they
appeal to the soul of the American people, and overthrow there the
economically suicidal Monroe Doctrine. On the other hand, Europe would
gain nothing by trying to tear in pieces the sacred parchment; no
possible European interest in South America would compare in importance
with the loss of friendship of the United States. And so long as the
overwhelming majority of Americans holds to its delusions, the hostility
would be a very bitter one. Indeed, there would be no surer way of
stopping the gradual abandonment of the doctrine than for Europe to
attempt to dispute its validity.
The process of dissolution must take place in America; but the natural
interest and needs of the country so demand this development that it may
be confidently expected. A new time has come: the provinciality of the
Monroe Doctrine no longer does for America as a world power, and events
follow their logical development; the time will not be long before the
land of the Stars and Stripes will have extended across Western Canada
to Alaska, and have annexed the whole of Central America; while the
Latin republics of South America, on the other hand, will have been
sprinkled in with English, Italian, French, and German colonies; and
most of all, those republics themselves, by the lapse of the Monroe
Doctrine, will have been won over to law and order, progress and
economic health. The United States are too sound and too idealistic to
continue to oppose the demands of progress for the sake of a mere
fetish.
Thus the dominion of this world power will grow. The influence of the
Army, and even more of the Navy, will help in this growth; even if the
dreams of Captain Hobson are not realized. To be sure, the dangers will
also grow apace; with a great navy comes the desire to use it.
Nevertheless, one must not overlook the fact that international politics
are much less a subject of public thought and discussion in America than
in Europe. For the American thinks firstly of internal politics, and
secondly of internal politics, and lastly of internal politics; and only
at some distant day does he plan to meditate on foreign affairs. Unless
the focus of public attention is distinctly transferred, the idea of
expansion will meet with sufficient resistance to check its undue
growth.
There is specially a thorough-going distrust of militarism, and an
instinctive fear that it works against democracy and favours despotism;
and there is, indeed, no doubt that the increasingly important relations
between this country and foreign powers put more authority into the
hands of the Presidential and Senatorial oligarchy than the general
public likes to see. Every slightest concealment on the part of the
President or his Cabinet goes against the feelings of the nation, and
this state of feeling will hardly alter; it comes from the depths of the
American character. On the other hand, it is combined with a positive
belief in the moral mission of the United States, which are destined to
gain their world-wide influence, not by might, but by the force of
exemplary attainment, of complete freedom, admirable organization, and
hard work. Any one who observes the profound sources of this belief will
be convinced that any different feelings in the public soul, any greed
of power, and any imperialistic instincts, are only a passing
intoxication. In its profoundest being, America is a power for peace and
for ethical ideals.
PART TWO
ECONOMIC LIFE
CHAPTER ELEVEN
_The Spirit of Self-Initiative_
“The spirit aids! from anxious scruples freed, I write, ‘In the
beginning was the deed!’” Others might write: In the beginning was the
inexhaustible wealth of the soil; and still others, if their memory is
short, might be tempted to say: In the beginning were the trusts! One
who wishes to understand the almost fabulous economic development of the
United States must, indeed, not simply consider its ore deposits and
gold mines, its coal and oil fields, its wheat lands and cotton
districts, its great forests and the supplies of water. The South
Americans live no less in a country prospered by nature, and so also do
the Chinese. South Africa offers entirely similar conditions to those of
the North American continent, and yet its development has been a very
different one; and, finally, a consideration of the peculiar forms of
American industrial organization, as, for instance, the trusts, reveals
merely symptoms and not the real causes which have been at work.
The colossal industrial successes, along with the great evils and
dangers which have come with them, must be understood from the make-up
of the American character. Just as we have traced the political life of
America back to a powerful instinct for self-determination, the free
self-guidance of the individual, so we shall here find that it is the
instinct for free self-initiative which has set in motion this
tremendous economic fly-wheel. The pressure to be up and doing has
opened the earth, tilled the fields, created industries, and developed
such technical skill as to-day may even dream of dominating the world.
But to grant that the essentials of such movements are not to be found
in casual external circumstances, but must lie in the mental make-up of
the nation, might lead in this case to ascribing the chief influence to
quite a different mental trait. The average European, permeated as he is
with Old World culture, is, in fact, convinced that this intense
economic activity is the simple result of unbounded greed. The search
for gold and the pursuit of the dollar, we often hear, have destroyed in
the American soul every finer ambition; and since the American has no
higher desire for culture, he is free to chase his mammon with
undisguised and shameless greed. The barbarity of his soul, it is said,
gives him a considerable economic advantage over others who have some
heart as well as a pocket-book, and whose feelings incline to the
humane.
Whether such a contemptuous allegation is a useful weapon in the
economic struggle, is not here in question. One who desires to
understand the historical development of events in the New World is
bound to see in all such talk nothing but distortion, and to realize
that Europe could face its own economic future with less apprehension if
it would estimate the powers of its great competitor more temperately
and justly, and would ask itself honestly if it could not learn a thing
or two here and there.
Merely to ape American doings would, in the end, avail nothing; that
which proceeds from intellectual and temperamental traits can be
effectively adopted by others only if they can acquire the same traits.
It is useless to organize similar factories or trusts without imitating
in every respect the men who first so organized themselves. Whether this
last is necessary, he alone can say who has understood his neighbours at
their best, and I has not been contented to make a merely thoughtless
and uncharitable judgment. A magnificent economic life such as that of
America can never spring from impure ethical motives, and the person is
very naïve who supposes that a great business was ever built up by mere
impudence, deception, and advertising. Every merchant knows that even
advertisements benefit only a solid business, and that they run a bad
one into the ground. And it is still more naïve to suppose that the
economic strength of America has been built up through underhanded
competition without respect to law or justice, and impelled by nothing
but a barbarous and purely material ambition. One might better believe
that the twenty-story office buildings on lower Broadway are supported
merely by the flagstones in the street; in point of fact, no mere
passer-by who does not actually see the foundations of such colossal
structures can have an idea of how deep down under the soil these
foundations go in order to find bed-rock. Just so the colossal fabric of
American industry is able to tower so high only because it has its
foundation on the hard rock of honest conviction.
