While American troops were threading the mountain passes and the morasses of the Philippines, scaling the walls of Pekin, and sunning themselves in the delectable pleasances of the Forbidden City, and while American Secretaries of State were penning dispatches which determined the fate of countries on the opposite side of the globe, the old diplomatic problems nearer home still persisted. The Spanish War, however, had so thoroughly changed the relationship of the United States to the rest of the world that the conditions under which even these old problems were to be adjusted or solved gave them entirely new aspects. The American people gradually but effectually began to take foreign affairs more seriously. As time went on, the Government made improvements in the consular and diplomatic services. Politicians found that their irresponsible threatenings of other countries had ceased to be politically profitable when public opinion realized what was at stake. Other countries, moreover, began to take the United States more seriously. The open hostility which they had shown on the first entrance of this nation into world politics changed, on second thought, to a desire on their part to placate and perhaps to win the support of this new and formidable power.
The attitude of Germany in particular was conspicuous. The Kaiser sent his brother, Prince Henry, to visit the United States. He presented the nation with a statue of Frederick the Great and Harvard with a Germanic museum; he ordered a Herreshoff yacht, and asked the President's daughter, Alice Roosevelt, to christen it; he established exchange professorships in the universities; and he began a campaign aimed apparently at securing for Germany the support of the entire American people, or, failing that, at organizing for German purposes the German-born element within the United States. France sought to revive the memory of her friendship for the United States during the Revolution by presenting the nation with a statue of Rochambeau, and she also established exchange professorships. In England, Cecil Rhodes, with his great dream of drawing together all portions of the British race, devoted his fortune to making Oxford the mold where all its leaders of thought and action should be shaped; and Joseph Chamberlain and other English leaders talked freely and enthusiastically of an alliance between Great Britain and the United States as the surest foundation for world peace.
It need not be supposed, however, that these international amenities meant that the United States was to be allowed to have its own way in the world. The friendliness of Great Britain was indeed sincere. Engaged between 1899 and 1901 in the Boer War, she appreciated ever more strongly the need for the friendship of the United States, and she looked with cordial approbation upon the development of Secretary Hay's policy in China. The British, however, like the Americans, are legalistically inclined, and disputes between the two nations are likely to be maintained to the limit of the law. The advantage of this legal mindedness is that there has always been a disposition in both peoples to submit to judicial award when ordinary negotiations have reached a deadlock. But the real affection for each other which underlay the eternal bickerings of the two nations had as yet not revealed itself to the American consciousness. As most of the disputes of the United States had been with Great Britain, Americans were always on the alert to maintain all their claims and were suspicious of "British gold."
It was, therefore, in an atmosphere by no means conducive to yielding on the part of the United States, though it was one not antagonistic to good feeling, that the representatives of the two countries met. John Hay and Sir Julian Pauncefote, whose long quiet service in this country had made him the first popular British ambassador, now set about clearing up the problems confronting the two peoples. The first question which pressed for settlement was one of boundary. It had already taken ninety years to draw the line from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and now the purchase of Alaska by the United States had added new uncertainties to the international boundary. The claims of both nations were based on a treaty of 1825 between Great Britain and Russia. Like most attempts to define boundaries running through unexplored territories, the treaty terms admitted of two interpretations. The boundary line from Portland Channel to Mount St. Elias was stipulated to run everywhere a distance of ten marine leagues from the coast and to follow its sinuosities. This particular coast, however, is bitten into by long fiords stretching far into the country. Great Britain held that these were not part of the sea in the sense of the treaty and that the line should cut across them ten marine leagues from the outer coast line. On the other hand, the United States held that the line should be drawn ten marine leagues from the heads of these inlets.
The discovery of gold on the Yukon in 1897 made this boundary question of practical moment. Action now became an immediate necessity. In 1899 the two countries agreed upon a modus Vivendi and in 1903 arranged an arbitration. The arbitrating board consisted of three members from each of the two nations. The United States appointed Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, ex-Senator George Turner, and Elihu Root, then Secretary of War. Great Britain appointed two Canadians, Louis A. Jette and A. B. Aylesworth, and Lord Alverstone, Chief Justice of England. Their decision was in accordance with the principle for which the United States had contended, though not following the actual line which it had sketched. It gave the Americans, however, full control of the coast and its harbors, and the settlement provided a mutually accepted boundary on every frontier.
