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ADMINISTRATION CIVIL   SERVICE

Chapter 4

THE   MONROE   DOCTRINE
   THE Monroe Doctrine should not be considered from any purely academic standpoint, but as a broad, general principle of living policy. It is to be justified not by precedent merely, but by the needs of the nation and the true interests of Western civilization. It, of course, adds strength to our position at this moment to show that the action of the national authorities is warranted by the actions of their predecessors on like occasions in time past, and that the line of policy we are now pursuing is that which has been pursued by all our statesmen of note since the Republic grew sufficiently powerful to make what it said of weight in foreign affairs. But even if in time past we had been as blind to the national honor and welfare as are the men who at the present day champion the anti-American side of the Venezuelan question, it would now be necessary for statesmen who were both far-sighted and patriotic to enunciate the principles for which the Monroe Doctrine stands. In other words, if the Monroe Doctrine did not already exist it would be necessary forthwith to create it.
* The Bachelor of Arts, March, 1896. (

    Let us first of all clear the question at issue by brushing- away one or two false objections. Lord Salisbury at first put in emphatic words his refusal in any way to recognize the Monroe Doctrine as part of the law of nations or as binding upon Great Britain. Most British statesmen and publicists followed his lead; but recently a goodly number have shown an inclination to acquiesce in the views of Lord Salisbury's colleague, Mr. Chamberlain, who announces, with bland indifference to the expressed opinion of his nominal chief, that England does recognize the existence of the Monroe Doctrine and never thought of ignoring it. Lord Salisbury himself has recently shown symptoms of changing ground and taking this position; while Mr. Balfour has gone still further in the right direction, and the Liberal leaders further yet. It is not very important to us how far Lord Salisbury and Mr. Chamberlain may diverge in their views, although of course, in the interests of the English-speaking peoples and of peace between England and the United States, we trust that Mr. Chamberlain's position will be sustained by Great Britain. But the attitude of our own people is important, and it would be amusing, were it not unpleasant, to see that many Americans, whose Americanism is of the timid and flabby type, have been inclined eagerly to agree with Lord Salisbury. A very able member of the New York bar remarked the other day that he had not yet met the lawyer who agreed with Secretary Olney as to the legal interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. This remark was chiefly interesting as showing the lawyer's own limitations. It would not have been made if he had met the Justices of the Supreme Court, for instance; but even on the unfounded supposition that his remark was well grounded, it would have had little more significance than if he had said that he had not yet met a dentist who agreed with Mr. Olney. The Monroe Doctrine is not a question of law at all. It is a question of policy. It is a question to be considered not only by statesmen, but by all good citizens. Lawyers, as lawyers, have absolutely nothing whatever to say about it. To argue that it can not be recognized as a principle of international law, is a mere waste of breath. Nobody cares whether it is or is not so recognized, any more than any one cares whether the Declaration of Independence and Washington's farewell address are so recognized.

The Monroe Doctrine may be briefly defined as forbidding European encroachment on American soil. It is not desirable to define it so rigidly as to prevent our taking into account the varying degrees of national interest in varying cases. The United States has not the slightest wish to establish a universal protectorate over other American States, or to become responsible for their misdeeds. If one of them becomes involved in an ordinary quarrel with a European power, such quarrel must be settled between them by any one of the usual methods. But no European State is to be allowed to aggrandize itself on American soil at the expense of any American State. Furthermore, no transfer of an American colony from one European State to another is to be permitted, if, in the judgment of the United States, such transfer would be hostile to its own interests.

John Quincy Adams, who, during the Presidency of Monroe, first clearly enunciated the doctrine which bears his chief's name, asserted it as against both Spain and Russia. In the clearest and most emphatic terms he stated that the United States could not acquiesce in the acquisition of new territory within the limits of any independent American State, whether in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere, by any European power. He took this position against Russia when Russia threatened to take possession of what is now Oregon. He took this position as against Spain when, backed by other powers of Continental Europe, she threatened to reconquer certain of the Spanish-American States.

This is precisely and exactly the position the United States has now taken in reference to England and Venezuela. It is idle to contend that there is any serious difference in the application of the doctrine to the two sets of questions. An American may, of course, announce his opposition to the Monroe Doctrine, although by so doing he forfeits all title to far-seeing and patriotic devotion to the interests of his country. But he can not argue that the Monroe Doctrine does not apply to the present case, unless he argues that the Monroe Doctrine has no existence whatsoever. In fact, such arguments are, on their face, so absurd that they need no refutation, and can be relegated where they belong—to the realm of the hair-splitting schoolmen. They have no concern either for practical politicians or for historians with true historic insight.

