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PART VI

DOCTRINE OF PERMANENT INTEREST

CHAPTER XXII

SEARCH FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FUTURE

AMERICAN DEFINITIONS OF THE MONROE DOCTRINE

THE attempt to define what the Monroe Doctrine has been and is, will be of little use unless it throws some light upon the form which the interrelations of America are likely to take in the future. Has the so-called Monroe Doctrine been a permanent policy, or is it simply a succession of declarations, each serving an immediate purpose, and added to its predecessors as a boy strings his catch of fish on a cleft stick? That no agreement has been reached upon the critical question what does the Doctrine now mean? may be seen from a few of the current definitions. To the mind of Admiral Chester, of the United States Navy:

Self-
Defense and
Protec-

torates.

"The Monroe Doctrine is the cardinal principle of the foreign policy of the United States. It has been so construed for nearly one hundred years of our national history, and it so remains to-day. . . . Two distinct and far-reaching principles are laid down in the Monroe Doctrine. The first is the principle of self-defense.' Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and it is the first law of nations. In the case of the United States the national defense required, when the doctrine was enunciated, that the country should hold a protectorate throughout the entire western continent. The second principle is that South American republics, which followed our lead in declaring their independence, should have our protection in maintaining this doctrine for themselves."

Major McAndrew, of the Army, in a searching article in the Infantry Journal (1911), gives it the following meaning:

Guardianship of America.

"The Monroe Doctrine has come to mean that the United States will not only oppose any attempt of a European and it may as well be added, an Asiatic, power to acquire territory on, or to extend its influence over, any portion of the Western hemisphere; but that it constitutes itself the guardian and protector of all American states, that it will not permit any Old World nation to intervene or to interfere in the political affairs of an American state, no matter what the cause. It means that to the United States belongs a prominent place in all American affairs, and that its responsibilities or power in that respect will not be shared with any European or Asiatic nation. It means the doctrine of permanent interest of the United States.' In support of this principle the American people are at all times willing to go to the extent of war with any nation disrupting it, no matter how strong our probable adversaries may be.

Defense of

American

Principles.

"We will not admit that there is room for arbitration, even where the principle is involved. . . . The American people are not disposed to submit to arbitration a question that involves the Monroe Doctrine. . . .

"The present Monroe Doctrine is even an extension of the broad policy declared by President Polk in 1845, which was in effect, that the United States would never acknowledge any transfer of territory, whether made even by the desire of the inhabitants, by purchase or by force, from any nation of North America to any nation of Europe. This is the basis of our 'traditional policy.""

A more critical and unfavorable view is that stated by Hiram Bingham, in his article "Should we abandon the Monroe Doctrine."

Variableness of the Doctrine.

"Whatever our foreign policy happens to be for the moment, it is called the Monroe Doctrine.' Do we decide to intervene in Cuba, we do not say that we believe it to be for our best interests as a nation to overstep the bounds of international law and to carry our intervention into a neighboring territory. . . . Do we wish to take any part of Spanish-American territory which we need or which is being badly governed? We refer our actions to the Monroe Doctrine. It is no wonder that Monroeism, as it is called in South America, has come to mean to the Latin-American mind interference, intervention, tutelage and patronizing insolence."

Among many definitions propounded at the Clark University Conference of 1914, Professor Callahan's summary is as follows:

"Under whatever name, and however modified to suit the conditions and needs of American foreign policy, it is still a useful principle. It may fitly be called the doctrine of na- Doctrine of tional defense, which in its results may be regarded

Defense.

with

also as a doctrine of Pan-American defense. In America the United States government has duties and responsibilities which cannot be abandoned to the mercy of trans-oceanic powers, nor submitted to the decision of international conferences or tribunals. It must attend to the larger interests of the United States out any unnecessary interference with the larger interests of other powers. . . . Peace in America, on the basis of good government, is more important to the United States than it is to Europe, and more important to the United States than peace in Peace and Europe.

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Interest.

The present basis of policy is the paramount interest of the United States in American affairs a special interest which, especially in the Caribbean, can be shared with no other power, and perhaps would be questioned by no European power."

Philip M. Brown, formerly minister to Honduras, said before the American Academy of Political and Social Science:

Sanction to
Bases of In-
ternational
Law.