With the discovery of gold in the far North, Alaska began a period of development which is rapidly making that territory an important economic factor in American life. Today the time when this vast northern coast was valuable only as the breeding ground for the fur seal seems long past. Nevertheless the fur seal continued to be sought, and for years the international difficulty of protecting the fisheries remained. Finally, in 1911, the United States entered into a joint agreement with Great Britain, Japan, and Russia, which is actually serving as a sort of international game law. The problems of Alaska that remain are therefore those of internal development.
Diplomacy, however, is not concerned solely with sensational episodes. American ministers and the State Department are engaged for the most part in the humdrum adjustment of minor differences which never find their way into the newspapers. Probably more such cases arise with Great Britain, in behalf of Canada, than with any other section of the globe. On the American continent rivers flow from one country into the other; railroads carry goods across the border and back again; citizens labor now in one country, now in the other; corporations do business in both. All these ties not only bind but chafe and give rise to constant negotiation. More and more Great Britain has left the handling of such matters to the Canadian authorities, and, while there can be no interchange of ministers, there is an enormous transaction of business between Ottawa and Washington.
While there has of late years been little talk of annexation, there have been many in both countries who have desired to reduce the significance of the boundary to a minimum. This feeling led in 1911 to the formulation of a reciprocity agreement, which Canada, however, was unwilling to accept. Yet, if tariff restrictions were not removed, other international barriers were as far as possible done away with. In 1898 a commission was appointed to agree upon all points of difference. Working slowly but steadily, the commissioners settled one question after another, until practically all problems were put upon a permanent working basis. Perhaps the most interesting of the results of this activity was the appointment in 1908 of a permanent International Fisheries Commission, which still regulates that vexing question.
Another source of international complication arose out of the Atlantic fisheries off Newfoundland, which is not part of Canada. It is off these shores that the most important deep-sea fishing takes place. This fishery was one of the earliest American sources of wealth, and for nearly two centuries formed a sort of keystone of the whole commercial life of the United States. When in 1783 Great Britain recognized American independence, she recognized also that American fishermen had certain rights off these coasts. These rights, however, were not sufficient for the conduct of the fisheries, and so in addition certain "liberties" were granted, which allowed American fishers to land for the purpose of drying fish and of doing other things not generally permitted to foreigners. These concessions in fact amounted to a joint participation with the British. The rights were permanent, but the privileges were regarded as having lapsed after the War of 1812. In 1818 they were partially renewed, certain limited privileges being conceded. Ever since that date the problem of securing the additional privileges desired has been a subject for discussion between Great Britain and the United States. Between 1854 and 1866 the American Government secured them by reciprocity; between 1872 and 1884 it bought them; after 1888 it enjoyed them by a temporary modus vivendi arranged under President Cleveland.
In 1902 Hay arranged with Sir Robert Bond, Prime Minister of Newfoundland, a new reciprocity agreement. This, however, the Senate rejected, and the Cleveland agreement continued. Newfoundland, angry at the rejection of the proposed treaty, put every obstacle possible in the way of American fishermen and used methods which the Americans claimed to be contrary to the treaty terms. After long continued and rather acrimonious discussions, the matter was finally referred in 1909 to the Hague Court. As in the Bering Sea case, the court was asked not only to judge the facts but also to draw up an agreement for the future. Its decision, on the whole, favored Newfoundland, but this fact is of little moment compared with the likelihood that a dispute almost a century and a half old has at last been permanently settled.
None of these international disputes and settlements to the north, however, excited anything like the popular interest aroused by one which occurred in the south. The Spanish War made it abundantly evident that an isthmian canal between the Atlantic and the Pacific must be built. The arguments of naval strategy which Captain Mahan had long been urging had received striking demonstration in the long and roundabout voyage which the Oregon was obliged to take. The pressure of railroad rates on the trade of the country caused wide commercial support for a project expected to establish a water competition that would pull them down. The American people determined to dig a canal.
