As the acquisition of the Philippines made all Far Eastern questions of
importance to the United States, so the investment of American millions
in a canal across the Isthmus of Panama increased popular interest in
the problems of the Caribbean. That fascinating sheet of water, about
six hundred miles from north to south by about fifteen hundred from east
to west, is ringed around by the possessions of many powers. In 1898 its
mainland shores were occupied by Mexico, British Honduras, Guatemala,
Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Venezuela; its islands
were possessed by the negro states of Hayti and the Dominican Republic,
and by Spain, France, Great Britain, Holland, and Denmark. In the
Caribbean had been fought some of the greatest and most significant
naval battles of the eighteenth century and, when the canal was opened,
across its waters would plough a great share of the commerce of the
world. As owner of the canal and professed guardian of its use, the
United States was bound to consider its own strategic relation to this
sea into which the canal opened.
Gradually the situation which existed in 1898 has changed. Spain has
been removed from the Caribbean. Of her former possessions the United
States holds Porto Rico; Cuba is independent, but is in a way under the
protection of the United States, which possesses on her coast the naval
station of Guantanamo. The American treaty with the new republic of
Panama practically created another American protectorate, and the
fortification of the canal gave the United States another strategic
position. The negotiation for the purchase of the Danish islands has
been completed successfully. But these obvious footholds are of less
importance than the more indirect relationships which the United States
has been steadily establishing, through successive Administrations, with
the various other powers located on the borders of the Caribbean.
The Spanish War did not lull the suspicions of the United States
regarding the dangerous influence which would be exerted should the
ambitions of European powers be allowed a field of action in the
American continents, and the United States remained as intent as ever
on preventing any opportunity for their gaining admittance. One such
contingency, though perhaps a remote one, was the possibility of a rival
canal, for there are other isthmuses than that of Panama which might
be pierced with the aid of modern resources of capital and genius.
To prevent any such action was not selfish on the part of the United
States, for the American canal was to have an open door, and there was
no economic justification for another seaway from the Atlantic to the
Pacific.
There might, however, be some temptation in the political and
military influence which such a prospective second canal could exert.
Negotiations were begun, therefore, with all the transcontinental powers
of Central America, offering liberal compensation for the control of all
possible canal routes. These negotiations have been long drawn out and
are only lately coming to fruition. They have served, however, to taboo
all projects by other nations, and one of these treaties negotiated with
Colombia, but not yet ratified, holds out the prospect of winning back
her friendship which was so seriously alienated by the recognition of
the republic of Panama by the United States.
In one respect the changing world has rendered quite obsolete the
pronouncements of President Monroe. In the case of Japan there has grown
up a great power which is neither European nor American. American policy
in the Far East has made it abundantly evident that the United States
does not regard the self-imposed limitations upon its activity as
extending to Asia. In her case there is lacking the quid pro quo by
which the United States has justified its demand that European powers
refrain from interfering in America. By no means, however, has the
Government admitted the right of Asia to impinge on the American
continents.
In 1912 Washington heard that Japan was negotiating with Mexico for
a concession on Magdalena Bay. Senator Lodge promptly introduced a
resolution in the Senate, declaring that "when any harbor or other place
in the American continents is so situated that the occupation thereof
for naval or military purposes might threaten the communication or the
safety of the United States, the Government of the United States could
not see, without grave concern, the possession of such harbor or other
place by any corporation or association which has such relation to
another government, not American, as to give that government practical
power of control for naval or military purposes--" This resolution,
which passed the Senate by a vote of 51 to 4, undoubtedly represented
American sentiment, at least with regard to the foreign occupation
of any territory bordering on the Caribbean or on the Pacific between
Panama and California.
A more subtle danger lay in the financial claims of European powers
against the various states in Central America, and the possibility of
these claims being used as levers to establish permanent control. Most
of these foreign demands had a basis in justice but had been exaggerated
in amount. They were of two kinds: first, for damage to persons
or property resulting from the numerous revolutions and perpetual
brigandage which have scourged these semitropic territories; second, for
debts contracted in the name of the several countries for the most part
to conduct revolutions or to gild the after-career of defeated rulers in
Paris,--debts with a face value far in excess of the amount received by
the debtor and with accumulated interest in many cases far beyond
the capacity of the several countries to pay. The disputes as to the
validity of such claims have been without end, and they have furnished
a constant temptation to the cupidity of individuals and the ambition of
the powers.