“If we will reduce the Monroe Doctrine down to its simplest terms; if we will strip it of all the vagaries of statesmen and commentators, we find in the last analysis that it means nothing more and nothing less than that the United States finds itself pledged to the defence of the rights of every nation to independence, sovereign jurisdiction and equality. These are the most sacred, basic principles of international law; and nothing could be more securely a part of international law than an effective sanction of these principles. Such a sanction is to be found in the Monroe Doctrine, which, interpreted in this light, ceases to be simply a question of policy, and is at once put on the solid basis of law."

Tucker, author of a well-known book on the subject, at the same Conference has stated his view as follows:

"What is this doctrine? It may briefly be defined as a warning to the governments of the Old World not to establish colonies on, or to extend their political systems to these continents, and to

refrain from interference in the affairs of the Spanish-American republics. Conceding that the Doctrine has no place in the realm Warning to of international jurisprudence and that it is hardly Europe more than a fiat, we are confronted by the fact that its assertion by this government has more than once received the attention of European powers, and it has been, in a certain sense, recognized by them in the happy adjustment of the contentions which has occasioned its avowal."

FOREIGN DEFINITIONS OF THE MONROE DOCTRINE

Most of the foreign writers, especially the Latin Americans, look upon the Monroe Doctrine with suspicion, if not with positive dislike. Hector Pétin, a French lawyer, in his elaborate book Les Etats-Unis et La Doctrine de Monroe (1900), says,

"The Monroe Doctrine was a local and accidental solution. The promise made by Monroe not to intervene between Europe and European colonies, the implied promise to limit American ambition to America only, were associated doctrines imposed on the President by the circumstances and distinctly dictated to him by the very prudence of his message. In the process of evolution, the Monroe Doctrine has been transformed: from abstention it has altered into action. It has become more and more bold, progressive and even aggressive. Transformed by Polk and his successors into an instrument of expansion, it has more and more developed the germ of conquest, while at the same time by its substitution of an American law for the general law of nations, it has expressed a contempt of law. . . . Imperialism ignores all rights and all duties; it lays down as a single rule that interest overtops rights."

Another lively French writer, De Beaumarchais, writing in 1898 on La Doctrine de Monroe, expresses the same view that the Monroe Doctrine is a short road to empire.

"The Monroe Doctrine - such is its name - in fact influences all the foreign policy of the United States; it includes a solution for all the international complications which could arise; it dictates to the government of Washington a duty which it could not ignore without violating all historic precepts, without betraying the country. Defensive at the beginning of the century, the same doctrine has become offensive; formulated to prevent Europe from advancing in America, it to-day orders Europe to recoil. .. Wonderfully habile, the Monroe Doctrine in fact

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is used to authorize political measures of the greatest variety and to legitimatize them all. Its title of 'Doctrine' has contributed to its success by giving to the decisions which it invokes, a judicial look, which is bound to please a people upon whom the words 'law' and 'legality' exercise so reasonable an influence. The import of the Doctrine has been speedily ignored; at least people had forgotten to what particular conditions it had made allusion; people remembered only those applications which had enlarged the country, and they made of it a principle of universal range."

A more recent writer, the Marquis Barral-Montferrat, encouragingly introduced by the renowned Comte d'Haussonville, in 1905 published his little book De Monroë à Roosevelt, in which he scourges Uncle Sam.

"American Imperialism, with its enormous pride and its insatiable ambition, imperialism as nine-tenths of the citizens of the United States understand it without enough courage to admit it, imperialism as the President in office with his habitual obstinate pride is not afraid to define it, is already completely on the spot. In fact what the United States more and more desires is to become one of the greatest powers and perhaps even the greatest power of the world. In fact, to reach this result, the Americans are ready to risk much. Even to those who tell them to look out Mr. Roosevelt is ready to answer that steady expansion is a natural law of every active organism, and that to follow this law is to note proof of a wisdom greater than the greatest wisdom of those who think they are wiser because they show themselves less confident."

Several of the Latin Americans have already been quoted in deprecation of criticism. The Uruguayan, Capella y Pons, as recently as 1913 in his Monroïsme sees something more friendly in the attitude of the United States.

"The Monroe Doctrine, that which was conceived by the patricians who placed the foundations of the great republic; and which is the only one which for that reason could be called 'traditional,' has remained unchanged and unchangeable. It is that which all the people of the [South American] Continent feel to be enlarging in proportion as they form themselves into independent nations. . . . The real Monroism, in a word, is that which incorporates the policy of independence, of freedom and of brotherhood among the American states, and which refuses to recognize as legitimate, exercises of power from without which would change the system of national organization which they have deliberately adopted."

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