Failure to recognize that the American, is at heart an idealist is
to lack understanding of our national character. Two of our greatest
interpreters proclaimed it, Emerson and William James. In a recent
address at the Paris Sorbonne on “American Idealism,” M. Firmin Roz
observed that a people is rarely justly estimated by its contemporaries.
The French, he says, have been celebrated chiefly for the skill of their
chefs and their vaudeville actors, while in the disturbed ‘speculum
mundi’ Americans have appeared as a collection of money grabbers whose
philosophy is the dollar. It remained for the war to reveal the true
nature of both peoples. The American colonists, M. Roz continues, unlike
other colonists, were animated not by material motives, but by the
desire to safeguard and realize an ideal; our inherent characteristic
today is a belief in the virtue and power of ideas, of a national,
indeed, of a universal, mission. In the Eighteenth Century we proposed
a Philosophy and adopted a Constitution far in advance of the political
practice of the day, and set up a government of which Europe predicted
the early downfall. Nevertheless, thanks partly to good fortune, and
to the farseeing wisdom of our early statesmen who perceived that the
success of our experiment depended upon the maintenance of an isolation
from European affairs, we established democracy as a practical form of
government.
We have not always lived up to our beliefs in ideas. In our dealings
with other nations, we yielded often to imperialistic ambitions and
thus, to a certain extent, justified the cynicism of Europe. We took
what we wanted--and more. From Spain we seized western Florida; the
annexation of Texas and the subsequent war with Mexico are acts upon
which we cannot look back with unmixed democratic pride; while more than
once we professed a naive willingness to fight England in order to
push our boundaries further north. We regarded the Monroe Doctrine as
altruistic, while others smiled. But it suited England, and her sea
power gave it force.
Our war with Spain in 1898, however, was fought for an idea, and,
despite the imperialistic impulse that followed it, marks a transition,
an advance, in international ethics. Imperialistic cynics were not
lacking to scoff at our protestation that we were fighting Spain in
order to liberate Cuba; and yet this, for the American people at large,
was undoubtedly the inspiration of the war. We kept our promise, we did
not annex Cuba, we introduced into international affairs what is known
as the Big Brother idea. Then came the Platt Amendment. Cuba was free,
but she must not wallow near our shores in an unhygienic state, or
borrow money without our consent. We acquired valuable naval bases.
Moreover, the sudden and unexpected acquisition of Porto Rico and the
Philippines made us imperialists in spite of ourselves.
Nations as well as individuals, however, must be judged by their
intentions. The sound public opinion of our people has undoubtedly
remained in favour of ultimate self-government for the Philippines, and
the greatest measure of self-determination for little Porto Rico; it has
been unquestionably opposed to commercial exploitation of the islands,
desirous of yielding to these peoples the fruits of their labour in
developing the resources of their own lands. An intention, by the
way, diametrically different from that of Germany. In regard to our
protectorate in the island of San Domingo, our “semi-protectorate” in
Nicaragua, the same argument of intention may fairly be urged. Germany,
who desired them, would have exploited them. To a certain extent, no
doubt, as a result of the momentum of commercial imperialism, we are
still exploiting them. But the attitude of the majority of Americans
toward more backward peoples is not cynical; hence there is hope that a
democratic solution of the Caribbean and Central American problem may
be found. And we are not ready, as yet, to accept without further
experiment the dogma that tropical and sub-tropical people will not
ultimately be able to govern themselves. If this eventually, prove to be
the case at least some such experiment as the new British Labour Party
has proposed for the Empire may be tried. Our general theory that the
exploitation of foreign peoples reacts unfavourably on the exploiters is
undoubtedly sound.
Nor are the ethics of the manner of our acquisition of a part of Panama
and the Canal wholly defensible from the point of view of international
democracy. Yet it must be remembered that President Roosevelt was
dealing with a corrupt, irresponsible, and hostile government, and that
the Canal had become a necessity not only for our own development, but
for that of the civilization of the world.
The Spanish War, as has been said, marked a transition, a development
of the American Idea. In obedience to a growing perception that dominion
and exploitation are incompatible with and detrimental to our system of
government, we fought in good faith to gain self-determination for an
alien people. The only real peril confronting democracy is the arrest
of growth. Its true conquests are in the realms of ideas, and hence it
calls for a statesmanship which, while not breaking with the past, while
taking into account the inherent nature of a people, is able to deal
creatively with new situations--always under the guidance of current
social science.
Woodrow Wilson’s Mexican policy, being a projection of the American Idea
to foreign affairs, a step toward international democracy, marks the
beginning of a new era. Though not wholly understood, though opposed by
a powerful minority of our citizens, it stirred the consciousness of a
national mission to which our people are invariably ready to respond.
Since it was essentially experimental, and therefore not lacking in
mistakes, there was ample opportunity for a criticism that seemed at
times extremely plausible. The old and tried method of dealing with such
anarchy as existed across our southern border was made to seem the safe
one; while the new, because it was untried, was presented as disastrous.
In reality, the reverse was the case.