In 1902 Germany induced Great Britain and Italy to join her in an
attempt to collect the amount of some of these claims from Venezuela.
A joint squadron undertook a "pacific blockade" of the coast. Secretary
Hay denied that a "pacific blockade" existed in international law and
urged that the matter be submitted to arbitration. Great Britain
and Italy were willing to come to an understanding and withdrew;
but Germany, probably intent on ulterior objects, was unwilling and
preferred to take temporary possession of certain ports. President
Roosevelt then summoned the German Ambassador, Dr. Holleben, and told
him that, unless Germany consented to arbitrate, Admiral Dewey would be
ordered at noon ten days later to proceed to Venezuela and protect its
coast. A week passed with no message. Holleben called on the President
but rose to go without mentioning Venezuela. President Roosevelt
thereupon informed the Ambassador that he had changed his mind and had
decided to send Admiral Dewey one day earlier than originally planned;
he further explained that in the event the Kaiser should decide to
arbitrate, as not a word had been put on paper, there would be nothing
to indicate coercion. Within thirty-six hours Holleben reported that
Germany would arbitrate. Only once before, when Seward was dealing with
Napoleon III concerning Mexico, had forcible persuasion been used to
maintain the Monroe Doctrine.
It was perfectly clear that if the United States sat idly by and allowed
European powers to do what they would to collect their Latin American
debts, the Monroe Doctrine would soon become a dead letter. It was not,
however, so plain how American interference could be justified. The
problem was obviously a difficult one and did not concern the United
States alone. Latin America was even more vitally concerned with it, and
her statesmen, always lucid exponents of international law, were active
in devising remedies. Carlos Calvo of Argentina advanced the doctrine
that "the collection of pecuniary claims made by the citizens of one
country against the government of another country should never be made
by force." Senior Drago, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the same country
in 1902, urged upon the United States a modification of the same view by
asserting that "the public debt cannot occasion armed intervention."
President Roosevelt handled the matter in his messages of 1903 and 1904.
"That our rights and interests are deeply concerned in the maintenance
of the [Monroe] Doctrine is so clear as hardly to need argument. This
is especially true in view of the construction of the Panama Canal. As
a mere matter of self defense we must exercise a close watch over the
approaches to this canal, and this means we must be thoroughly alive to
our interests in the Caribbean Sea." "When we announce a policy... we
thereby commit ourselves to the consequences of the policy." "Chronic
wrongdoing or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the
ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately
require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western
Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may
force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such
wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police
power."
To prevent European intervention for the purpose of securing just claims
in America, then, the United States would undertake to handle the case,
and would wield the "Big Stick" against any American state which should
refuse to meet its obligations. This was a repetition, in a different
tone, of Blaine's "Elder Sister" program. As developed, it had elements
also of Cleveland's Venezuela policy. In 1907 the United States
submitted to the Hague Conference a modified form of the Drago doctrine,
which stated that the use of force to collect contract debts claimed
from one government by another as being due to its citizens should be
regarded as illegal, unless the creditor nation first offered to submit
its claims to arbitration and this offer were refused by the nation
against which the claim was directed. The interference of the United
States, therefore, would be practically to hale the debtor into court.
Around the Caribbean, however, were several nations not only unwilling
but unable to pay their debts. This inability was not due to the fact
that national resources were lacking, but that constant revolution
scared away conservative capital from seeking constructive investment or
from developing their natural riches, while speculators loaned money
at ruinous rates of discount to tottering presidents, gambling on the
possibility of some turn in fortune that would return them tenfold. The
worst example of an insolvent and recalcitrant state was the Dominican
Republic, whose superb harbors were a constant temptation to ambitious
powers willing to assume its debts in return for naval stations, and
whose unscrupulous rulers could nearly always be bribed to sell their
country as readily as anything else. In the case of this country
President Roosevelt made a still further extension of the Monroe
Doctrine when, in 1905, he concluded a treaty whereby the United States
agreed to undertake the adjustment of the republic's obligations and the
administration of its custom houses, and at the same time guarantee
the territorial integrity of the republic. This arrangement was hotly
attacked in the United States as an indication of growing imperialism,
and, though it was defended as necessary to prevent the entrance of new
foreign influences into the Caribbean, the opposition was so strong that
the treaty was not accepted by the Senate until 1907, and then only in a
modified form with the omission of the territorial guarantee.