We have asserted the principles which underlie the Monroe Doctrine, not only against Russia and Spain, but also against France, on at least two different occasions. The last and most important was when the French conquered Mexico and made it into an Empire. It is not necessary to recall to any one the action of our Government in the matter as soon as the Civil War came to an end. Suffice it to say that, under threat of our interposition, the French promptly abandoned Maximilian, and the latter's Empire fell. Long before this, however, and a score of years before the doctrine was christened by the name Monroe, even the timid statesmen of the Jeffersonian era embodied its principle in their protest against the acquisition of Louisiana by France, from Spain. Spain at that time held all of what is now the Great West. France wished to acquire it. Our statesmen at once announced that they would regard as hostile to America the transfer of the territory in question from a weak to a strong European power. Under the American pressure the matter was finally settled by the sale of the territory in question to the United States. The principle which our statesmen then announced was in kind precisely the same as that upon which we should now act if Germany sought to acquire Cuba from Spain, or St. Thomas from the Danes. In either of these events it is hardly conceivable that the United States would hesitate to interfere, if necessary, by force of arms; and in so doing the national authorities would undoubtedly be supported by the immense majority of the American people, and, indeed, by all save the men of abnormal timidity or abnormal political short-sightedness.

Historically, therefore, the position of our representatives in the Venezuelan question is completely justified. It can not be attacked on academic grounds. The propriety of their position is even more easily defensible.

Primarily, our action is based on national self-interest. In other words, it is patriotic. A certain limited number of persons are fond of decrying patriotism as a selfish virtue, and strive with all their feeble might to inculcate in its place a kind of milk-and-water cosmopolitanism. These good people are never men of robust character or of imposing personality, and the plea itself is not worth considering. Some reformers may urge that in the ages' distant future patriotism, like the habit of monogamous marriage, will become a needless and obsolete virtue; but just at present the man who loves other countries as much as he does his own is quite as noxious a member of society as the man who loves other women as much as he loves his wife. Love of country is an elemental virtue, like love of home, or like honesty or courage. No country will accomplish very much for the world at large unless it elevates itself. The useful member of a community is the man who first and foremost attends to his own rights and his own duties, and who therefore becomes better fitted to do his share in the common duties of all. The useful member of the brotherhood of nations is that nation which is most thoroughly saturated with the national idea, and which realizes most fully its rights as a nation and its duties to its own citizens. This is in no way incompatible with a scrupulous regard for the rights of other nations, or a desire to remedy the wrongs of suffering peoples.

The United States ought not to permit any great military powers, which have no foothold on this continent, to establish such foothold; nor should they permit any aggrandizement of those who already have possessions on the continent. We do not wish to bring ourselves to a position where we shall have to emulate the European system of enormous armies. Every true patriot, every man of statesman-like habit, should look forward to the day when not a single European power will hold a foot of American soil. At present it is not necessary to take the position that no European power shall hold American territory; but it certainly will become necessary, if the timid and selfish "peace at any price" men have their way, and if the United States fails to check at the outset European aggrandizement on this continent.

Primarily, therefore, it is to the interest of the citizens of the United States to prevent the further colonial growth of European powers in the Western Hemisphere. But this is also to the interest of all the people of the Western Hemisphere. At best, the inhabitants of a colony are in a cramped and unnatural state. At the worst, the establishment of a colony prevents any healthy popular growth. Some time in the dim future it may be that all the English-speaking peoples will be able to unite in some kind of confederacy. However desirable this would be, it is, under existing conditions, only a dream. At present the only hope for a colony that wishes to attain full moral and mental growth is to become an independent State, or part of an independent State. No English colony now stands on a footing of genuine equality with the parent State. As long as the Canadian remains a colonist, he remains in a position which is distinctly inferior to that of his cousins, both in England and in the United States. The Englishman at bottom looks down on the Canadian as he does on any one who admits his inferiority, and quite properly, too. The American, on the other hand, with equal propriety, regards the Canadian with the good-natured condescension always felt by the freeman for the man who is not free. A funny instance of the English attitude toward Canada was shown after Lord Dunraven's inglorious fiasco last September, when the Canadian yachtsman, Rose, challenged for the America's cup. The English journals repudiated him on the express ground that a Canadian was not an Englishman and not entitled to the privileges of an Englishman. In their comments, many of them showed a dislike for Americans which almost rose to hatred. The feeling they displayed for the Canadians was not one of dislike. It was one of contempt.

Under the best of circumstances, therefore, a colony is in a false position. But if the colony is in a region where the colonizing race has to do its work by means of other inferior races the condition is much worse. From the standpoint of the race little or nothing has been gained by the English conquest and colonization of Jamaica. It has merely been turned into a negro island, with a future, seemingly, much like that of San Domingo. British Guiana, however well administered, is nothing but a colony where a few hundred or few thousand white men hold the superior positions, while the bulk of the population is composed of Indians, Negroes, and Asiatics. Looked at through the vista of the centuries, such a colony contains less promise of true growth than does a State like Venezuela or Ecuador. The history of most of the South American republics has been both mean and bloody; but there is at least a chance that they may develop, after infinite tribulations and suffering, into a civilization quite as high and stable as that of such a European power as Portugal. But there is no such chance for any tropical American colony owned by a Northern European race. It is distinctly in the interest of civilization that the present States in the two Americas should develop along their own lines, and however desirable it is that many of them should receive European immigration, it is highly undesirable that any of them should be under European control.