In the first place, we might look into the American’s greed for gold. A
German observes immediately that the American does not prize his
possessions much unless he has worked for them himself; of this there
are innumerable proofs, in spite of the opposite appearances on the
surface. One of the most interesting of these is the absence of the
bridal dower. In Germany or France, the man looks on a wealthy marriage
as one of the most reliable means of getting an income; there are whole
professions which depend on a man’s eking out his entirely inadequate
salary from property which he inherits or gets by marriage; and the
eager search for a handsome dowry—in fact, the general commercial
character of marriage in reputable European society everywhere—always
surprises Americans. They know nothing of such a thing at home. Even
when the parents of the bride are prosperous, it is unusual for a young
couple to live beyond the means of the husband. Everywhere one sees the
daughters of wealthy families stepping into the modest homes of their
husbands, and these husbands would feel it to be a disgrace to depend on
their prosperous fathers-in-law. An actual dowry received from the
bride’s parents during their lifetime is virtually unknown. Another
instance of American contempt for unearned wealth, which especially
contrasts with European customs, is the disapproval which the American
always has for lotteries. If he were really bent on getting money, he
would find the dower and the lottery a ready means; whereas, in fact,
the lottery is not only in all its forms forbidden by law, but public
opinion wholly disapproves of games of chance. The President of Harvard
University, in a public address given a short time since, in which he
spoke before a large audience of the change in moral attitude, was able
to give a striking illustration of the transformation in the fact that
two generations ago the city of Boston conducted a lottery, in order to
raise money for rebuilding a university structure which had been
destroyed by fire. He showed vividly how such a transaction would be
entirely unthinkable to-day, and how all American feelings would revolt
at raising money for so good a cause as an educational institution by so
immoral a means as a public lottery. The entire audience received this
as a matter of course, apparently without a suspicion as to how many
cathedrals are being built in Europe to-day from tickets at half a
dollar. It was amusing to observe how Carnegie’s friend, Schwab, who had
been the greatly admired manager of the steel works, fell in public
esteem when news came from the Riviera that he was to be seen at the
gaming-tables of Monaco. The true American despises any one who gets
money without working for it. Money is not the thing which is
considered, but the manner of getting it. This is what the American
cares for, and he prizes the gold he gets primarily as an indication of
his ability.
At first sight it looks as if this disinclination to gambling were not
to be taken seriously. It would signify nothing that the police discover
here and there a company of gamblers who have barricaded the door; but a
European might say that there is another sort of speculative fever which
is very prevalent. Even Americans on the stock exchange often say, with
a smile: We are a gambling nation; and from the point of view of the
broker it would be so. He sees how all classes of people invest in
speculative securities, and how the public interests itself in shares
which are subject to the greatest fluctuations; how the cab-driver and
the hotel waiter pore nervously over the quotations, and how new mining
stocks and industrial shares are greedily bought by school teachers and
commercial clerks. The broker sees in this the people’s desire for
gambling, because he is himself thoroughly aware of the great risks
which are taken, and knows that the investors can see only a few of the
factors which determine prices.
But in the public mind all this buying and selling looks very different.
The small man, investing a few dollars in such doubtful certificates,
never thinks of himself as a gambler; he thinks that he understands the
market; he is not trusting to luck, but follows the quotations day by
day for a long time, and asks his friends for “tips,” until he is
convinced that his own discretion and cunning will give him an
advantage. If he were to think of his gain as matter of chance, as the
broker thinks it is, he would not only not invest his money, but would
be no longer attracted by the transactions. And whenever he loses, he
still goes on, believing that he will be able the next time to figure
out the turn of the market more accurately.
The same is true of the wagers which the Anglo-Saxon is always making,
because he loves excitement. For him a wager is not a true wager when it
is merely a question of chance. Both sides make calculations, and have
their special considerations which they believe will determine the
outcome, and the winner feels his gain to be earned by his shrewdness.
An ordinary game of chance does not attract the American—a fact which
may be seen even in the grotesque game of poker. In a certain sense, the
American’s aversion to tipping servants reveals, perhaps, the same
trait. The social inferiority which he feels to be implied in the
acceptance of a fee, goes against the self-respect of the individual;
but there is the additional disinclination here to receiving money which
is not strictly earned.
There are positive traits corresponding to these negative ones; and
especially among them may be noticed the use to which money is put after
it is gotten. If the American were really miserly, he would not
distribute his property with such a free hand. Getting money excites
him, but keeping it is less interesting, and one sees not seldom the
richest men taking elaborate precautions that only a small part of their
money shall fall to their children, because they think that the
possession of money which is not self-earned is not a blessing. From
these motives one may understand at once the magnificent generosity
shown toward public enterprises.
Public munificence cannot well be gauged by statistics, and especially
not in America. Most of the gifts are made quietly, and of course the
small gifts which are never heard about outweigh the larger ones; and,
nevertheless, one can have a fair idea of American generosity by
considering only the large gifts made for public ends. If we consider
only the gifts of money which are greater than one thousand dollars, and
which go to public institutions, we have in the year 1903 the pretty sum
of $76,935,000. There can be no doubt that all the gifts under one
thousand dollars would make an equal sum.