Problems of the Pacific

by Frank Fox

It is a common fallacy to ascribe to the United States a Quakerish temperament in foreign affairs. Certain catch-words of American local politics have been given a fictitious value, both at home and abroad. "Republican Simplicity," "The Rights of Man," "European Tyranny," "Imperial Aggression," "The Vortex of Militarism"—from these and similar texts some United State publicists are wont to preach of the tyranny of European kings and emperors; of their greed to swallow up weak neighbours; and of the evils of the military and naval systems maintained to gratify such greed. By much grandiose assertion, or by that quiet implication which is more complete proof of a convinced mind than the most grandiose of assertion, the American nation has been pictured in happy contrast to others, pursuing a simple and peaceful life; with no desire for more territory; no wish to interfere with the affairs of others; in the world, but not of the world.

Astonishment that such professions should carry any weight at all in the face of the great mass of facts showing that the American national temper is exactly the reverse of Quakerish, is modified in the political student by the fact that it is the rule for nations as well as individuals to be judged in the popular estimation by phrases rather than by facts. Ignoring the phrases of politicians and considering only the facts, it will be found that the American people have Imperial ambitions worthy of their ancestry and inseparable from the responsibility towards civilisation which their national greatness involves.

It was in the middle of the eighteenth century that the United States began national housekeeping within a small territory on the seaboard of the Atlantic. By the nineteenth century that area had extended over a section of the continent of America as large almost as Europe. By the twentieth century this Power, still represented as incurably "peaceful and stay-at-home" by its leaders, was established in the Caribbean Sea, on the Isthmus of Panama, in the North and South Pacific, along the coast of Asia, and had set up firmly the principle that whatever affair of the world demanded international attention, from a loan to China, to the fate of an Atlantic port of Morocco, the United States had "interests" which must be considered, and advice which must be regarded. The only circumstance that genuinely suggests a Quaker spirit in United States foreign diplomacy is her quaint directness of language. More effete peoples may wrap every stage of a negotiation up to an ultimatum in honeyed phrases of respect. America "tutoyers" all courts and is mercilessly blunt in claim and warning.

It would be very strange if the United States were otherwise than Imperial in spirit. Nations, like individuals, are affected by biological laws; a young, strong nation is as naturally aggressive and ambitious as a young, strong boy. Contentment with things as they are, a disposition to make anxious sacrifices to the gods who grant peace, are the signs of old age. If a boy is quite good his parents have a reasonable right to suspect some constitutional weakness. A new nation which really resembled what a great many of the American people think the United States to be, would show as a morbid anomaly. No; the course of the world's future history will never be correctly forecasted except on the assumption that the United States is an aggressively Imperial nation, having an influence at least equal to that of any European Power in the settlement of international issues; and determined to use that influence and to extend its scope year by year. In the Problem of the Pacific particularly, the United States must be counted, not merely as a great factor but the greatest factor.

If the American citizen of to-day is considered as though he were a British citizen of some generations back, with a healthy young appetite for conquest still uncloyed, some idea near to the truth will have been reached. But since the deference exacted by public opinion nowadays compels some degree of pretence and does not permit us to parade our souls naked, it is improbable that the United States citizen of this century will adopt the frank freebooting attitude of the Elizabethan Englishman when he was laying the foundations of his Empire by methods inspired somewhat by piracy as well as by patriotism. The American will have to make some concession to the times and seek always a moral sanction for the extension of his boundaries. Such a search, however, is rarely made in vain when it is backed by a resolved purpose. It was sufficient for Francis Drake to know that a settlement was Spanish and rich. The attack followed. The United States needs to know that a possession is foreign, is desirable, and is grossly ill-governed before she will move to a remonstrance in the sacred name of Liberty. Since good government is an ideal which seldom comes at all close to realisation, and the reputation of no form of administration can survive the ordeal of resolute foreign criticism, the practical difference is slight. The American Empire will grow with the benediction always of a high moral purpose; but it will grow.

It is interesting to recall the fact that at its very birth the United States was invested by a writer of prophetic insight with the purple of Empire. Said the London Gazette of 1765:—"Little doubt can be entertained that America will in time be the greatest and most prosperous Empire that perhaps the world has ever seen." But the early founders of the new nation, then as now, deceived themselves and others with the view that a pacific little Republic, not a mighty Empire, was their aim. The Imperial instinct showed, however, in the fact that the baby nation had in its youngest days set up a formidable navy. It was ostensibly "for the local defence of its shores," but naval power and overseas Empire are inseparably linked.

The austere Republic began to grow in territory and influence at a rate putting to shame the early feats of the Roman power. By 1893 the United States had made it clear that she would not allow her independence to be fettered in the slightest degree by any claims of gratitude from France: and her Declaration of Neutrality in the European War then raging was a clear statement of claim to be considered as a Power. The war with the Barbary States in 1802 to suppress piracy was a claim to police rights on the high seas, police rights which custom gives only to a paramount sea Power. By the next year Spain and France had been more or less politely relieved of all responsibilities in North America, and the United States stretched from ocean to ocean, and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

It is upon the early eloquence of her founders as to the duty of the United States to confine her attention strictly to America, that the common misconception of America's place in foreign policy has been built up. That talk, however, was in the first instance dictated largely by prudence. Alexander Hamilton, who controlled the foreign policy of the infant Republic at the outset, was particularly anxious that she should find her feet before attempting any deeds of enterprise. In particular, he was anxious that the United States should not, through considerations of sentiment, be drawn into the position of a mere appanage of France. He set the foundations of what was known afterwards as the "Monroe doctrine," with the one thought that, at the time, a policy of non-interference with European affairs was a necessary condition of free growth for the young nation. The same idea governed Washington's farewell address in 1796 with its warning against "foreign entanglements."

Afterwards the "Monroe doctrine"—deriving its name from a message by President Monroe in 1823—was given the meaning that the United States would not tolerate any interference with the affairs of the American continent by Europe. Finally the "Monroe doctrine," which had begun with an affirmation of America's non-participation in European affairs, and had developed into a declaration against European interference with American affairs, took its present form, which is, in effect, that over all America the United States has a paramount interest which must not be questioned, and that as regards the rest of the world she claims an equal voice with other Powers. Yet, though that is the actual position, there is still an idea in some minds that the Monroe doctrine is an instrument of humbleness by which the United States claims the immunity of America from foreign interference and guarantees foreign countries from American interference.