It was a favorite conviction of Theodore Roosevelt that neither an
individual nor a nation can possess rights which do not carry with them
duties. Not long after the Venezuelan incident--in which the right
of the United States, as set forth in the Monroe Doctrine, to prevent
European powers from occupying territory in the Western Hemisphere was
successfully upheld--an occasion arose nearer home not only to insist
upon rights but to assume the duties involved. In a message to the
Senate in February, 1905, Roosevelt thus outlined his conception of the
dual nature of the Monroe Doctrine:
"It has for some time been obvious that those who profit by the Monroe
Doctrine must accept certain responsibilities along with the rights
which it confers, and that the same statement applies to those who
uphold the doctrine.... An aggrieved nation can, without interfering
with the Monroe Doctrine, take what action it sees fit in the adjustment
of its disputes with American states, provided that action does not
take the shape of interference with their form of government or of the
despoilment of their territory under any disguise. But short of this,
when the question is one of a money claim, the only way which remains
finally to collect it is a blockade or bombardment or seizure of the
custom houses, and this means... what is in effect a possession, even
though only a temporary possession, of territory. The United States then
becomes a party in interest, because under the Monroe Doctrine it cannot
see any European power seize and permanently occupy the territory of
one of these republics; and yet such seizure of territory, disguised
or undisguised, may eventually offer the only way in which the power in
question can collect its debts, unless there is interference on the part
of the United States."
Roosevelt had already found such interference necessary in the case of
Germany and Venezuela. But it had been interference in a purely negative
sense. He had merely insisted that the European power should not occupy
American territory even temporarily. In the later case of the Dominican
Republic he supplemented this negative interference with positive
action based upon his conviction of the inseparable nature of rights and
obligations.
Santo Domingo was in its usual state of chronic revolution. The stakes
for which the rival forces were continually fighting were the custom
houses, for they were the only certain sources of revenue and their
receipts were the only reliable security which could be offered to
foreign capitalists in support of loans. So thoroughgoing was the
demoralization of the Republic's affairs that at one time there were
two rival "governments" in the island and a revolution going on against
each. One of these governments was once to be found at sea in a small
gunboat but still insisting that, as the only legitimate government,
it was entitled to declare war or peace or, more particularly, to make
loans. The national debt of the Republic had mounted to $32,280,000 of
which some $22,000,000 was owed to European creditors. The interest due
on it in the year 1905 was two and a half million dollars. The whole
situation was ripe for intervention by one or more European governments.
Such action President Roosevelt could not permit. But he could not
ignore the validity of the debts which the Republic had contracted or
the justice of the demand for the payment of at least the interest. "It
cannot in the long run prove possible," he said, "for the United
States to protect delinquent American nations from punishment for the
non-performance of their duties unless she undertakes to make them
perform their duties." So he invented a plan, which, by reason of
its success in the Dominican case and its subsequent application and
extension by later administrations, has come to be a thoroughly accepted
part of the foreign policy of the United States. It ought to be known
as the Roosevelt Plan, just as the amplification of the Monroe Doctrine
already outlined might well be known as the Roosevelt Doctrine.
A naval commander in Dominican waters was instructed to see that no
revolutionary fighting was permitted to endanger the custom houses.
These instructions were carried out explicitly but without any actual
use of force or shedding of blood. On one occasion two rival forces had
planned a battle in a custom-house town. The American commander informed
them courteously but firmly that they would not be permitted to
fight there, for a battle might endanger the custom house. He had no
objection, however, to their fighting. In fact he had picked out a
nice spot for them outside the town where they might have their battle
undisturbed. The winner could have the town. Would they kindly step
outside for their fight. They would; they did. The American commander
gravely welcomed the victorious faction as the rightful rulers of the
town. So much for keeping the custom houses intact. But the Roosevelt
Plan went much further. An agreement was entered into with those
governmental authorities "who for the moment seemed best able to speak
for the country" by means of which the custom houses were placed under
American control. United States forces were to keep order and to protect
the custom houses; United States officials were to collect the customs
dues; forty-five per cent of the revenue was to be turned over to the
Dominican Government, and fifty-five per cent put into a sinking fund in
New York for the benefit of the creditors. The plan succeeded famously.
The Dominicans got more out of their forty-five per cent than they had
been wont to get when presumably the entire revenue was theirs. The
creditors thoroughly approved, and their Governments had no possible
pretext left for interference. Although the plan concerned itself not
at all with the internal affairs of the Republic, its indirect influence
was strong for good and the island enjoyed a degree of peace and
prosperity such as it had not known before for at least a century.