Mr. Wilson’s opponents were, generally speaking, the commercial classes
in the community, whose environment and training led them to demand
a foreign policy similar to that of other great powers, a financial
imperialism which is the logical counterpart in foreign affairs of the
commercial exploitation of domestic national resources and domestic
labour. These were the classes which combated the growth of democracy at
home, in national and state politics. From their point of view--not
that of the larger vision--they were consistent. On the other hand, the
nation grasped the fact that to have one brand of democracy at home and
another for dealing with foreign nations was not only illogical but, in
the long run, would be suicidal to the Republic. And the people at large
were committed to democratic progress at home. They were struggling for
it.
One of the most important issues of the American liberal movement early
in this century had been that for the conservation of what remains
of our natural resources of coal and metals and oil and timber and
waterpower for the benefit of all the people, on the theory that these
are the property of the people. But if the natural resources of this
country belong to the people of the United States, those of Mexico
belong to the people of Mexico. It makes no difference how “lazy,”
ignorant, and indifferent to their own interests the Mexicans at present
may be. And even more important in these liberal campaigns was the issue
of the conservation of human resources--men and women and children who
are forced by necessity to labour. These must be protected in health,
given economic freedom and a just reward for their toil. The American
democracy, committed to the principle of the conservation of domestic
natural and human resources, could not without detriment to itself
persist in a foreign policy that ignored them. For many years our
own government had permitted the squandering of these resources by
adventurous capitalists; and gradually, as we became a rich industrial
nation, these capitalists sought profitable investments for their
increasing surplus in foreign lands. Their manner of acquiring
“concessions” in Mexico was quite similar to that by which they had
seized because of the indifference and ignorance of our own people--our
own mines and timber lands which our government held in trust. Sometimes
these American “concessions” have been valid in law though the law
itself violated a democratic principle; more often corrupt officials
winked at violations of the law, enabling capitalists to absorb bogus
claims.
The various rulers of Mexico sold to American and other foreign
capitalists the resources belonging to the people of their country, and
pocketed, with their followers, the proceeds of the sale. Their control
of the country rested upon force; the stability of the Diaz rule,
for instance, depended upon the “President’s” ability to maintain his
dictatorship--a precarious guarantee to the titles he had given. Hence
the premium on revolutions. There was always the incentive to the
upstart political and military buccaneer to overthrow the dictator and
gain possession of the spoils, to sell new doubtful concessions and levy
new tribute on the capitalists holding claims from a former tyrant.
The foreign capitalists appealed to their governments; commercial
imperialism responded by dispatching military forces to protect the
lives and “property” of its citizens, in some instances going so far as
to take possession of the country. A classic case, as cited by Hobson,
is Britain’s South African War, in which the blood and treasure of the
people of the United Kingdom were expended because British capitalists
had found the Boers recalcitrant, bent on retaining their own country
for themselves. To be sure, South Africa, like Mexico is rich in
resources for which advancing civilization continually makes demands.
And, in the case of Mexico, the products of the tropics, such as rubber,
are increasingly necessary to the industrial powers of the temperate
zone. On the other hand, if the exploiting nation aspire to
self-government, the imperialistic method of obtaining these products
by the selfish exploitation of the natural and human resources of the
backward countries reacts so powerfully on the growth of democracy at
home--and hence on the growth of democracy throughout the world--as to
threaten the very future of civilization. The British Liberals, when
they came into power, perceived this, and at once did their best to
make amends to South Africa by granting her autonomy and virtual
independence, linking her to Britain by the silken thread of Anglo-Saxon
democratic culture. How strong this thread has proved is shown by the
action of those of Dutch blood in the Dominion during the present war.
Eventually, if democracy is not to perish from the face of the earth,
some other than the crude imperialistic method of dealing with backward
peoples, of obtaining for civilization the needed resources of their
lands, must be inaugurated--a democratic method. And this is perhaps
the supreme problem of democracy today. It demands for its solution a
complete reversal of the established policy of imperialism, a new theory
of international relationships, a mutual helpfulness and partnership
between nations, even as democracy implies cooperation between
individual citizens. Therefore President Wilson laid down the doctrine
that American citizens enter Mexico at their own risk; that they must
not expect that American blood will be shed or the nation’s money be
expended to protect their lives or the “property” they have acquired
from Mexican dictators. This applies also to the small capitalists,
the owners of the coffee plantations, as well as to those Americans in
Mexico who are not capitalists but wage earners. The people of Mexico
are entitled to try the experiment of self-determination. It is an
experiment, we frankly acknowledge that fact, a democratic experiment
dependent on physical science, social science, and scientific education.
The other horn of the dilemma, our persistence in imperialism, is even
worse--since by such persistence we destroy ourselves.
A subjective judgment, in accordance with our own democratic standards,
by the American Government as to the methods employed by a Huerta, for
instance, is indeed demanded; not on the ground, however, that such
methods are “good” or “bad”; but whether they are detrimental to Mexican
self-determination, and hence to the progress of our own democracy.