The first obstacle to such a project lay in the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with Great Britain. That obstacle Blaine had attempted in vain to remove; in fact his bungling diplomacy had riveted it yet more closely by making Great Britain maintain it as a point of honor. To this subject Hay now devoted himself, and as he encountered no serious difficulties, a treaty was drawn up in 1900 practically as he wished it. It was not, however, popular in the United States. Hay preferred and arranged for a canal neutralized by international guarantee, on the same basis as the Suez Canal; but American public sentiment had come to insist on a canal controlled absolutely by the United States. The treaty was therefore rejected by the Senate, or rather was so amended as to prove unacceptable to Great Britain.
Hay believed that he had obtained what was most desirable as well as all that was possible, that the majority of the American people approved, and that he was beaten only because a treaty must be approved by two-thirds of the Senate. He therefore resigned. President McKinley, however, refused to accept his resignation, and he and Lord Pauncefote were soon at work again on the subject. In 1901 a new treaty was presented to the Senate. This began by abrogating the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty entirely and with it brushing away all restrictions upon the activity of the United States in Central America. It specifically permitted the United States to "maintain such military police along the canal as may be necessary to protect it against lawlessness and disorder." By interpreting this clause as allowing complete fortification, the United States has made itself the guardian of the canal. In return for the release from former obligations which Great Britain thus allowed, the United States agreed that any canal constructed should be regulated by certain rules which were stated in the treaty and which made it "free and open to the vessels of commerce and of war of all nations observing these Rules, on terms of entire equality," in time of war as well as of peace. This time the treaty proved satisfactory and was accepted by the Senate. Thus one more source of trouble was done away with, and the first obstacle in the way of the canal was removed.
The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty was, however, only a bit of the tangled jungle which must be cleared before the first American shovel could begin its work. For over twenty years a contest had been waged between experts in the United States as to the relative merits of the Panama and the Nicaragua routes. The latter was the more popular, perhaps because it seemed at one time that Panama was preempted by De Lesseps' French company. This contest as to the better route led to the passage of a law, in 1902, which authorized the President to acquire the rights and property needed to construct a canal by the Panama route, on condition that he could make satisfactory arrangements "within a reasonable time and upon reasonable terms." Otherwise, Nicaragua was to be chosen. Theodore Roosevelt was now President and, though at one time not favoring Panama, he decided that there the canal should be constructed and with his accustomed vigor set himself to the task.
The first difficulty presented by this route was the prior right which the French company still retained, although it had little, if any, hope of carrying on the construction itself. It possessed not only rights but also much equipment on the spot, and it had actually begun excavation at certain points. The purchase of all its properties complete for $40,000,000 was, therefore, not a bad investment on the part of the Government. By this purchase the United States was brought directly into relation with Colombia, through one of whose federal states, Panama, the canal was to be cut.
While the French purchase had removed one obstacle, the De Lesseps charter alone would not suffice for the construction of the canal, for the American Government had definite ideas as to the conditions necessary for the success of the work. The Government required a zone which should be under its complete control, for not otherwise could satisfactory sanitary regulations be enforced. It insisted also on receiving the right to fortify the canal. It must have these and other privileges on a long time grant. For them, it was willing to pay generously. Negotiations would be affected, one could not say how, by the Treaty of 1846 with Colombia, * by which the United States had received the right of free use of the isthmus, with the right of maintaining the neutrality of the district and in return had guaranteed to Colombia sovereignty over the isthmus.
Hay took up the negotiations with the Colombian charge d'affaires, Dr. Herran, and arranged a treaty, which gave the United States a strip of land six miles wide across the isthmus, on a ninety-nine year lease, for which it should pay ten million dollars and, after a period of nine years for construction, a quarter of a million a year. This treaty, after months of debate in press and Congress, was rejected by the Colombian Senate on August 12, 1903, though the people of Panama, nervously anxious lest this opportunity to sit on the bank of the world's great highway should slip into the hands of their rivals of Nicaragua, had urged earnestly the acceptance of the terms. The majority of the Colombians probably expected to grant the American requests in time but were determined to force the last penny from the United States. As Hay wrote: "The Isthmus is looked upon as a financial cow to be milked for the benefit of the country at large. This difficulty might be overcome by diplomacy and money."
