If a foreign power, during the Civil War, had landed military forces on the Atlantic coast, no matter how much that power had assured us that it did not intend to interfere, we would have demanded instant withdrawal. And in replying to assurances of a non-interfering intention, we would have replied: “You have already interfered—you are on our territory, and if you do not come to aid us, our enemy will be able to assert to his adherents, that you have come to aid him. You must do one of two things—fight with us or against us. We mistrust you, for we feel that if things should go against either side in this quarrel, you would throw your forces in with what appeared to be the winning side.”
And in Russia, and Siberia to-day, we are inclined to think that the issue is between Bolshevism and non-Bolshevism. It is a greater issue than that—it is a fight between an imperial form of government and a republican form of government.
When Maximilian set up his Empire in Mexico, we regarded it as an unfriendly act, and drove him out; and our own Monroe policy forbids foreign powers from landing forces for aggression or anything else in any part of the Western Hemisphere. No matter what a European chancellory might assert as the motive for sending a military expedition to this side of the world, we would regard it as an unfriendly act.
I wish it borne in mind that I am not attacking the administration for sending an expedition; but I am criticising the sending of an expedition; and having no policy.
We sat around all winter in Siberia, refusing to oppose “agitating peasants,” or “anti-Kolchak forces,” and when Spring came our own men were killed and captured at the Suchan Mines, not far from Vladivostok, by agitating peasants and anti-Kolchak forces, now revealed as Bolshevists. The errors of statesmen are corrected with the lives of soldiers.
What should we have done in Siberia? We should have done the only thing a military expedition is supposed to do—prevent disorder, insure safety to the inhabitants who go about their business, and demand that the Russians in such places as we occupied get busy with plans for government, and till they did so, go on and administer local government with their coöperation in accordance with our own ideas, and with our future intentions toward the people clearly stated and pledged.
That sounds like a big order. But those are the things we were expected to do by all hands—Russians, and our Allied interventionists. Also, no doubt, the decent element of our own country expected such action—and thought it was being done.
We have lost face in Asia, and if we ever find we wish to make a threatening gesture in that direction, we will not be taken very seriously till we have carried out the threat at large cost in blood and treasure. We may never have to make that threat, but we may be menaced from that direction some day, because Germany will expand in that direction, if not territorially at once, at least economically. And one thing we must realize—Germany has far better chances of merging with Asia than we have, because Asia understands the German idea.
Asia does not understand our ideas or ideals in government, and since seeing us operate in Siberia, is more puzzled with us than ever. Asia realizes our strength, and fears us for that reason alone; but she has seen our strength poorly demonstrated on her own soil, and she feels inclined to say: “Pooh! The giant of the Western Hemisphere is afraid of us, after all. He shakes his fist, but does not want to fight, he does not want to exert himself in this direction, he does not want to control us in any way. He is a good-natured giant, and there is no reason why we should fear his bluster.”
Asia is saying that herself. If ever the day comes when another power whispers to her that she is right about us, and that if she will join up with them we can be driven out of Asia and kept out, then Asia will in time be a serious menace to our peace and safety, and our existence as a nation with Western ideals.