From Isolation to Leadership, Revised / A Review of American Foreign Policy

by John Holladay Latané

After the suppression of the Boxer uprising, China had agreed to extend the scope of her commercial treaties with the powers. When the negotiation of a new treaty with the United States was begun, our representative demanded that at least two new ports in Manchuria be opened to foreign trade and residence. The Chinese commissioners declined to discuss the subject on the alleged ground that they had no instructions to do so. It was evident that there was secret opposition somewhere, and after considerable difficulty Mr. Hay finally secured evidence that it came from Russia. When confronted with the evidence the Russian Government finally admitted the facts. We were told that we could not be admitted to one of the ports that we had designated because it was situated within the Russian railway zone, and therefore not under the complete jurisdiction of China, but that another port would be substituted for it. Secretary Hay and President Roosevelt were helpless. They accepted what they could get and kept quiet. "The administrative entity" of China was again utterly ignored. The difficulty was that we did not have a strong enough navy in the Pacific to fight Russia alone, and President Roosevelt and Secretary Hay realized that neither the Senate nor public opinion would consent to an alliance with England and Japan. Had these three powers made a joint declaration in support of the open-door policy, the exploitation of China would have ceased, there would have been no Russo-Japanese war, and the course of world history during the period that has since intervened might have been very different.

When we backed down and abandoned Manchuria to Russian exploitation Japan stepped into the breach. After long negotiations the Japanese Government finally delivered an ultimatum to Russia which resulted in the rupture of diplomatic relations and war. After a series of notable victories on land and sea Japan was fast approaching the end of her resources, and it is now an open secret that the Emperor wrote a personal letter to President Roosevelt requesting him to intervene diplomatically and pave the way for peace. The President was quick to act on the suggestion and the commissioners of Russia and Japan met at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Here President Roosevelt's intervention should have ceased. The terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth were a bitter disappointment to the Japanese people and the Japanese commissioners undertook to shift the burden from their shoulders by stating that President Roosevelt had urged them to surrender their claim to the Island of Saghalien and to give up all idea of an indemnity. Japanese military triumph had again, as at the close of the Chino-Japanese War, been followed by diplomatic defeat, and for this defeat Japanese public opinion held President Roosevelt responsible. From the days of Commodore Perry and Townsend Harris to the Treaty of Portsmouth, relations between the United States and Japan had been almost ideal. Since the negotiations at Portsmouth there has been a considerable amount of bad feeling, and at times diplomatic relations have been subjected to a severe strain.

Having fought a costly war in order to check the Russian advance in Manchuria, the Japanese naturally felt that they had a paramount interest in China. They consequently sharply resented the attempts which the United States subsequently made, particularly Secretary Knox's proposal for the neutralization of the railways of Manchuria, to formulate policies for China. They took the position that we had had our day and that we must henceforth remain hands off so far as China was concerned. This attitude of mind was not unnatural and during the World War the United States, in order to bind the Japanese government more closely to the Allied Cause, agreed to recognize, in the Lansing-Ishii agreement, the "special interests" of Japan in China.

VI

ANGLO-AMERICAN RELATIONS

A few years ago George L. Beer, one of our leading students of British colonial policy, said "It is easily conceivable, and not at all improbable, that the political evolution of the next centuries may take such a course that the American Revolution will lose the great significance that is now attached to it, and will appear merely as the temporary separation of two kindred peoples whose inherent similarity was obscured by superficial differences resulting from dissimilar economic and social conditions." This statement does not appear as extravagant to-day as it did ten years ago. As early as 1894, Captain Mahan, the great authority on naval history, published an essay entitled "Possibilities of an Anglo-American Reunion," in which he pointed out that these two countries were the only great powers which were by geographical position exempt from the burden of large armies and dependent upon the sea for intercourse with the other great nations.

In a volume dealing with questions of American foreign policy, published in 1907, the present writer concluded the last paragraph with this statement: "By no means the least significant of recent changes is the development of cordial relations with England; and it seems now that the course of world politics is destined to lead to the further reknitting together of the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race in bonds of peace and international sympathy, in a union not cemented by any formal alliance, but based on community of interests and of aims, a union that will constitute the highest guarantee of the political stability and moral progress of the world."

The United States has very naturally had closer contact with England than with any other European power. This has been due to the fact that England was the mother country, that after independence was established a large part of our trade continued to be with the British Isles, that our northern boundary touches British territory for nearly four thousand miles, and that the British navy and mercantile marine have dominated the Atlantic Ocean which has been our chief highway of intercourse with other nations. Having had more points of contact we have had more disputes with England than with any other nation. Some writers have half jocularly attributed this latter fact to our common language. The Englishman reads our books, papers, and magazines, and knows what we think of him, while we read what he writes about us, and in neither case is the resulting impression flattering to the national pride.

Any one who takes the trouble to read what was written in England about America and the Americans between 1820 and 1850 will wonder how war was avoided. A large number of English travellers came to the United States during this period and published books about us when they got home. The books were bad enough in themselves, but the great English periodicals, the Edinburgh Review, Blackwood's, the British Review, and the Quarterly, quoted at length the most objectionable passages from these writers and made malicious attacks on Americans and American institutions. American men were described as "turbulent citizens, abandoned Christians, inconstant husbands, unnatural fathers, and treacherous friends." Our soldiers and sailors were charged with cowardice in the War of 1812. It was stated that "in the southern parts of the Union the rites of our holy faith are almost never practised. . . . Three and a half millions enjoy no means of religious instruction. The religious principle is gaining ground in the northern parts of the Union; it is becoming fashionable among the better orders of society to go to church . . . The greater number of states declare it to be unconstitutional to refer to the providence of God in any of their public acts." The Quarterly Review informed its readers that "the supreme felicity of a true-born American is inaction of body and inanity of mind." Dickens's American Notes was an ungrateful return for the kindness and enthusiasm with which he had been received in this country. De Tocqueville's Democracy in America was widely read in England and doubtless had its influence in revising opinion concerning America. Richard Cobden was, however, the first Englishman to interpret correctly the significance of America as an economic force. His essay on America, published in 1835, pointed out that British policy should be more concerned with economic relations with America than with European politics. As Professor Dunning says, "Cobden made the United States the text of his earliest sermon against militarism and protectionism."

Notwithstanding innumerable disputes over boundaries, fisheries, and fur seals, trade with the British West Indies and Canada, and questions of neutral rights and obligations, we have had unbroken peace for more than a hundred years. Upon several occasions, notably during the Canadian insurrection of 1837 and during our own Civil War, disturbances along the Canadian border created strained relations, but absence of frontier guards and forts has prevented hasty action on the part of either government. The agreement of 1817, effecting disarmament on the Great Lakes, has not only saved both countries the enormous cost of maintaining navies on these inland waters, but it has prevented hostile demonstrations in times of crisis.