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

by John Holladay Latané

We have undertaken in this brief review of Anglo-American relations to outline the more important controversies that have arisen between the two countries. They have been sufficiently numerous and irritating to jeopardize seriously the peace which has so happily subsisted for one hundred years between the two great members of the English-speaking family. After all, they have not been based on any fundamental conflict of policy, but have been for the most part superficial and in many cases the result of bad manners. In this connection Lord Bryce makes the following interesting observations:

"There were moments when the stiff and frigid attitude of the British foreign secretary exasperated the American negotiators, or when a demagogic Secretary of State at Washington tried by a bullying tone to win credit as the patriotic champion of national claims. But whenever there were bad manners in London there was good temper at Washington, and when there was a storm on the Potomac there was calm on the Thames. It was the good fortune of the two countries that if at any moment rashness or vehemence was found on one side, it never happened to be met by the like quality on the other."

"The moral of the story of Anglo-American relations," Lord Bryce says, "is that peace can always be kept, whatever be the grounds of controversy, between peoples that wish to keep it." He adds that Great Britain and the United States "have given the finest example ever seen in history of an undefended frontier, along which each people has trusted to the good faith of the other that it would create no naval armaments; and this very absence of armaments has itself helped to prevent hostile demonstrations. Neither of them has ever questioned the sanctity of treaties, or denied that states are bound by the moral law."

It is not strange that so many controversies about more or less trivial matters should have obscured in the minds of both Englishmen and Americans the fundamental identity of aim and purpose in the larger things of life. For notwithstanding the German influence in America which has had an undue part in shaping our educational methods, our civilization is still English. Bismarck realized this when he said that one of the most significant facts in modern history was that all North America was English-speaking. Our fundamental ideals are the same. We have a passion for liberty; we uphold the rights of the individual as against the extreme claims of the state; we believe in government through public opinion; we believe in the rule of law; we believe in government limited by fundamental principles and constitutional restraints as against the exercise of arbitrary power; we have never been subjected to militarism or to the dominance of a military caste; we are both so situated geographically as to be dependent on sea power rather than on large armies, and not only do navies not endanger the liberty of peoples but they are negligible quantities politically. Great Britain had in 1914 only 137,500 officers and men in her navy and 26,200 reserves, a wholly insignificant number compared to the millions that formed the army of Germany and gave a military color to the whole life and thought of the nation.

Not only are our political ideals the same, but in general our attitude toward world politics is the same, and most people are surprised when they are told that our fundamental foreign policies are identical. The two most characteristic American foreign policies, the Monroe Doctrine and the Open Door, were both, as we have seen, Anglo-American in origin.

VII

IMPERIALISTIC TENDENCIES OF THE MONROE DOCTRINE

In its original form the Monroe Doctrine was a direct defiance of Europe, and it has never been favorably regarded by the nations of the old world. Latterly, however, it has encountered adverse criticism in some of the Latin-American states whose independence it helped to secure and whose freedom from European control it has been instrumental in maintaining. The Latin-American attacks on the Doctrine during the last few years have been reflected to a greater or less extent by writers in this country, particularly in academic circles. The American writer who has become most conspicuous in this connection is Professor Bingham of Yale, who has travelled extensively in South America and who published in 1913 a little volume entitled "The Monroe Doctrine, an Obsolete Shibboleth." The reasons why the Monroe Doctrine has called forth so much criticism during the last few years are not far to seek. The rapid advance of the United States in the Caribbean Sea since 1898 has naturally aroused the apprehensions of the feebler Latin-American states in that region, while the building of the Panama Canal has rendered inevitable the adoption of a policy of naval supremacy in the Caribbean and has led to the formulation of new political policies in the zone of the Caribbean—what Admiral Chester calls the larger Panama Canal Zone—that is, the West Indies, Mexico and Central America, Colombia and Venezuela. Some of these policies, which have already been formulated to a far greater extent than is generally realized, are the establishment of protectorates, the supervision of finances, the control of all available canal routes, the acquisition of coaling stations, and the policing of disorderly countries.

The long-delayed advance of the United States in the Caribbean Sea actually began with the Spanish War. Since then we have made rapid strides. Porto Rico was annexed at the close of the war, and Cuba became a protectorate; the Canal Zone was a little later leased on terms that amounted to practical annexation, and the Dominican Republic came under the financial supervision of the United States; President Wilson went further and assumed the administration of Haitian affairs, leased from Nicaragua for a term of ninety-nine years a naval base on Fonseca Bay, and purchased the Danish West Indies. As a result of this rapid extension of American influence the political relations of the countries bordering on the Caribbean will of necessity be profoundly affected. Our Latin-American policy has been enlarged in meaning and limited in territorial application so far as its newer phases are concerned.

In 1904 President Roosevelt made a radical departure from our traditional policy in proposing that we should assume financial supervision over the Dominican Republic in order to prevent certain European powers from forcibly collecting debts due their subjects. Germany seemed especially determined to force a settlement of her demands, and it was well known that Germany had for years regarded the Monroe Doctrine as the main hindrance in the way of her acquiring a foothold in Latin America. The only effective method of collecting the interest on the foreign debt of the Dominican Republic appeared to be the seizure and administration of her custom houses by some foreign power or group of foreign powers. President Roosevelt foresaw that such an occupation of the Dominican custom houses would, in view of the large debt, constitute the occupation of American territory by European powers for an indefinite period of time, and would, therefore, be a violation of the Monroe Doctrine. He had before him also the results of a somewhat similar financial administration of Egypt undertaken jointly by England and France in 1878, and after Arabi's revolt continued by England alone, with the result that Egypt soon became a possession of the British crown to almost as great a degree as if it had been formally annexed, and during the World War it was in fact treated as an integral part of the British Empire. President Roosevelt concluded, therefore, that where it was necessary to place a bankrupt American republic in the hands of a receiver, the United States must undertake to act as receiver and take over the administration of its finances. He boldly adopted this policy and finally forced a reluctant Senate to acquiesce. The arrangement has worked admirably. In spite of the criticism that this policy encountered, the Taft administration not only continued it in Santo Domingo, but tried to extend it to Nicaragua and Honduras. In January, 1911, a treaty placing the finances of Honduras under the supervision of the United States was signed by Secretary Knox, and in June a similar treaty was signed with Nicaragua. These treaties provided for the refunding of the foreign debt, in each case through loans made by American bankers and secured by the customs duties, the collector in each case to be approved by the United States and to make an annual report to the Department of State. These treaties were not ratified by the Senate.