President Roosevelt at this point took the negotiations into his own hands. Knowing that the price offered was more than just, he decided to depend no longer on bartering. He ordered the American minister to leave Colombia, and he prepared a message to Congress proposing that the Americans proceed to dig the canal under authority which he claimed to find in the Treaty of 1846. It was, however, doubtful if Congress would find it there, particularly as so many Congressmen preferred the Nicaragua route. The President therefore listened with pleased attention to the rumors of a revolution planned to separate Panama from Colombia. Most picturesquely this information was brought by M. Philippe Bunau-Varilla, a former engineer of the De Lesseps company, who glowed with the excitement of coming events. Roosevelt, however, relied more upon the information furnished by two American officers, who reported "that various revolutionary movements were being inaugurated."
On October 10, 1903, the President wrote to Dr. Albert Shaw, of the "Review of Reviews":
"I enclose you, purely for your own information, a copy of a letter of September 5th, from our minister to Colombia. I think it might interest you to see that there was absolutely not the slightest chance of securing by treaty any more than we endeavored to secure. The alternatives were to go to Nicaragua against the advice of the great majority of competent engineers—some of the most competent saying that we had better have no canal at this time than go there—or else to take the territory by force without any attempt at getting a treaty. I cast aside the proposition made at the time to foment the secession of Panama. Whatever other governments can do, the United States cannot go into the securing, by such underhand means, the cession. Privately, I freely say to you that I should be delighted if Panama were an independent state; or if it made itself so at this moment; but for me to say so publicly would amount to an instigation of a revolt, and therefore I cannot say it."
Nothing, however, prevented the President from keeping an attentive eye on the situation. On the 16th of October he directed the Navy Department to send ships to the Isthmus to protect American interests in case of a revolutionary outbreak. On the 2d of November, he ordered the squadron to "maintain free and uninterrupted transit.... Prevent the landing of any armed force with hostile intent, either government or insurgent, at any point within fifty miles of Panama." At 3:40 P.M., on the 3d of November, the acting Secretary of State telegraphed to the Isthmus for confirmation of a report to the effect that an uprising was in progress. A reply dated 8:15 P.M. stated that there had been none as yet, but that it was rumored one would take place during the night. On the 4th of November independence was proclaimed. The only fatality was a Chinaman killed in the City of Panama by a shell from the Colombian gunboat Bogota. Its commander was warned not to fire again. On the 6th of November, Secretary Hay instructed our consul to recognize the new republic, and on the 13th of November, President Roosevelt received Bunau-Varilla as its representative at Washington.
This prompt recognition of a new state, without waiting to allow the parent Government time to assert itself, was contrary to American practice. The United States had regarded as a most unfriendly act Great Britain's mere recognition of the belligerency of the Southern Confederacy. The right of the United States to preserve the neutrality of the isthmus, as provided by the Treaty of 1846, certainly did not involve the right to intervene between the Government and revolutionists. On the other hand, the guarantee of possession which the United States had given to Colombia did involve supporting her Government to a reasonable extent; yet there could be little doubt that it was the presence of American ships which had made the revolution successful.
The possible implications of these glaring facts were cleverly met by President Roosevelt in his message to Congress and by the Secretary of State in the correspondence growing out of the affair. The Government really relied for its justification, however, not upon these technical pleas but upon the broad grounds of equity. America has learned in the last few years how important it is for its safety that "scraps of paper" be held sacred and how dangerous is the doctrine of necessity. Nevertheless it is well to observe that if the United States did, in the case of Panama, depart somewhat from that strict observance of obligations which it has been accustomed to maintain, it did not seek any object which was not just as useful to the world at large as to itself, that the situation had been created not by a conflict of opposing interests but by what the Government had good reason to believe was the bad faith of Colombia, and that the separation of Panama was the act of its own people, justly incensed at the disregard of their interests by their compatriots. This revolution created no tyrannized subject population but rather liberated from a galling bond a people who had, in fact, long desired separation.