There was, however, strong opposition in the United States Senate to the
ratification of the treaty with the Dominican Republic. The Democrats,
with one or two exceptions, voted against ratification. A number of the
more reactionary Republican Senators, also, who were violently
hostile to President Roosevelt because of his attitude toward great
corporations, lent their opposition. The Roosevelt Plan was further
attacked by certain sections of the press, already antagonistic on other
grounds, and by some of those whom Roosevelt called the "professional
interventional philanthropists." It was two years before the Senate was
ready to ratify the treaty, but meanwhile Roosevelt continued to carry
it out "as a simple agreement on the part of the Executive which could
be converted into a treaty whenever the Senate was ready to act."
The treaty as finally ratified differed in some particulars from the
protocol. In the protocol the United States agreed "to respect the
complete territorial integrity of the Dominican Republic." This covenant
was omitted in the final document in deference to Roosevelt's opponents
who could see no difference between "respecting" the integrity of
territory and "guaranteeing" it. Another clause pledging the assistance
of the United States in the internal affairs of the Republic, whenever
the judgment of the American Government deemed it to be wise, was also
omitted. The provision of the protocol making it the duty of the United
States to deal with the various creditors of the Dominican Republic in
order to determine the amount which each was to receive in settlement
of its claims was modified so that this responsibility remained with the
Government of the Republic. In Roosevelt's opinion, these modifications
in the protocol detracted nothing from the original plan. He ascribed
the delay in the ratification of the treaty to partisanship and
bitterness against himself; and it is certainly true that most of the
treaty's opponents were his consistent critics on other grounds.
A considerable portion of Roosevelt's success as a diplomat was the
fruit of personality, as must be the case with any diplomat who makes
more than a routine achievement. He disarmed suspicion by transparent
honesty, and he impelled respect for his words by always promising or
giving warning of not a hairsbreadth more than he was perfectly willing
and thoroughly prepared to perform. He was always cheerfully ready
to let the other fellow "save his face." He set no store by public
triumphs. He was as exigent that his country should do justly as he was
insistent that it should be done justly by. Phrases had no lure for him,
appearances no glamour.
It was inevitable that so commanding a personality should have an
influence beyond the normal sphere of his official activities. Only a
man who had earned the confidence and the respect of the statesmen of
other nations could have performed such a service as he did in 1905
in bringing about peace between Russia and Japan in the conflict then
raging in the Far East. It was high time that the war should end, in
the interest of both contestants. The Russians had been consistently
defeated on land and had lost their entire fleet at the battle of
Tsushima. The Japanese were apparently on the highroad to victory. But
in reality, Japan's success had been bought at an exorbitant price.
Intelligent observers in the diplomatic world who were in a position to
realize the truth knew that neither nation could afford to go on.
On June 8, 1905, President Roosevelt sent to both Governments an
identical note in which he urged them, "not only for their own sakes,
but in the interest of the whole civilized world, to open direct
negotiations for peace with each other." This was the first that the
world heard of the proposal. But the President had already conducted,
with the utmost secrecy, confidential negotiations with Tokyo and with
St. Petersburg to induce both belligerents to consent to a face to face
discussion of peace. In Russia he had found it necessary to go directly
to the Czar himself, through the American Ambassador, George von
Lengerke Meyer. Each Government was assured that no breath of the matter
would be made public until both nations had signified their willingness
to treat. Neither nation was to know anything of the other's readiness
until both had committed themselves. These advances appear to have been
made following a suggestion from Japan that Roosevelt should attempt to
secure peace. He used to say, in discussing the matter, that, while
it was not generally known or even suspected, Japan was actually "bled
white" by the herculean efforts she had made. But Japan's position
was the stronger, and peace was more important for Russia than for
her antagonist. The Japanese were more clear-sighted than the selfish
Russian bureaucracy; and they realized that they had gained so much
already that there was nothing to be won by further fighting.
When the public invitation to peace negotiations was extended, the
conference had already been arranged and the confidential consent
of both Governments needed only to be made formal. Russia wished the
meeting of plenipotentiaries to take place at Paris, Japan preferred
Chifu, in China. Neither liked the other's suggestion, and Roosevelt's
invitation to come to Washington, with the privilege of adjourning
to some place in New England if the weather was too hot, was finally
accepted. The formal meeting between the plenipotentiaries took place
at Oyster Bay on the 5th of August on board the Presidential yacht, the
Mayflower. Roosevelt received his guests in the cabin and proposed a
toast in these words: "Gentlemen, I propose a toast to which there will
be no answer and which I ask you to drink in silence, standing. I drink
to the welfare and prosperity of the sovereigns and the peoples of the
two great nations whose representatives have met one another on this
ship. It is my earnest hope and prayer, in the interest not only of
these two great powers, but of all civilized mankind, that a just and
lasting peace may speedily be concluded between them."
