[[5]] In 1914, twenty-six years after the cession of the islands our combined import to and export from the Philippines amounted to only $51,246,128, or less than 1/75 of our entire foreign commerce. Our commerce with China, which was to have been opened by our possession of the Philippines was less than one-half of that with Brazil and less than one-twelfth of that with Great Britain.
[[6]] "At the beginning of the war (with Spain) there was perhaps not a soul in the whole Republic who so much as thought of the possibility of this nation becoming a sovereign power in the Orient."—"World Politics," by Prof. Paul I. Reinsch, New York, 1913, p. 64.
CHAPTER V
FACING OUTWARD
While the imperialistic venture of 1898 was premature and did not lead, as had been expected, to a conscious participation of America in the international scramble for colonies, it affected our national thinking and forced us to re-consider the position of America in relation to the ambitions and plans of other great nations. Our acquisition of new dependencies led us to recognise that we were at last a world power, with the responsibilities of a world power. We were obliged to learn from England and other imperialistic nations the lessons of colonial administration. Year by year we were drawn into closer relations with the West Indies and the Caribbean countries, and were compelled to assume financial control of Hayti and San Domingo in the interest both of foreign capital and of the countries themselves. The completion of the Panama Canal increased our sense of international danger and international responsibility. Finally the revolution in Mexico proved to us that whatever our positive action we could not remain passive.
Our Monroe Doctrine also, which had always seemed our charter of independence of Europe, forces us in the end to come to an understanding with Europe. We had set our faces against European conquest in the Americas, and therefore against any punitive expedition, likely to lead to permanent occupation. But if we protected Hayti and San Domingo from Europe, we assumed a certain responsibility for the actions of these countries. In the existing state of international law, a nation assumes the right to protect its citizens from spoliation and to compel debtor countries to meet their obligations. In this right to collect debts by force of arms, which has been the excuse for innumerable imperialistic extensions, all the great creditor nations are interested. Had the United States refused to intervene in San Domingo, while forbidding the great powers to secure redress by threats, we might possibly have been forced to fight against overwhelming odds in defence of a people and cause, for which we had little sympathy. By its very prohibitions the Monroe Doctrine compels us increasingly to intervene between the weaker Latin-American countries and the warlike creditor nations of Europe.
The gradual extension of the Doctrine, moreover, vastly increases our possible area of friction with Europe. Originally planned to prevent European nations from conquering parts of the Americas, the Doctrine has now been extended to forbid foreign corporations subsidised or controlled by an Old World government to acquire any land in the Americas which might menace the safety or communications of the United States. Our action in Mexico indicates that we are determined not only to prevent Europe from introducing monarchical institutions into American countries, but to insist that those countries themselves adhere to the outward forms of popular government. Secretary Olney was speaking no doubt largely for home consumption when he declared that "the United States is practical sovereign on this continent (hemisphere), and its fiat is law upon the subject to which it confines its interpretation." Nevertheless the extension of control either by the United States or some group of powers is almost inevitable, and with the widening of the Monroe Doctrine, as a result of closer relations between Latin America and the Old World, the necessity for some arrangement between the United States and the great European powers becomes increasingly obvious.
Our possession of Hawaii and the Philippines acts in the same manner. In a military sense the Philippines are indefensible; we cannot secure them against a near-lying military power. Nor can we in the present stage of national feeling permit them to be conquered. Consequently we watch the actions of Japan with quite different feelings than if we had not given her provocation and a bait. The building of the Panama Canal equally increases our international liabilities. It contributes a vast new importance to the Caribbean Sea and adds a new weak point to American territory. Having built and fortified the canal, we are compelled to think of ways and means of defending it, of armies, navies, ententes and alliances.