war. The Doctrine of Permanent Interest is furthermore declared by the second Hague Conference to be outside the régime of the Hague arbitral machinery; which does not mean that European powers recognize the Monroe Doctrine, but rather that they do not consider it a part of international law. All methods of arbitration stumble over the same rock of offense. The theory of general arbitration rests upon the fiction that the boundaries of the whole world are now adjusted and that the subdivision of world power is permanent. In fact, the present combinations and distribution of peoples are not in accord with their political arrangements in Europe, Africa, or Asia. The United States insists that a state of equilibrium has been reached in North and South America and yet, in the sight of the world, is from year to year enlarging her own power by taking possession of small neighboring states. So long as the Canal is held to be "part of our coast line" the boundaries between the North American powers are not yet fixed: to arbitrate the Monroe Doctrine would be like trying to arbitrate the ownership of the Dardanelles or the mouth of the Rhine or the possession of Tsin Tau by the Japanese. Turkey, Belgium, and China would welcome arbitration by an impartial tribunal if such could be found; Russia, Germany, and Japan will never arbitrate. So the question whether the United States ought to prevent European settlements in America is outside of arbitration, because it pertains to future defense, world power and the place of the United States among nations.

CHAPTER XXIV

MILITARY MAINTENANCE OF THE DOCTRINE

AMERICAN BELIEF IN PEACE

THE theory, practice, and spirit of the Monroe Doctrine and all its successors has been that it is a means of avoiding war of all kinds war between Latin-American states by the example and precept of the United States, which ought to induce them to avoid unnatural quarrels; war between the European powers and our neighbors, by preventing them from giving encouragement to aggressions; above all, war between the United States and non-American powers, by eliminating the dangers arising from boundary and other neighborhood questions. Hence statesmen and writers have been in the habit for many years of thinking that because the Doctrine's aims are peace, they can reach that end wholly by peaceful methods.

The United States has not been alone in believing that large principles of state policy may be carried out by pourparlers, by despatches, by understandings, by treaties and by arbitration. The whole trend of the modern science of international law has been to prevent quarrels, first, by laying down in advance rules accepted by both parties to a controversy; secondly, by providing means of accommodating differences either by a special arbitration or by an arbitral system; thirdly, by striving with much success to create the presumption that difficulties that seem insuperable may be settled, if both parties sincerely desire to avoid war..

The position of the United States has been especially firm in the direction of peace. It speaks well for the candor, skill, and humanity of American statesmen that in the last hundred years, while the storms of battle have beaten upon all the rest

of the world, the United States has had but one war with a European power, and that so brief and so small in its dimensions that it did not disturb the placid current of internal affairs. Of late years, this spirit of peace has been much promoted by formal organizations. Besides several societies, there are now three wealthy foundations which aim to spread the cause of peace throughout the world and particularly to save our own country from wars and rumors of wars by showing that they are not necessary to reach the legitimate ambitions of our country.

In literature war plays a lively part. It is not an accident that the favorite modern hymn is "Onward Christian Soldiers." Nevertheless, the trend of nineteenth-century thought in the United States has been in the direction of peace. Charles Sumner, who was anything but a mild spirit, and who once came near bringing his country into a needless war with Great Britain, was the first nationally known apostle of peace. His quotation of "Peace hath her victories" was in itself an argument. The efforts of Presidents and Secretaries of State to settle outstanding quarrels by agreement or arbitration have met with public approval. Mr. Bryan is proud of his thirty arbitration treaties.

With two rather serious reservations we have always felt a spirit of peace toward our near neighbors. The Mexican war was a backward step; but, so far, no other Latin-American state has been deprived of territory by the United States, except Colombia. The recent aggressions of the United States have affected the territory of the protectorates, but have there taken the alluring form of aid and sympathy to distressed peoples who could not organize their little governments even for their own protection. The presumption of the United States, of her people, of Congress and of the Administration, is that America should be at external peace and that peaceful methods are adequate. A significant proof of this pacific disposition is that the disturbances just south of our borders, with considerable destruction of American property and lives, have not as yet diverted the United States from peaceful neutrality toward Mexico. Considering the four years of carnage and senseless destruction, and the losses of American property and lives, the Administration has shown a forbearance which ought to reassure our neighbors.