For the United States thus to step into a foreign country as an
administrator was indeed a startling innovation. On the other hand,
the development of such a policy was a logical sequence of the Monroe
Doctrine. That it was a step in the general development of policy on
the part of the United States and not a random leap is indicated by the
manner in which it has been followed up. In 1911 treaties with Nicaragua
and Honduras somewhat similar to the Dominican protocol were negotiated
by Secretary Knox but failed of ratification. Subsequently under
President Wilson's Administration, the treaty with Nicaragua was
redrafted and was ratified by both parties. Hayti, too, was in financial
difficulties and, at about the time of the outbreak of the Great War, it
was reported that Germany was about to relieve her needs at the price
of harbors and of control. In 1915, however, the United States took
the island under its protection by a treaty which not only gave the
Government complete control of the fiscal administration but bound it to
"lend an efficient aid for the preservation of Haitian independence and
the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life,
property, and individual liberty."
Since 1898, then, the map of the Caribbean has completely changed its
aspect. The sea is not an American lake, nor do the Americans wish it
to be such. In time, as the surrounding countries become better able to
stand alone, direct interference on the part of the United States will
doubtless become less than it is today. There is, however, practically
no present opportunity for a non-American power to establish itself and
to threaten the commerce or the canal of the United States.
Few people in the United States and perhaps fewer in the countries
involved realize from what American influence has saved these small
states. A glance at Africa and Asia will suggest what would otherwise
have been the case. Without the United States and its leadership,
there can be little doubt that giant semi-sovereign corporations owing
allegiance to some great power would now possess these countries. They
would bristle with forts and police, and their populations would be in a
state of absolute political and of quasi-economic servitude. They might
today be more orderly and perhaps wealthier, but unless the fundamental
American belief in democracy and self-government is wrong they would be
infinitely farther from their true goal, which involves the working out
of their own civilization.
The Caribbean is but a portion of the whole international problem of
the Americas, and the methods used by the United States in solving its
problems seemed likely to postpone that sympathetic union of the whole
to which it has been looking forward for a century. Yet this country
has not been unappreciative of the larger aspects of Pan-Americanism.
In 1899 President McKinley revived Blaine's project and proposed
a Pan-American congress. To popularize this idea, a Pan-American
Exposition was arranged at Buffalo in 1901. Here, just after he had
expounded his views of the ties that might bind the continents together,
McKinley was assassinated. The idea, however, lived and in the same year
a congress was held at the City of Mexico, where it was proposed that
such meetings be held regularly. As a result, congresses were held at
Rio de Janeiro in 1906 and at Buenos Aires in 1910, at which various
measures of common utility were discussed and a number of projects were
actually undertaken.
The movement of Pan-Americanism has missed achieving the full hopes of
its supporters owing not so much to a difference of fundamental ideas
and interests as to suspicion and national pride. The chief powers of
southern South America--Argentina, Brazil, and Chili--had by the end of
the nineteenth century in large measure successfully worked out their
own problems. They resented the interference of a power of alien race
such as the United States, and they suspected its good intentions in
wielding the "Big Stick," especially after the cavalier treatment which
Colombia had received. They observed with alarm the strengthening of the
grip of the United States about the Caribbean. United in a group, known
from their initials as the "A.B.C." powers, they sought to assume the
leadership of Latin America, basing their action, indeed, upon the
fundamentals of the Monroe Doctrine--the exclusion of foreign influence
and the independence of peoples--but with themselves instead of the
United States as chief, guardians.
Many of the publicists of these three powers, however, doubted their
capacity to walk entirely alone. On the one hand they noted the growing
influence of the Germans in Brazil and the indications of Japanese
interest in many places, and on the other they divined the fundamental
sincerity of the professions of the United States and were anxious to
cooperate with this nation. Not strong enough to control the policy of
the various countries, these men at least countered those chauvinists
who urged that hostility to the United States was a first duty compared
with which the danger of non-American interference might be neglected.
Confronted by this divided attitude, the United States sought to win
over but not to compel. Nothing more completely met American views than
that each power should maintain for itself the principles of the Monroe
Doctrine by excluding foreign influences. Beyond that the United States
sought only friendship, and, if it were agreeable, such unity as should
be mutually advantageous. In 1906 Elihu Root, the Secretary of State,
made a tour of South America with a view of expressing these sentiments;
and in 1913-1914 ex-President Roosevelt took occasion, on the way to his
Brazilian hunting trip, to assure the people of the great South American
powers that the "Big Stick" was not intended to intimidate them.
