The Americans

by Hugo Münsterberg

Thus the desire for self-protection and a moral interest in the fight against absolutism have prescribed a course of holding aloof from European affairs, and of demanding that Europe should not reach out toward the American continents. This has become a cardinal principle in American politics. The opportunity soon came to express this principle very visibly in international politics. The Holy Alliance between Austria, Russia, and Prussia was believed by America, ever since 1822, to have been arranged in order to regain for Spain the Spanish colonies in South America. England wished to ally itself with the United States; but they, with excellent tact, steered their course alone. In 1822 the United States recognized the independence of the Central American republics; and in 1823, President Monroe, in his message to Congress, which was probably penned by John Quincy Adams, who was then Secretary of State, set down this policy in black and white. Monroe had previously asked ex-President Jefferson for his opinion, and Jefferson had written that our first and fundamental maxim should be, never to involve ourselves in European disputes; and our second, never to permit Europe to meddle in cis-Atlantic affairs, North and South America having their own interests, which are fundamentally different from those of Europe. Now the message of President Monroe contained the following declarations: “That we should consider any attempt on their part [of the allied powers] to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety,” and “that we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing [governments on this side of the water whose independence we had acknowledged], or controlling in any manner their destiny by any European power, in any other light than as a manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.”

Thus the famous Monroe Doctrine was announced to the world, and became an international factor sufficiently potent even to prevent Napoleon from realizing his plans regarding Mexico, and in more recent times to protect Venezuela from the consequences of her misdeeds. And although, at just that time of the Venezuelan dispute, the old Monroe Doctrine was in so far modified that the Presidential message conceded to European powers their right to press their claims by force of arms, so long as they claimed no permanent right of occupation, nevertheless the discussions ended with the extreme demand that foreign powers should be content with the promise of a South American state to pay its debts, and should receive no security; nor did the United States give security for the payment, either. After eighty years the doctrine is still asserted as it has been from the first, although the situation is in all respects very different. A few brief instances of these changes must suffice us.

In the first place, the two fundamental motives which gave rise to the doctrine, and in which all important documents are so clearly enunciated from the time of Washington to that of Monroe, have long since ceased to exist. The contrast between Europe as the land of tyranny and America as a democratic free soil, no longer holds; nor can the notion be bolstered up any longer, even for political ends. In the first place all countries of Western Europe now enjoy popular representation, while the Latin republics of South America, with the exception of Chili and the Argentine Republic, are the most absurd travesties of freedom and democracy. Conditions in Venezuela and Colombia are now pretty well known. It has been shown, for instance, that about one-tenth of the population consists of highly cultivated Spaniards, who take no part in politics, and suffer under a shameless administrative misrule; that some eight-tenths more are a harmless and ignorant proletariat of partly Spanish and partly Indian descent—people who likewise have no political interest, and who are afraid of the men in power—while the remaining tenth, which is of mixed Spanish, Indian, and negro blood, holds in its hands the so-called republican government, and keeps itself in power with every device of extortion and deception, and from time to time splits up into parties which throw the whole country into an uproar, merely for the personal advantages of the party leaders.

Even in America there is no longer a political back-woodsman who supposes that a republic like what the founders of the United States had in mind, can ever be made out of such material; and when, in spite of this, as in the negro question, some one gets up at the decisive moment of every discussion and tries to conjure with the Declaration of Independence, even such an appeal now often misses its effect. Since the Americans have gone into the Philippines they can no longer hold it an axiom that every government must be justified by the assent of the governed. People have learned to understand that the right of self-government must be earned, and is deserved only as the reward of hard work; that nations which have not yet grown to be orderly and peaceable need education like children who are not yet of age and do not know what is good for them. To say that the pitiable citizen of a corrupt South American republic is freer than the citizen of England, France, or Germany would be ridiculous; to protect the anarchy of these countries against the introduction of some European political system is at the present time not a moral obligation, surely, which the American Republic need feel itself called on to perform. The democratic idea, as realized in American life, has become much more influential on the governments of Europe than on those of South America, notwithstanding their lofty constitutions, which are filled with the most high-flown moral and philosophical utterances, but are obeyed by no one.

Now the other motive which supported the Monroe Doctrine, namely, the security of the United States and of their peaceful isolation, has to-day not the slightest validity; on the contrary, it is the superstitious faith in this doctrine which might conceivably endanger the peace of the country. Of course, this is only in so far as the doctrine applies to South America, not to Central America. It would indeed be impossible for the United States to allow, say Cuba, in passing from Spanish hands, to come into possession of another European nation; in fact, no part of Central America could become the seat of new European colonies without soon becoming a seat of war. The construction of the canal across the isthmus confirms and insures the moral and political leadership of the United States in Central America and the Antilles. But the situation is quite different in South America. The Americans are too apt to forget that Europe is much nearer to the United States than, for instance, the Argentine Republic, and that if one wants to go from New York to the Argentine Republic, the quickest way to go is by way of Europe. And the United States have really very little industrial intercourse or sympathy with the Latin republics. A European power adjoins the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean; and the fact that England, at one time their greatest enemy, abuts along this whole border has never threatened the peace of the United States; but it is supposed to be an instant calamity if Italy or England or Holland gets hold of a piece of land far away in South America, in payment of debts or to ensure the safety of misused colonists.

