Panama to Patagonia

by Charles M. Pepper

The excessive timidity with which the United States Senate approached the sane and sensible provision for a receivership in Santo Domingo, which was a sure way of preventing this question of European occupancy from arising, indicated that further education was necessary before this perplexing phase of the Monroe Doctrine could be assured of full support along the lines proposed by the national administration. But speaking in terms of actuality rather than of speculation, the perplexity relates chiefly to the West Indies, the shores of the Caribbean, and possibly some of the Central American countries. The West Coast republics, in their great industrial strides and their immense advances toward financial and political equilibrium, give little reason to expect that the question will arise with reference to them.

The Venezuela imbroglio in its influence on South American sentiment has to be understood in the light of the agitation which had been going on for the abrogation of the Monroe Doctrine. This movement had supporters in the United States as well as in Europe. The argument was, that, since we had gone to the Philippines, and since Europe had great interests in South America, we no longer had a right to say to the European Powers that they should keep hands off. Instead, they were to be told to carry out their colonizing aims, which only could be successful by territorial acquisition. Until the United States undertakes to exercise sovereignty on the European Continent or along the Mediterranean, there can be no comparison. And until the continental Powers adjust their balance of greedy and mutually distrustful ambitions, so that the Balkan States may enjoy the privileges of civilized government, their mission to civilize South America and establish a balance there cannot be expected to receive serious attention.

And let not the notion obtain that there can be a geographical limitation of the responsibility of the United States. After the war with Spain, when our new duties pressed heavily on us, the suggestion was made that we might draw the line, say at the Equator, and that we should not go farther afield. It was an impracticable suggestion, and does not need discussion now. Having the isthmian canal to protect, we could not, if we would, limit our responsibilities by a line anywhere through South America.

Another aspect of the same subject may be considered in brief space. This is the figment of territorial ambition and territorial absorption on the part of the United States. It is a phantom to the well-informed Northern mind, yet to the South American imagination it is a spectre. In the Republic of Washington and Lincoln are two classes. One talks vaguely on the Fourth of July, and other occasions of national boasting and self-gratulation, about the destiny of the rest of this hemisphere to become a territorial appanage of the United States. The majority of these talkers have the vaguest possible notion of the geography of the Southern Continent, of the physical conditions, and of the political relations. If they knew more, they would talk less. At home their outgivings receive little attention, but in South America they are given undue importance, and often distorted into supposed policies of the government.

The other class not only entertains no idea of territorial absorption, but dreads the notion of the due and just exercise of our influence. It looks on South America as a nest of revolutions with which the United States should have nothing to do, ridicules the possibilities of commerce, and professes disbelief in the capacity for progress.

After the war with Spain, in Latin America the same idea was entertained of the good faith of the United States that was held in Europe. The belief was that in relation to Cuba it would be a case not only of England in Egypt, but of outright annexation. This class of prophets have not fully recovered from the staggering effect of the withdrawal of the United States from Cuba. It made a deeper impression in dissipating their jealousy and fear of the giant Republic of the North than any of them were ready to admit. Yet I have heard South American public men of the reactionary group, who would have been loudest in condemning the United States for staying in Cuba, and would have used it as an object lesson to terrify their people with the shadow of the North American Colossus, seriously argue that we should have remained, that annexation is inevitable, and that this should have taken place at once instead of being allowed to await the normal evolutionary process. My friend Don X, whom I had known in Mexico, when I met him in Buenos Ayres pointed out to me the errors of my own contention, that in getting out of Cuba we had kept the national faith and had done our duty. “Cuba,” he said, “belongs to you. You should have taken her. We would have used it as an awful example against you, but we would have known you were only doing what you had a right to do.”

Thus it appeared that the reactionary South Americans held it as a grievance against the United States, that we did not give them an example of overweening territorial ambition. But the proof that we were not greedy permeated all classes; helped to convince the intelligent population, and even the unintelligent mass, that there could be such a thing as a nation with disinterested purposes, and that nation the Yankee Republic.

The position of the United States with reference to absorption was set forth so fully in the letter of Secretary Hay to Minister Leger of Haiti, and this position was approved so fully by the American people, that no further declaration is required.[20]

20 Department of State, February 9, 1905.

Dear Mr. Minister,—In answer to your inquiry made this morning, it gives me pleasure to assure you that the government of the United States of America has no intention of annexing either Haiti or Santo Domingo, and no desire of acquiring possession of them, either by force or by negotiations, and that, even if the citizens of either of these republics should solicit incorporation into the American Union, there would be no inclination on the part of the national government, nor in the sphere of public opinion, to agree to any such proposal. Our interests are in harmony with our sentiments in wishing you only continued peace, prosperity, and independence.