With the new republic negotiation went on pleasantly and rapidly, and as early as November 18, 1903, a convention was drawn up, in which the United States guaranteed the independence of Panama and in return received in perpetuity a grant of a zone ten miles wide within which to construct a canal from ocean to ocean.
As the acquisition of the Philippines made all Far Eastern questions of importance to the United States, so the investment of American millions in a canal across the Isthmus of Panama increased popular interest in the problems of the Caribbean. That fascinating sheet of water, about six hundred miles from north to south by about fifteen hundred from east to west, is ringed around by the possessions of many powers. In 1898 its mainland shores were occupied by Mexico, British Honduras, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Venezuela; its islands were possessed by the negro states of Hayti and the Dominican Republic, and by Spain, France, Great Britain, Holland, and Denmark. In the Caribbean had been fought some of the greatest and most significant naval battles of the eighteenth century and, when the canal was opened, across its waters would plough a great share of the commerce of the world. As owner of the canal and professed guardian of its use, the United States was bound to consider its own strategic relation to this sea into which the canal opened.
Gradually the situation which existed in 1898 has changed. Spain has been removed from the Caribbean. Of her former possessions the United States holds Porto Rico; Cuba is independent, but is in a way under the protection of the United States, which possesses on her coast the naval station of Guantanamo. The American treaty with the new republic of Panama practically created another American protectorate, and the fortification of the canal gave the United States another strategic position. The negotiation for the purchase of the Danish islands has been completed successfully. But these obvious footholds are of less importance than the more indirect relationships which the United States has been steadily establishing, through successive Administrations, with the various other powers located on the borders of the Caribbean.
The Spanish War did not lull the suspicions of the United States regarding the dangerous influence which would be exerted should the ambitions of European powers be allowed a field of action in the American continents, and the United States remained as intent as ever on preventing any opportunity for their gaining admittance. One such contingency, though perhaps a remote one, was the possibility of a rival canal, for there are other isthmuses than that of Panama which might be pierced with the aid of modern resources of capital and genius. To prevent any such action was not selfish on the part of the United States, for the American canal was to have an open door, and there was no economic justification for another seaway from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
There might, however, be some temptation in the political and military influence which such a prospective second canal could exert. Negotiations were begun, therefore, with all the transcontinental powers of Central America, offering liberal compensation for the control of all possible canal routes. These negotiations have been long drawn out and are only lately coming to fruition. They have served, however, to taboo all projects by other nations, and one of these treaties negotiated with Colombia, but not yet ratified, holds out the prospect of winning back her friendship which was so seriously alienated by the recognition of the republic of Panama by the United States.
In one respect the changing world has rendered quite obsolete the pronouncements of President Monroe. In the case of Japan there has grown up a great power which is neither European nor American. American policy in the Far East has made it abundantly evident that the United States does not regard the self-imposed limitations upon its activity as extending to Asia. In her case there is lacking the quid pro quo by which the United States has justified its demand that European powers refrain from interfering in America. By no means, however, has the Government admitted the right of Asia to impinge on the American continents.
In 1912 Washington heard that Japan was negotiating with Mexico for a concession on Magdalena Bay. Senator Lodge promptly introduced a resolution in the Senate, declaring that "when any harbor or other place in the American continents is so situated that the occupation thereof for naval or military purposes might threaten the communication or the safety of the United States, the Government of the United States could not see, without grave concern, the possession of such harbor or other place by any corporation or association which has such relation to another government, not American, as to give that government practical power of control for naval or military purposes—" This resolution, which passed the Senate by a vote of 51 to 4, undoubtedly represented American sentiment, at least with regard to the foreign occupation of any territory bordering on the Caribbean or on the Pacific between Panama and California.
A more subtle danger lay in the financial claims of European powers against the various states in Central America, and the possibility of these claims being used as levers to establish permanent control. Most of these foreign demands had a basis in justice but had been exaggerated in amount. They were of two kinds: first, for damage to persons or property resulting from the numerous revolutions and perpetual brigandage which have scourged these semitropic territories; second, for debts contracted in the name of the several countries for the most part to conduct revolutions or to gild the after-career of defeated rulers in Paris,—debts with a face value far in excess of the amount received by the debtor and with accumulated interest in many cases far beyond the capacity of the several countries to pay. The disputes as to the validity of such claims have been without end, and they have furnished a constant temptation to the cupidity of individuals and the ambition of the powers.