The two groups of plenipotentiaries were carried, each on an American
naval vessel, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and there at the Navy Yard
began their conference. Two-thirds of the terms proposed by Japan were
promptly accepted by the Russian envoys. But an irretrievable split on
the remainder seemed inevitable. Japan demanded a money indemnity and
the cession of the southern half of the island of Saghalien, which
Japanese forces had already occupied. These demands the Russians
refused.
Then Roosevelt took a hand in the proceedings. He urged the Japanese
delegates, through the Japanese Ambassador, to give up their demand
for an indemnity. He pointed out that, when it came to "a question
of rubles," the Russian Government and the Russian people were firmly
resolved not to yield. To Baron Rosen, one of the Russian delegates, he
recommended yielding in the matter of Saghalien, since the Japanese were
already in possession and there were racial and historical grounds
for considering the southern half of the island logically Japanese
territory. The envoys met again, and the Japanese renewed their demands.
The Russians refused. Then the Japanese offered to waive the indemnity
if the Russians would yield on Saghalien. The offer was accepted, and
the peace was made.
Immediately Roosevelt was acclaimed by the world, including the Russians
and the Japanese, as a great peacemaker. The Nobel Peace Prize of a
medal and $40,000 was awarded to him. But it was not long before both in
Russia and Japan public opinion veered to the point of asserting that
he had caused peace to be made too soon and to the detriment of the
interests of the nation in question. That was just what he expected. He
knew human nature thoroughly; and from long experience he had learned
to be humorously philosophical about such manifestations of man's
ingratitude.
In the next year the influence of Roosevelt's personality was again
felt in affairs outside the traditional realm of American international
interests. Germany was attempting to intrude in Morocco, where France by
common consent had been the dominant foreign influence. The rattling of
the Potsdam saber was threatening the tranquillity of the status quo. A
conference of eleven European powers and the United States was held
at Algeciras to readjust the treaty provisions for the protection of
foreigners in the decadent Moroccan empire. In the words of a historian
of America's foreign relations, "Although the United States was of all
perhaps the least directly interested in the subject matter of dispute,
and might appropriately have held aloof from the meeting altogether,
its representatives were among the most influential of all, and it
was largely owing to their sane and irenic influence that in the end a
treaty was amicably made and signed." * But there was something behind
all this. A quiet conference had taken place one day in the remote
city of Washington. The President of the United States and the French
Ambassador had discussed the approaching meeting at Algeciras. There
was a single danger-point in the impending negotiations. The French must
find a way around it. The Ambassador had come to the right man. He
went out with a few words scratched on a card in the ragged Roosevelt
handwriting containing a proposal for a solution. ** The proposal went
to Paris, then to Morocco. The solution was adopted by the conference,
and the Hohenzollern menace to the peace of the world was averted for
the moment. Once more Roosevelt had shown how being wise in time was the
sure way to peace.
* Willie Fletcher Johnson, "America's Foreign Relations",
vol. II, p. 376.
** The author had this story direct from Mr. Roosevelt
himself.
Roosevelt's most important single achievement as President of the United
States was the building of the Panama Canal. The preliminary steps which
he took in order to make its building possible have been, of all his
executive acts, the most consistently and vigorously criticized.
It is not our purpose here to follow at length the history of American
diplomatic relations with Colombia and Panama. We are primarily
concerned with the part which Roosevelt played in certain international
occurrences, of which the Panama incident was not the least interesting
and significant. In after years Roosevelt said laconically, "I took
Panama." In fact he did nothing of the sort. But it was like him to
brush aside all technical defenses of any act of his and to meet his
critics on their own ground. It was as though he said to them, "You
roundly denounce me for what I did at the time of the revolution which
established the Republic of Panama. You declare that my acts were
contrary to international law and international morals. I have a
splendid technical defense on the legal side; but I care little about
technicalities when compared with reality. Let us admit that I did
what you charge me with. I will prove to you that I was justified in so
doing. I took Panama; but the taking was a righteous act."
