The European traveling salesman in these countries carries a line of goods immediately answerable to local requirements. Furthermore, the European exporter understands that the system of credits in Latin America is not the same as prevails in Europe and the United States, and he complies with their requirements. Of course, his prices are placed high enough so that he is nothing out of pocket for the seeming concessions he had made. The result is that in traveling in these countries, one meets three or four foreign "drummers" where he meets one American traveling man, in spite of their nearness to the United States. It will take years, even with the Panama Canal in operation, to overcome the disadvantage which bad business policy has placed upon the American manufacturers.
If the opening of the Panama Canal spells new American commercial opportunities, it also develops a new field of international politics in which the United States must make itself the dominant factor, and in which it will have a transcendental interest. It will unquestionably give to the Monroe doctrine a new importance and render its maintenance a more urgent necessity than ever. Prior to this time the breaking down of the Monroe doctrine would have been greatly detrimental to the interests of the United States, but from this time forth the domination of the Caribbean by some other strong nation would likely prove most disastrous to American welfare. It might even lead to the loss of the canal itself, and we then would witness that great waterway transformed from a military asset of immeasureable benefit into a base of operations against us.
Probably the chief danger to which the Monroe doctrine is exposed is from those countries whose rulers profit most by its enforcement. While the United States can control its own affairs in such a way as not to bring into question this doctrine, it is not so certain that the rulers of some of the Latin American nations will always do as well. In fact, some of the countries have conducted their affairs in such a way as might have involved the United States in a war with a foreign power. The knowledge that a small tropical American republic might act so as to force the United States into a critical situation has resulted in a desire on the part of the responsible authorities at Washington to exercise over the Republics of the Caribbean such a guiding control as would serve to prevent them, through any ill-considered or irresponsible act, from exposing the United States to dangerous controversies with foreign nations.
For instance, here is a country which owes a large debt to British bondholders. It defaults on the interest for a period of years. Efforts to collect are futile. Finally it is decided by the President that he needs additional funds. He reaches an agreement with the representatives of the bondholders, by which they agree to refund the debt and to lend him an additional half a million dollars, upon the condition that he hypothecate the Government's export tax upon coffee to secure the amortization of the refunded debt. He does so. Matters move along quietly for a little while, but soon he needs additional funds. He negotiates with New York bankers, getting from them the funds he needs, and hypothecates with them the same coffee tax that he had hitherto hypothecated with the British bondholders. Of course, the British bondholders protest at this impairment of their securities. He laughs at their protest. England sends a warship to his ports. He appeals loudly to the United States for the maintenance of the Monroe doctrine; but the United States does not hear him, so he decides to treat the British bondholders fairly. If he had not done so, and England had been seeking to break down the Monroe doctrine, an ideal opportunity would have been afforded.
It is to prevent such situations as these that many Americans hope that the Government may devise some plan that will at once protect the United States from such menaces, and at the same time allow the people of these countries to work out their own destiny in their own way.
The situation in tropical America today, with a few exceptions, seems to be that the republics have the form of liberty without its substance, and the shadow of civilization without its realities. Some of them have had over fifty revolutions in as many years. Some of them have been in the grip of tyrants who were as heartless in exploiting their people as was Nero in ruling Rome. The masses have received nothing from the Government except oppression, and they live in that hopeless, heartless ignorance so well described by a Spanish writer, picturing conditions in Porto Rico before the American occupation. We know that this picture was a true one. It was drawn in 1897 and won the prize awarded by the Spanish Government at the centennial celebration of the retirement of the English from this island. After dilating upon the splendors and magnificence of Porto Rico, this artist of the pen said of the masses:
"Only the laborer, the son of our fields, one of the most unfortunate beings in the world, with the pallid face, the bare foot, the fleshless body, the ragged clothing, and the feverish glance, strolls indifferently with the darkness of ignorance in his eyes. In the market he finds for food only the rotten salt fish or meat, cod fish covered with gangrenish splotches, and Indian rice; he that harvests the best coffee in the world, who aids in gathering into the granary the sweetest grain in nature, and drives to pasture the beautiful young meat animals, can not carry to his lips a single slice of meat because the municipal exactions place it beyond his means, almost doubling the price of infected cod fish; coffee becomes to him an article of luxury because of its high price, and he can use only sugar laden with molasses and impurities."
That picture applies to more than 90 per cent of the people in tropical America to-day. It explains why these countries, which might be made to flow with the milk and honey of a wondrous plenty, are poverty-stricken and unable to work out a satisfactory destiny for themselves. It shows why Cuba, Porto Rico, and Jamaica to-day are rich in internal trade, and prosperous in foreign commerce, while other countries are eking out a bare and scanty existence.
American commercial opportunities around the Mediterranean of the West, in particular, and in Latin America, in general, will reach their full when government there becomes government for the welfare of the people rather than for the aggrandizement of the ruling class.