In 1902 Germany induced Great Britain and Italy to join her in an attempt to collect the amount of some of these claims from Venezuela. A joint squadron undertook a "pacific blockade" of the coast. Secretary Hay denied that a "pacific blockade" existed in international law and urged that the matter be submitted to arbitration. Great Britain and Italy were willing to come to an understanding and withdrew; but Germany, probably intent on ulterior objects, was unwilling and preferred to take temporary possession of certain ports. President Roosevelt then summoned the German Ambassador, Dr. Holleben, and told him that, unless Germany consented to arbitrate, Admiral Dewey would be ordered at noon ten days later to proceed to Venezuela and protect its coast. A week passed with no message. Holleben called on the President but rose to go without mentioning Venezuela. President Roosevelt thereupon informed the Ambassador that he had changed his mind and had decided to send Admiral Dewey one day earlier than originally planned; he further explained that in the event the Kaiser should decide to arbitrate, as not a word had been put on paper, there would be nothing to indicate coercion. Within thirty-six hours Holleben reported that Germany would arbitrate. Only once before, when Seward was dealing with Napoleon III concerning Mexico, had forcible persuasion been used to maintain the Monroe Doctrine.
It was perfectly clear that if the United States sat idly by and allowed European powers to do what they would to collect their Latin American debts, the Monroe Doctrine would soon become a dead letter. It was not, however, so plain how American interference could be justified. The problem was obviously a difficult one and did not concern the United States alone. Latin America was even more vitally concerned with it, and her statesmen, always lucid exponents of international law, were active in devising remedies. Carlos Calvo of Argentina advanced the doctrine that "the collection of pecuniary claims made by the citizens of one country against the government of another country should never be made by force." Senior Drago, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the same country in 1902, urged upon the United States a modification of the same view by asserting that "the public debt cannot occasion armed intervention."
President Roosevelt handled the matter in his messages of 1903 and 1904. "That our rights and interests are deeply concerned in the maintenance of the [Monroe] Doctrine is so clear as hardly to need argument. This is especially true in view of the construction of the Panama Canal. As a mere matter of self defense we must exercise a close watch over the approaches to this canal, and this means we must be thoroughly alive to our interests in the Caribbean Sea." "When we announce a policy... we thereby commit ourselves to the consequences of the policy." "Chronic wrongdoing or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power."
To prevent European intervention for the purpose of securing just claims in America, then, the United States would undertake to handle the case, and would wield the "Big Stick" against any American state which should refuse to meet its obligations. This was a repetition, in a different tone, of Blaine's "Elder Sister" program. As developed, it had elements also of Cleveland's Venezuela policy. In 1907 the United States submitted to the Hague Conference a modified form of the Drago doctrine, which stated that the use of force to collect contract debts claimed from one government by another as being due to its citizens should be regarded as illegal, unless the creditor nation first offered to submit its claims to arbitration and this offer were refused by the nation against which the claim was directed. The interference of the United States, therefore, would be practically to hale the debtor into court.
Around the Caribbean, however, were several nations not only unwilling but unable to pay their debts. This inability was not due to the fact that national resources were lacking, but that constant revolution scared away conservative capital from seeking constructive investment or from developing their natural riches, while speculators loaned money at ruinous rates of discount to tottering presidents, gambling on the possibility of some turn in fortune that would return them tenfold. The worst example of an insolvent and recalcitrant state was the Dominican Republic, whose superb harbors were a constant temptation to ambitious powers willing to assume its debts in return for naval stations, and whose unscrupulous rulers could nearly always be bribed to sell their country as readily as anything else. In the case of this country President Roosevelt made a still further extension of the Monroe Doctrine when, in 1905, he concluded a treaty whereby the United States agreed to undertake the adjustment of the republic's obligations and the administration of its custom houses, and at the same time guarantee the territorial integrity of the republic. This arrangement was hotly attacked in the United States as an indication of growing imperialism, and, though it was defended as necessary to prevent the entrance of new foreign influences into the Caribbean, the opposition was so strong that the treaty was not accepted by the Senate until 1907, and then only in a modified form with the omission of the territorial guarantee.