Fourteen years after that event, in a speech which he made in
Washington, Roosevelt expressed his dissatisfaction with the way in
which President Wilson was conducting the Great War. He reverted to what
he had done in relation to Panama and contrasted his action with the
failure of the Wilson Administration to take prompt possession of two
hundred locomotives which had been built in this country for the late
Russian Government. This is what he said:
"What I think, of course, in my view of the proper governmental policy,
should have been done was to take the two hundred locomotives and then
discuss. That was the course that I followed, and to which I have ever
since looked back with impenitent satisfaction, in reference to the
Panama Canal. If you remember, Panama declared itself independent and
wanted to complete the Panama Canal and opened negotiations with us. I
had two courses open. I might have taken the matter under advisement and
put it before the Senate, in which case we should have had a number of
most able speeches on the subject. We would have had a number of very
profound arguments, and they would have been going on now, and the
Panama Canal would be in the dim future yet. We would have had half a
century of discussion, and perhaps the Panama Canal. I preferred that
we should have the Panama Canal first and the half century of discussion
afterward. And now instead of discussing the canal before it was built,
which would have been harmful, they merely discuss me--a discussion
which I regard with benign interest."
The facts of the case are simple and in the main undisputed. Shortly
after the inauguration of Roosevelt as President, a treaty was
negotiated with Colombia for the building of a canal at Panama. It
provided for the lease to the United States of a strip six miles wide
across the Isthmus, and for the payment to Colombia of $10,000,000 down
and $250,000 a year, beginning nine years later. The treaty was promptly
ratified by the United States Senate. A special session of the Colombian
Senate spent the summer marking time and adjourned after rejecting the
treaty by a unanimous vote. The dominant motive for the rejection was
greed. An attempt was first made by the dictatorial government that held
the Colombian Congress in its mailed hand to extort a large payment from
the French Canal Company, whose rights and property on the Isthmus were
to be bought by the United States for $40,000,000. Then $15,000,000
instead of $10,000,000 was demanded from the United States. Finally an
adroit and conscienceless scheme was invented by which the entire
rights of the French Canal Company were to be stolen by the Colombian
Government. This last plot, however, would involve a delay of a year or
so. The treaty was therefore rejected in order to provide the necessary
delay.
But the people of Panama wanted the Canal. They were tired of serving
as the milch cow for the fattening of the Government at Bogota. So they
quietly organized a revolution. It was a matter of common knowledge that
it was coming. Roosevelt, as well as the rest of the world, knew it and,
believing in the virtue of being wise in time, prepared for it. Several
warships were dispatched to the Isthmus.
The revolution came off promptly as expected. It was bloodless, for the
American naval forces, fulfilling the treaty obligations of the United
States, prevented the Colombian troops on one side of the Isthmus
from using the Panama Railroad to cross to the other side where the
revolutionists were. So the revolutionists were undisturbed. A republic
was immediately declared and immediately recognized by the United
States. A treaty with the new Republic, which guaranteed its
independence and secured the cession of a zone ten miles wide across the
Isthmus, was drawn up inside of two weeks and ratified by both Senates
within three months. Six weeks later an American commission was on the
ground to plan the work of construction. The Canal was built. The "half
century of discussion" which Roosevelt foresaw is now more than a third
over, and the discussion shows no sign of lagging. But the Panama Canal
is in use.
Was the President of the United States justified in preventing the
Colombian Government from fighting on the Isthmus to put down the
unanimous revolution of the people of Panama? That is precisely all that
he did. He merely gave orders to the American admiral on the spot to
"prevent the disembarkation of Colombian troops with hostile intent
within the limits of the state of Panama." But that action was enough,
for the Isthmus is separated from Colombia on the one hand by three
hundred miles of sea, and on the other by leagues of pathless jungle.
Roosevelt himself has summed up the action of the United States in this
way:
"From the beginning to the end our course was straightforward and
in absolute accord with the highest of standards of international
morality.... To have acted otherwise than I did would have been on my
part betrayal of the interests of the United States, indifference to
the interests of Panama, and recreancy to the interests of the world at
large. Colombia had forfeited every claim to consideration; indeed, this
is not stating the case strongly enough: she had so acted that yielding
to her would have meant on our part that culpable form of weakness which
stands on a level with wickedness.... We gave to the people of Panama,
self-government, and freed them from subjection to alien oppressors. We
did our best to get Colombia to let us treat her with more than
generous justice; we exercised patience to beyond the verge of proper
forbearance.... I deeply regretted, and now deeply regret, the fact
that the Colombian Government rendered it imperative for me to take
the action I took; but I had no alternative, consistent with the full
performance of my duty to my own people, and to the nations of mankind."
The final verdict will be given only in another generation by the
historian and by the world at large. But no portrait of Theodore
Roosevelt, and no picture of his times, can be complete without the
bold, firm outlines of his Panama policy set as near as may be in their
proper perspective.