Pan-American unity was still, when President Taft went out of office
in 1913, an aspiration rather than a realized fact, though the tangible
evidences of unity had vastly multiplied since 1898, and the recurring
congresses provided a basis of organization upon which some substantial
structure might be built.
The United States had sincerely hoped that Mexico, like the "A.B.C."
powers, was another Latin American power which had found itself. Of all
it was certainly the most friendly and the most intimate. The closeness
of its relations with the United States is indicated by the fact that in
the forty years between 1868 and 1908, forty agreements, treaties,
and conventions had been concluded between the two countries. Nor was
intimacy confined to the Governments. The peace arranged by President
Diaz had brought foreign capital by the billion to aid the internal
development of the country, and of this money more had come from the
United States than from any other nation. Nor was it financial aid
alone which had gone across the border. There was but little American
colonization, it is true, but business managers, engineers, mine
foremen, and ranch superintendents formed thousands of links binding the
nations together. The climax of intimacy seemed reached when, in 1910,
a general treaty of arbitration was made after President Taft and
President Diaz had met at El Paso on the Mexican border in a personal
conference. A personal interview between the President of the United
States and the chief of a foreign state was almost unique in American
history, owing to the convention that the President should not depart
from the national territory.
It was, therefore, with a bitter sense of disappointment that Americans
heard of the revolution inaugurated in 1910 by Francisco Madero. In
common with France, Spain, Great Britain, and Germany, the United States
was disturbed for the safety of the investments and persons of its
citizens. The Government was also concerned because the points of first
and most persistent fighting were where the various railroads crossed
the American boundary. This circumstance brought the whole border within
the range of disturbance. The Government was apprehensive, too, as to
the effect of long-continued war upon territories within the circle of
its chief interest, the Caribbean area. Yet, when the first surprise
caused by the revolution had passed and the reason for the outbreak was
perceived,--the fact that the order and apparent prosperity of the Diaz
regime had been founded upon the oppression and exploitation of the
masses,--public sympathy in the United States went out to Madero and his
supporters.
The Diaz Government collapsed with surprising suddenness. The
resignation of President Diaz in May, 1911, was accepted as a proof of
the popular character and the success of the revolution, and Madero,
who was elected president in October, was promptly recognized as the
constitutional head of the Mexican Government. The revolution, however,
aroused the United States to the fact that there still persisted the
era of disturbance which it had hoped was drawing to a close in Latin
America. With this disturbing revelation in mind, Congress took another
step in the development of American policies consequent upon the Monroe
Doctrine by passing an act authorizing the President, whenever he should
"find that in any American country conditions of domestic violence exist
which are promoted by the use of arms and munitions of war procured
from the United States," to prohibit trade in such articles. Under this
authority, President Taft promptly forbade the export of such articles
to Mexico except to the Government.
Real revolutions, however, seldom result simply in the transfer of
authority from one group to another. The breaking of the bonds of
recognized authority releases all sorts of desires, represented in the
state by separate groups, each of which sees no reason for accepting
the control of another. All seek to seize the dropped reins. The
inauguration of Madero, therefore, did not result in a new and popular
government but in continued disturbance. Factions with differing creeds
raised revolts in various sections of the country until, in February,
1913, Madero was overthrown by one of these groups, led by Felix Diaz
and General Victoriano Huerta, and representing a reactionary tendency.
Madero and his vice president Pino Suarez were killed, it was believed
by order of Huerta, and on the 27th of February, in the City of Mexico,
Huerta was proclaimed President. Don Venustiano Carranza, Governor of
the State of Coahuila, straightway denied the constitutionality of
the new Government and led a new revolution under the banner of the
Constitution.
It was in such a condition that President Wilson found the affairs of
the continent when he took office on March 4, 1913. The American policy
in the Caribbean was well defined and to a large extent in operation.
Pan-American sentiment was developing, but its strength and direction
were yet to be determined. Mexico was in chaos, and upon the
Government's handling of it would depend the final success of the United
States in the Caribbean and the possibility of effecting a real and
fruitful cooperation of the Americas.