So long as the United States were small and weak, this exaggerated fear of unknown developments was intelligible; but now that the country is large and strong, and the supposed contrast between the Old and New Worlds no longer exists, since the United States are much more nearly like the countries of Europe than like the South American republics, any argument for the Monroe Doctrine on the ground of misgivings or fear comes to be downright hysterical. In the present age of ocean cables, geographical distances disappear. The American deals with the Philippines as if they were before his door, although they are much farther from Washington than any South American country is from Europe. Occasions for dispute with European countries may, on the other hand, come up at any time without the slightest reference to South America, since the United States have now become an international power; it requires merely an objectionable refusal to admit imports, some diplomatic mishap, or some unfairness in a matter of tariff.

If, on the other hand, the European countries were to have colonies in South America, as they have in Africa, no more occasions for complaint or dissatisfaction would accrue to the United States than from the similar colonies in Africa. No Russian or French or Italian colony in South America would ever in the world give rise to a difficulty with the United States through any real opposition of interests, and could only do so because a doctrine forbidding such colonies, which had been adopted under quite different circumstances, was still bolstered up and defended. If the Monroe Doctrine were to-day to be applied no farther than Central America, and South America were to be exempted, the possibilities of a conflict with European powers would be considerably decreased. That which was meant originally to guarantee peace, has, under the now wholly altered conditions, become the greatest menace of war.

But the main point is not that the motives which first led to the Monroe Doctrine are to-day invalid; the highest interests of the United States demand that this moribund doctrine be definitely given up. In the first place, it was never doubted that the exclusion of the Old World countries from the new American continents was only the conclusion of a premise, to the effect that the Americans themselves proposed to confine their political interests to their own continent. That was a wise policy in the times of Washington and Monroe; and whether or not it would have been wise in the time of McKinley, it was in any case at that time thrown over. The Americans have united with the European forces to do battle in China; they have extended their own dominion toward Asia; they have sent men-of-war to Europe on political missions; in short, the Americans have for years been extending their political influence around the world, and Secretary Hay has for a long time played an influential part in the European concert of powers. The United States have too often defended their Monroe claim on the ground of their own aloofness from these powers to feel justified in urging the claim when they no longer do keep aloof.

There is another and more important consideration. The real interest of the United States with regard to South America is solely that that land shall develop as far as possible, that its enormous treasures shall be exploited, and that out of a prosperous commercial continent important trade advantages shall accrue to the United States. This is possible only by the establishment of order there—the instant termination of anarchy. As long as the Monroe Doctrine is so unnecessarily held to, the miserable and impolitic stagnation of that ravaged country can never be bettered, since all the consequences of that doctrine work just in the opposite direction. It is sufficiently clear that progress will not be made until fresh, healthy, enterprising forces come in from outside; but now so soon as an Englishman or German or other European undertakes to earn his livelihood there, he is at once exposed to the shameless extortion and other chicanery of the so-called governments. And when European capital wishes to help the development of these countries, it is given absolutely no protection against their wretched politics. And all this is merely because the chartered rascals in power know that they can kill and steal with impunity, so long as the sacred Monroe Doctrine is there, like an enchanted wall, between them and the mother countries of their victims; they know only too well that no evil can come to them, since the statesmen at Washington are bound down to a prejudice, and required scrupulously to protect every hair on their precious heads. All this prevents any infusion of good blood from coming into these countries, and so abandons the land entirely to the indolence of its inhabitants. The conditions would be economically sounder, in almost every part of South America, if more immigrants came in, and more especially if those that came could take a larger part in the governments.

It would be somewhat different if the United States were to admit, as a consequence of the Monroe Doctrine, its own responsibility for the public administration of these countries, for their debts and for whatever crimes they commit; in other words, if the United States were virtually to annex South America. There is no thought of this; the United States have recently, in the Venezuela matter, clearly declined all responsibility. If, while declining the responsibility, the United States persist in affirming the Monroe Doctrine, they are to be charged inevitably with helping on anarchy, artificially holding back the progress of one of the richest and least developed portions of the earth, and thereby hurting their own commercial outlook more than any European protective tariff could possibly do. The greater part Europe takes in South America, so much the more will trade and commerce prosper; and in this pioneer labour, as history has shown, the patient German is the best advance-agent. Almost all the commercial relations between the United States and the South American republics are meditated by European, and especially German, business houses. The trade of the United States with South America is to-day astonishingly small, but when finally the Monroe barrier falls away it will develop enormously.