[[5]] Sumner (William Graham). "War and Other Essays," New Haven (Yale University Press), 1913, p. 29.
[[6]] "In 1800 Captain Bainbridge, arriving at Algiers with the usual tribute, was ordered to carry dispatches to Constantinople. 'You pay me tribute,' explained the Dey, 'by which you become my slaves, and therefore I have a right to order you as I think proper.'"—Fish. (Carl Russell.) "American Diplomacy," New York (1915), p. 141.
CHAPTER XV
AMERICAN INTERESTS ABROAD
No nation in its foreign policy is completely disinterested, in the sense that it willingly abandons or sacrifices its larger interests. What generosity it displays is usually in smaller matters, like a rich man's gift to a beggar. England may sacrifice interests in Jamaica to uphold the principle of human freedom, while at the same time fighting China to force the admission of opium. Similarly the United States may generously return money to Japan (as in the Shimonoseki case) or to China, or relieve the sufferers of Messina or of Belgium. In really vital matters, however, nations are not self-sacrificing, but tenaciously pursue their own interests.
There are two senses, however, in which a nation may be disinterested in its foreign policy. Either it may possess no interest or its separate interest may be so small in relation to its larger interests elsewhere that it is willing to make a sacrifice. If, for example, the present war ended in a deadlock and the two groups of powers, unwilling to trust each other, were to confide Constantinople and the straits to the keeping of the United States, it would be almost unthinkable that we should be false to the trust. We should have no interest in favouring one group of nations as against the other; we should have no political axe to grind and no economic or territorial gains to make. We should be fair and disinterested because we had no interest.
Our recent attitude toward Cuba, the Philippines and Mexico has been relatively disinterested in the second sense. We might have made money by exploiting these countries. We could have held Cuba; we might have imported a million Chinese into the Philippine Islands and grown rich on their toil, while in Mexico, where we already had invested a large capital which was menaced and in part destroyed by the revolution, we could have taken what we wanted and held what we took. Certain motives of decency prevented us from following this ruthless course; our self-satisfaction was worth more to us than a few hundred million dollars. The important fact, however, was that we were not pressed for this wealth. We were not compelled by poverty or pressure of population to grab what we could. We were able to seek a larger interest, to lay the basis of a slower but surer prosperity and to gain the good will, if not of Cubans, Filipinos and Mexicans, at least of the nations generally. In the long run it was a policy that will pay, and our conditions are such that we can still afford to consider the long run.