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

by John Holladay Latané

VIII

THE NEW PAN-AMERICANISM

When President Wilson assumed office March 4, 1913, there was nothing but the Huerta revolution, the full significance of which was not then appreciated, to suggest to his mind the forecast that before the close of his term questions of foreign policy would absorb the attention of the American people and tax to the limit his own powers of mind and body. It seems now a strange fact that neither in his writings nor in his public addresses had President Wilson ever shown any marked interest in questions of international law and diplomacy. He had, on the contrary, made a life-long study of political organization and legislative procedure. Those who knew him had always thought that he was by nature fitted to be a great parliamentary leader and it soon appeared that he had a very definite legislative program which he intended to put through Congress. The foreign problems that confronted him so suddenly and unexpectedly were doubtless felt to be annoying distractions from the work which he had mapped out for himself and which was far more congenial to his tastes. As time went by, however, he was forced to give more and more thought to our relations with Latin America on the one hand and to the European war on the other. His ideas on international problems at first cautiously set forth, soon caught step with the rapid march of events and guided the thought of the world.

The Mexican situation, which reached a crisis a few days before Mr. Wilson came into office, at once demanded his attention and led to the enunciation of a general Latin-American policy. He had scarcely been in office a week when he issued a statement which was forwarded by the secretary of state to all American diplomatic officers in Latin America. In it he said:

"One of the chief objects of my administration will be to cultivate the friendship and deserve the confidence of our sister republics of Central and South America, and to promote in every proper and honorable way the interests which are common to the peoples of the two continents. . . .

"The United States has nothing to seek in Central and South America except the lasting interests of the peoples of the two continents, the security of governments intended for the people and for no special group or interest, and the development of personal and trade relationships between the two continents which shall redound to the profit and advantage of both, and interfere with the rights and liberties of neither.

"From these principles may be read so much of the future policy of this government as it is necessary now to forecast, and in the spirit of these principles I may, I hope, be permitted with as much confidence as earnestness, to extend to the governments of all the republics of America the hand of genuine disinterested friendship and to pledge my own honor and the honor of my colleagues to every enterprise of peace and amity that a fortunate future may disclose."

The policy here outlined, and elaborated a few months later in an address before the Southern Commercial Congress at Mobile, Alabama, has been termed the New Pan-Americanism. The Pan-American ideal is an old one, dating back in fact to the Panama Congress of 1826. The object of this congress was not very definitely stated in the call, which was issued by Simon Bolivar, but his purpose was to secure the independence and peace of the new Spanish republics through either a permanent confederation or a series of diplomatic congresses. President Adams through Henry Clay, who was at that time Secretary of State, promptly accepted the invitation to send delegates. The matter was debated at such length, however, in the House and Senate that the American delegates did not reach Panama until after the congress had adjourned. In view of the opposition which the whole scheme encountered in Congress, the instructions to the American delegates were very carefully drawn and their powers were strictly limited. They were cautioned against committing their government in any way to the establishment of "an amphictyonic council, invested with power fully to decide controversies between the American states or to regulate in any respect their conduct." They were also to oppose the formation of an offensive and defensive alliance between the American powers, for, as Mr. Clay pointed out, the Holy Alliance had abandoned all idea of assisting Spain in the reconquest of her late colonies. After referring to "the avoidance of foreign alliances as a leading maxim" of our foreign policy, Mr. Clay continued: "Without, therefore, asserting that an exigency may not occur in which an alliance of the most intimate kind between the United States and the other American republics would be highly proper and expedient, it may be safely said that the occasion which would warrant a departure from that established maxim ought to be one of great urgency, and that none such is believed now to exist."

The British Government sent a special envoy to reside near the Congress and to place himself in frank and friendly communication with the delegates. Canning's private instructions to this envoy declared that, "Any project for putting the U. S. of North America at the head of an American Confederacy, as against Europe, would be highly displeasing to your Government. It would be felt as an ill return for the service which has been rendered to those States, and the dangers which have been averted from them, by the countenance and friendship, and public declarations of Great Britain; and it would probably, at no distant period, endanger the peace both of America and of Europe."

The Panama Congress was without practical results and it was more than half a century before the scheme for international coöperation on the part of American states was again taken up. In 1881 Secretary Blaine issued an invitation to the American republics to hold a conference at Washington, but the continuance of the war between Chile and Peru caused an indefinite postponement of the proposed conference. Toward the close of President Cleveland's first administration the invitation was renewed and the First International Conference of American States convened at Washington in 1890. It happened that when the Conference met Mr. Blaine was again Secretary of State and presided over its opening sessions. The most notable achievement of this Conference was the establishment of the Bureau of American Republics, now known as the Pan-American Union. The Second International Conference of American States, held in the City of Mexico in 1901, arranged for all American states to become parties to the Hague Convention of 1899 for the pacific settlement of international disputes and drafted a treaty for the compulsory arbitration, as between American states, of pecuniary claims. The Third Conference, held at Rio Janeiro in 1906, extended the above treaty for another period of five years and proposed that the subject of pecuniary claims be considered at the second Hague Conference. Added significance was given to the Rio Conference by the presence of Secretary Root who, although not a delegate, made it the occasion of a special mission to South America. The series of notable addresses which he delivered on this mission gave a new impetus to the Pan-American movement. The Fourth Conference, held at Buenos Ayres in 1910, was occupied largely with routine matters. It extended the pecuniary claims convention for an indefinite period.