Latin America and the United States / Addresses by Elihu Root

by Elihu Root

Second. We do not want any foreign nations to take them for themselves.

Third. We want to help them.

Now, we can help them; help them govern themselves, help them to acquire capacity for self-government, help them along the road that Brazil and the Argentine and Chile and Peru and a number of other South American countries have travelled—up out of the discord and turmoil of continual revolution into a general public sense of justice and determination to maintain order.

There is a good deal of talk in the newspapers about the annexation of Cuba. Never! so long as the people of Cuba do not themselves give up the effort to govern themselves. Our efforts should be towards helping them to be self-governing. That is what we are trying to do now and what we mean to try to do.

So with Santo Domingo. Poor Santo Domingo! With her phenomenal richness of soil, her people ought to be among the richest and happiest on earth; but the island has been the scene of almost continued revolution and bloodshed. Her politics are purely personal, and have been a continual struggle of this and that and the other man to secure ascendancy and power. She has come to us for help. She is burdened with an enormous amount of debt, much of it fraudulent, much of it created by revolutionary governments in the bush or by regular governments in distress, needing a little money to save themselves from being overthrown, in desperate circumstances, ready to make any sort of bargain, to pay any sort of interest, to promise anything to get immediate relief. Many debts have been created in that way and are hanging over her, foreign debts as to which she has pledged the resources of this custom-house to the creditors of this country, and of that custom-house to the creditors of that country, and of another custom-house to the creditors of the third country. She is unable to pay interest; unable to make any settlement because she could not give anything to carry out any settlement. With this enormous debt hanging over her like a pall, and with this record of continual revolution and strife depriving her of credit, depriving her of courage and of hope, she came to us to help her. And we are trying to arrange so that she may have the little—very little—moral support of the United States which is necessary to settle her debts, to insure the honest collection of her revenue and its application to carry out the settlement, and that she may be able to stand and walk alone. Now, we are trying to make an arrangement of that kind by a treaty; trying to perform the office of friendship and discharge the duty of good neighborhood towards Santo Domingo. I hope you wall take a little interest in this unfortunate neighbor and try to create a little interest in her on the part of our people; for our treatment of Santo Domingo, like our treatment of Cuba, is but a part of a great policy which shall in the years to come determine the relations of this vast country, with its wealth and enterprise, to the millions of men and women and the countless millions of trade and treasure of the great world to the south.

Our treatment of Santo Domingo, like our treatment of Cuba, is but a part of the working out of the policy of peace and righteousness as the basis for wealth and prosperity, in place of the policy of force, of plunder, of conquest, as the means of acquiring wealth.

The question is frequently asked, Should not a series of reciprocity treaties be adopted for the purpose of promoting our relations with these southern countries? That is not so important in regard to the South American countries as it might seem at first, because so greatly do the productions of North and South America vary that most of the products of South America already come into the United States free, as they are not competing with our products. Between eighty and ninety per cent of all our imports from South America are now admitted to the United States free of duty. The great country of Brazil—over ninety per cent of all our imports from there come in free of duty. So that the field to be covered by reciprocity treaties with those countries is comparatively narrow, and that question is not a question of first importance in regard to our relations with them. There are, however, some countries in regard to whose products I should like very much to see an opportunity to make reciprocity treaties.

But this opens up a broader subject. I do not think that the subject of reciprocity can now be adequately considered or discussed without going into that broader subject, and that is the whole form of our tariff laws.

In my judgment the United States must come to a maximum and minimum tariff.

A single straight-out tariff was all very well in the world of single straight-out tariffs; but we have passed on, during the course of years, into a world for the most part of maximum and minimum tariffs, and with our single-rate tariff we are left with very little opportunity to reciprocate good treatment from other countries in their tariffs and very little opportunity to defend ourselves against bad treatment. Of course this is the side that I look at; this is my point of view. I may be wrong, but this is the way it looks to me—that any country in the world can put up its tariff against our products as compared with similar products from another country without suffering for it so far as our present laws are concerned. We go on taking that country's products at just the same rates as we did before. Any country in the world knows that if it puts down our products in its tariff it will get no benefit from it because we will have to charge it the same rates that we charge the country that treats us the worst. The maximum and minimum tariff would be free from one serious difficulty that arises in the negotiation of reciprocity treaties. That difficulty is this: When you make a reciprocity treaty with Country A, agreeing to receive certain products from that country at less than our tariff schedules, you are immediately confronted by Country B, which is equally friendly with us, treats us as well or perhaps better, and to which we cannot with good grace refuse the same. Then comes Country C with the same demand, and D and E. The result is that with that fair and equal treatment which we wish to accord to all countries there is a tendency, by means of successive reciprocity treaties, to change the whole form of the tariff, and to change it without that full and general discussion, without that deliberate consideration of the effect upon all American interests, which there ought to be in dealing with this complicated and interwoven business of tariff rates. Now, a maximum and minimum tariff would enable us to deal equally with all countries, as we are friendly, and ought to be, with all countries. It would be free from invidious discrimination; it would enable us to protect ourselves against those that use us badly, to reward those that use us well; and it would proceed upon a general and intelligent consideration of all interests.