AMERICAN BELIEF IN OURSELVES

A strong reason for national confidence in this preference for peaceful ways is that with few exceptions the United States has obtained what she wanted without war; the conclusion is irresistible that this, among all nations of the earth, has a peculiar right to be heard when she states a demand. The late Justin Winsor remarked that in all our controversies with Great Britain, the United States had the better in the settlement. He thought that one reason was the number of issues which had been adjusted by treaties made at Washington, in which he believed the Secretaries of State to be superior diplomats to the Ashburtons and De Greys and Pauncefotes, on the other side of the table. A stronger reason is that nearly all those controversies arose out of questions in which the interest of the United States was visibly greater than that of England. Our claim to the Columbia River and to indemnity for the Alabama captures was in every way fiercer and more determined than England's counterclaim.

"There is a special Providence for little children and the United States," said a German sage. It must be owned that some things which we fancy are due to our own sagacity and foresight are simply part of the march of history in which we are beneficiaries rather than agents. Nobody in the world guessed that gold would be discovered in California a few days after the Treaty of 1848 was signed, by which California was formally ceded. Nobody in America, Europe, or Asia realized the economic and strategic value of Alaska, when Russia offered it to the United States in 1867. Nobody perceived when Lewis and Clark were struggling across the backbone of the continent that they would be followed by iron roads which would bind the Atlantic and the Pacific together. Notwithstanding the surface film of oil on certain watercourses, nobody guessed till recently the prodigious wealth and width of the oil fields of Texas and California. We have drawn unlimited checks on the Bank of the Almighty and when they have been cashed, have said to each other: "How industrious we are! How wise we are! How favored we are by Heaven!"

In foreign relations we have been so successful that success has come to seem our due; any suggestion of yielding a part of a field of controversy arouses the guardians of the press.

Undoubtedly one of the strongest elements in this genuine diplomatic success has been the fact that for many decades America was so far out of the routes and currents of world traffic and adventure that our preference was not gainsaid by powerful nations. Therefore we failed to realize that our peace and our diplomatic successes were exactly like the gifts of nature, timber, rich soil, minerals, immense blessings which are bound to be exhausted sometime. We need Conservation of our position in the world just as much as of our physical resources. We have had our way, not because of virtue and courage but because nobody thought it worth while to dispute our place in America. It is time to free ourselves of the delusion that any portion of the surface of the earth can be fenced off as a sphere peculiar to ourselves.

In like manner we must give up the belief that we are the most intelligent and highly educated nation on earth. If Americans descended from the Colonial English stock, had a superior fibre to their near cousins in England and their remoter cousins on the Continent, they have been willing to weaken that fibre, by bringing in those near and far cousins in vast numbers. "Best people on earth!" says the "Man from Home" in his delightful play. Who will dispute the sage from Kokomo or disclaim the rightmindedness of his countrymen? What we need is that this native shrewdness and kindliness should take account of the solid fact that Americans cannot have everything that they desire, even in their own latitude. It has become almost a principle of statecraft that public opinion in the United States is decisive in America and very influential in Europe.

That agreeable superiority has had to endure some softening. We have learned new things about the difficulty of living in the troubled world. Our possession of the Philippines has taught us something of the perplexities of colonizing nations, and has disabused us of the idea that we are the only great people who disdain to inflict upon weak races a distasteful government. We have learned something also about the difficulties of legislation on complicated subjects of international trade, such as discriminating rates in an international Canal, and the grant of lower tariffs to goods brought in American bottoms. The time has come also to recognize that in our relations with the Western Hemisphere we must take account of what other

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