For the United States thus to step into a foreign country as an administrator was indeed a startling innovation. On the other hand, the development of such a policy was a logical sequence of the Monroe Doctrine. That it was a step in the general development of policy on the part of the United States and not a random leap is indicated by the manner in which it has been followed up. In 1911 treaties with Nicaragua and Honduras somewhat similar to the Dominican protocol were negotiated by Secretary Knox but failed of ratification. Subsequently under President Wilson's Administration, the treaty with Nicaragua was redrafted and was ratified by both parties. Hayti, too, was in financial difficulties and, at about the time of the outbreak of the Great War, it was reported that Germany was about to relieve her needs at the price of harbors and of control. In 1915, however, the United States took the island under its protection by a treaty which not only gave the Government complete control of the fiscal administration but bound it to "lend an efficient aid for the preservation of Haitian independence and the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty."
Since 1898, then, the map of the Caribbean has completely changed its aspect. The sea is not an American lake, nor do the Americans wish it to be such. In time, as the surrounding countries become better able to stand alone, direct interference on the part of the United States will doubtless become less than it is today. There is, however, practically no present opportunity for a non-American power to establish itself and to threaten the commerce or the canal of the United States.
Few people in the United States and perhaps fewer in the countries involved realize from what American influence has saved these small states. A glance at Africa and Asia will suggest what would otherwise have been the case. Without the United States and its leadership, there can be little doubt that giant semi-sovereign corporations owing allegiance to some great power would now possess these countries. They would bristle with forts and police, and their populations would be in a state of absolute political and of quasi-economic servitude. They might today be more orderly and perhaps wealthier, but unless the fundamental American belief in democracy and self-government is wrong they would be infinitely farther from their true goal, which involves the working out of their own civilization.
The Caribbean is but a portion of the whole international problem of the Americas, and the methods used by the United States in solving its problems seemed likely to postpone that sympathetic union of the whole to which it has been looking forward for a century. Yet this country has not been unappreciative of the larger aspects of Pan-Americanism. In 1899 President McKinley revived Blaine's project and proposed a Pan-American congress. To popularize this idea, a Pan-American Exposition was arranged at Buffalo in 1901. Here, just after he had expounded his views of the ties that might bind the continents together, McKinley was assassinated. The idea, however, lived and in the same year a congress was held at the City of Mexico, where it was proposed that such meetings be held regularly. As a result, congresses were held at Rio de Janeiro in 1906 and at Buenos Aires in 1910, at which various measures of common utility were discussed and a number of projects were actually undertaken.
The movement of Pan-Americanism has missed achieving the full hopes of its supporters owing not so much to a difference of fundamental ideas and interests as to suspicion and national pride. The chief powers of southern South America—Argentina, Brazil, and Chili—had by the end of the nineteenth century in large measure successfully worked out their own problems. They resented the interference of a power of alien race such as the United States, and they suspected its good intentions in wielding the "Big Stick," especially after the cavalier treatment which Colombia had received. They observed with alarm the strengthening of the grip of the United States about the Caribbean. United in a group, known from their initials as the "A.B.C." powers, they sought to assume the leadership of Latin America, basing their action, indeed, upon the fundamentals of the Monroe Doctrine—the exclusion of foreign influence and the independence of peoples—but with themselves instead of the United States as chief, guardians.
Many of the publicists of these three powers, however, doubted their capacity to walk entirely alone. On the one hand they noted the growing influence of the Germans in Brazil and the indications of Japanese interest in many places, and on the other they divined the fundamental sincerity of the professions of the United States and were anxious to cooperate with this nation. Not strong enough to control the policy of the various countries, these men at least countered those chauvinists who urged that hostility to the United States was a first duty compared with which the danger of non-American interference might be neglected.
