Panama to Patagonia

by Charles M. Pepper

I recall this forgotten chapter of history very briefly in order to show that in their infancy not all the South American countries were averse to monarchical institutions, and that therefore the objection by the United States to such institutions because of the danger to itself was the more marked. The Monroe Doctrine in the beginning was enlightened and necessary national selfishness, with incidental benefit to the nations protected. It is only within the last half-century, since Maximilian was overthrown in Mexico, that the American people have learned they have nothing to fear from kingdoms and empires in the New World, and it is during this period that the Latin-American Republics have reaped the substantial and most disinterested results of the original assertion of the policy of the United States.

Nor has aggressive South American support of the Monroe Doctrine been lacking. It was during the French occupation of Mexico that the Peruvian Foreign Office invited an interchange of views and an agreement on a general policy repudiating European interference. Argentina and monarchical Brazil did not at that time join heartily in the proposed concert of action, and Ecuador actually was trying to consider herself under a French protectorate. A coterie of individuals there had proposed an arrangement with Napoleon III, the Dictator-President of Ecuador favored it, and the Emperor had assumed that the protectorate was a fact. When a proposition was made to incorporate Ecuadorian territory into Colombia, the French minister at Bogota formally protested, under directions from his government, that this could not be done, because France had paramount interests of sovereignty in Ecuador. This episode is one of the most interesting of all the forgotten chapters in the history of the Monroe Doctrine.

In Chile in 1864, at the period of Maximilian’s attempted usurpation of Mexico, the Chamber of Deputies passed a resolution asserting the historic Doctrine.

The Monroe principle, as it has been interpreted by President Roosevelt’s administration, has two phases. One was asserted quietly and without calling out special comment. It was that no European military power should be established within striking distance of the American Continent. This assertion would apply to the Galapagos Islands and to naval coaling-stations in the Caribbean.

The second phase, and the one which received more attention, was the President’s declaration that the Doctrine was not to be used as a shield to prevent the collection of just debts. This interpretation sometimes has met with prompt acceptance, and sometimes has been received with mild interrogation. The direct statement was given most specific endorsement by the distinguished public man who has had so much to do with shaping the policy of the United States in recent years. This was in the address of Mr. Elihu Root, when, as a private citizen, he proclaimed the rights of the United States as a police power over the affairs of all other Republics on the American Continent.[18] He was referring especially to claims and international obligations, and the responsibility of the United States for redressing wrongs. In substance this was not different from Secretary Olney’s declaration during the administration of Mr. Cleveland, that the United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subject to which it finds its interposition. At that time Lord Salisbury could find no support in international law for the Monroe Doctrine, but Great Britain afterward, for reasons affecting her policy in other parts of the world, became willing to accept the Olney-Root interpretation, even to the point of letting her holders of Latin-American bonds look to the United States for the collection of their debts, though that responsibility never has been accepted by the United States, and never should be.

18 Annual dinner of the New England Society in New York, November, 1904.

Germany’s acquiescence in the Monroe Doctrine has not been so complacent or so sudden, but this acquiescence may be accepted as a fact. A statement was attributed to Baron von Sternberg, the German Ambassador in Washington, that the Kaiser would not accept territory within the Monroe Doctrine’s jurisdiction if brought to him on a silver platter. An interview with Chancellor von Bülow, published in a South American organ of German interests, was even more positive.[19] “We know,” the Chancellor was quoted as saying, “that commercial relations are cemented by peace and confidence.... We have absolutely no political aspiration in the New World, but since we possess extensive industrial interests we desire to obtain the greatest possible participation in South American commerce.”

19 Deutsche La Plata Zeitung, 1903.

While the declarations of diplomats sometimes may be accepted with reservation, the conditions in South America are such that no reason exists why their pronouncements with reference to the Monroe Doctrine should not be given full force. Except as to debts and debt collections, at most the question is an academic one and has little practical bearing. In the matter of the international obligations, while the American people approve President Roosevelt’s position that the Doctrine shall not be construed to enable debtor countries to avoid paying their just obligations, nevertheless in practice probably they would expect the national administration to question whether it is necessary for a European government to occupy any portion of the territory of a Latin-American Republic for debt collection.

The United States is justified in fearing that the repression shown by the landing of troops for purposes of debt collection might assume the form of indefinite territorial occupation by a Power not American, and that would be acquisition. The actual circumstances would have to be considered; but official disclaimers of such intention might not be sufficient. Nor would the experience in the reference of the Venezuela claims to The Hague Court be likely to convince the American people that territorial occupation and administration could be permitted pending the settlement of the disputed questions.