Confronted by this divided attitude, the United States sought to win over but not to compel. Nothing more completely met American views than that each power should maintain for itself the principles of the Monroe Doctrine by excluding foreign influences. Beyond that the United States sought only friendship, and, if it were agreeable, such unity as should be mutually advantageous. In 1906 Elihu Root, the Secretary of State, made a tour of South America with a view of expressing these sentiments; and in 1913-1914 ex-President Roosevelt took occasion, on the way to his Brazilian hunting trip, to assure the people of the great South American powers that the "Big Stick" was not intended to intimidate them. Pan-American unity was still, when President Taft went out of office in 1913, an aspiration rather than a realized fact, though the tangible evidences of unity had vastly multiplied since 1898, and the recurring congresses provided a basis of organization upon which some substantial structure might be built.
The United States had sincerely hoped that Mexico, like the "A.B.C." powers, was another Latin American power which had found itself. Of all it was certainly the most friendly and the most intimate. The closeness of its relations with the United States is indicated by the fact that in the forty years between 1868 and 1908, forty agreements, treaties, and conventions had been concluded between the two countries. Nor was intimacy confined to the Governments. The peace arranged by President Diaz had brought foreign capital by the billion to aid the internal development of the country, and of this money more had come from the United States than from any other nation. Nor was it financial aid alone which had gone across the border. There was but little American colonization, it is true, but business managers, engineers, mine foremen, and ranch superintendents formed thousands of links binding the nations together. The climax of intimacy seemed reached when, in 1910, a general treaty of arbitration was made after President Taft and President Diaz had met at El Paso on the Mexican border in a personal conference. A personal interview between the President of the United States and the chief of a foreign state was almost unique in American history, owing to the convention that the President should not depart from the national territory.
It was, therefore, with a bitter sense of disappointment that Americans heard of the revolution inaugurated in 1910 by Francisco Madero. In common with France, Spain, Great Britain, and Germany, the United States was disturbed for the safety of the investments and persons of its citizens. The Government was also concerned because the points of first and most persistent fighting were where the various railroads crossed the American boundary. This circumstance brought the whole border within the range of disturbance. The Government was apprehensive, too, as to the effect of long-continued war upon territories within the circle of its chief interest, the Caribbean area. Yet, when the first surprise caused by the revolution had passed and the reason for the outbreak was perceived,—the fact that the order and apparent prosperity of the Diaz regime had been founded upon the oppression and exploitation of the masses,—public sympathy in the United States went out to Madero and his supporters.
The Diaz Government collapsed with surprising suddenness. The resignation of President Diaz in May, 1911, was accepted as a proof of the popular character and the success of the revolution, and Madero, who was elected president in October, was promptly recognized as the constitutional head of the Mexican Government. The revolution, however, aroused the United States to the fact that there still persisted the era of disturbance which it had hoped was drawing to a close in Latin America. With this disturbing revelation in mind, Congress took another step in the development of American policies consequent upon the Monroe Doctrine by passing an act authorizing the President, whenever he should "find that in any American country conditions of domestic violence exist which are promoted by the use of arms and munitions of war procured from the United States," to prohibit trade in such articles. Under this authority, President Taft promptly forbade the export of such articles to Mexico except to the Government.
Real revolutions, however, seldom result simply in the transfer of authority from one group to another. The breaking of the bonds of recognized authority releases all sorts of desires, represented in the state by separate groups, each of which sees no reason for accepting the control of another. All seek to seize the dropped reins. The inauguration of Madero, therefore, did not result in a new and popular government but in continued disturbance. Factions with differing creeds raised revolts in various sections of the country until, in February, 1913, Madero was overthrown by one of these groups, led by Felix Diaz and General Victoriano Huerta, and representing a reactionary tendency. Madero and his vice president Pino Suarez were killed, it was believed by order of Huerta, and on the 27th of February, in the City of Mexico, Huerta was proclaimed President. Don Venustiano Carranza, Governor of the State of Coahuila, straightway denied the constitutionality of the new Government and led a new revolution under the banner of the Constitution.
It was in such a condition that President Wilson found the affairs of the continent when he took office on March 4, 1913. The American policy in the Caribbean was well defined and to a large extent in operation. Pan-American sentiment was developing, but its strength and direction were yet to be determined. Mexico was in chaos, and upon the Government's handling of it would depend the final success of the United States in the Caribbean and the possibility of effecting a real and fruitful cooperation of the Americas.