So much for the general principles, and the justification, historically and morally, of the Monroe Doctrine. Now take the specific case at issue. Great Britain has a boundary dispute with Venezuela. She claims as her own a territory which Venezuela asserts to be hers, a territory which in point of size very nearly equals the Kingdom of Italy. Our Government, of course, can not, if it wishes to remain true to the traditions of the Monroe Doctrine, submit to the acquisition by England of such an enormous tract of territory, and it must therefore find out whether the English claims are or are not well founded. It would, of course, be preposterous to lay down the rule that no European power should seize American territory which was not its own, and yet to permit the power itself to decide the question of the ownership of such territory. Great Britain refused to settle the question either by amicable agreement with Venezuela or by arbitration. All that remained for the United States, was to do what it actually did; that is, to try and find out the facts for itself, by its own commission. If the facts show England to be in the right, well and good. If they show England to be in the wrong, we most certainly ought not to permit her to profit, at Venezuela's expense, by her own wrong-doing.

We are doing exactly what England would very properly do in a like case. Recently, when the German Emperor started to interfere in the Transvaal, England promptly declared her own "Monroe Doctrine" for South Africa. We do not propose to see English filibusters try at the expense of Venezuela the same policy which recently came to such an ignominious end in the Transvaal, in a piece of weak, would-be buccaneering, which, it is perhaps not unfair to say, was fittingly commemorated in the verse of the new poet-laureate.

It would be difficult to overestimate the good done in this country by the vigorous course already taken by the national Executive and Legislature in this matter. The lesson taught Lord Salisbury is one which will not soon be forgotten by English statesmen. His position is false, and is recognized as false by the best English statesmen and publicists. If he does not consent to arrange the matter with Venezuela, it will have to be arranged in some way by arbitration. In either case, the United States gains its point. The only possible danger of war comes from the action of the selfish and timid men on this side of the water, who clamorously strive to misrepresent American, and to mislead English, public opinion. If they succeed in persuading Lord Salisbury that the American people will back down if he presses them, they will do the greatest damage possible to both countries, for they will render war, at some time in the future, almost inevitable.

Such a war we would deplore; but it must be distinctly understood that we would deplore it very much more for England's sake than for our own; for whatever might be the initial fortunes of the struggle, or the temporary damage and loss to the United States, the mere fact that Canada would inevitably be rent from England in the end would make the outcome an English disaster.

We do not in any way seek to become the sponsor of the South American States. England has the same right to protect her own subjects, or even in exceptional cases to interfere to stop outrages in South America, that we have to interfere in Armenia—and it is to be regretted that our representatives do not see their way clear to interfere for Armenia. But England should not acquire territory at the expense of Venezuela any more than we should acquire it at the expense of Turkey.

The mention of Armenia brings up a peculiarly hypocritical plea which has been advanced against us in this controversy. It has been solemnly alleged that our action in Venezuela has hampered England in the East and has prevented her interfering on behalf of Armenia. We do not wish to indulge in recriminations, but when such a plea is advanced, the truth, however unpleasant, must be told. The great crime of this century against civilization has been the upholding of the Turk by certain Christian powers. To England's attitude in the Crimean War, and after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, the present Armenian horror is primarily due. Moreover, for six months before the Venezuelan question arose England had looked on motionless while the Turks perpetrated on their wretched subjects wrongs that would blast the memory of Attila.

We do not wish to be misunderstood. We have no feeling against England. On the contrary, we regard her as being well in advance of the great powers of Continental Europe, and we have more sympathy with her. In general, her success tells for the success of civilization, and we wish her well. But where her interests enlist her against the progress of civilization and in favor of the oppression of other nationalities who are struggling upward, our sympathies are immediately forfeited.

It is a matter of serious concern to every college man, and, indeed, to every man who believes in the good effects of a liberal education, to see the false views which seem to obtain among so many of the leaders of educated thought, not only upon the Monroe Doctrine, but upon every question which involves the existence of a feeling of robust Americanism. Every educated man who puts himself out of touch with the current of American thought, and who on conspicuous occasions assumes an attitude hostile to the interest of America, is doing what he can to weaken the influence of educated men in American life. The crude, ill-conditioned jealousy of education, which is so often and so lamentably shown by large bodies of our people, is immensely stimulated by the action of those prominent educated men in whom education seems to have destroyed the strong, virile virtues and especially the spirit of Americanism.
No nation can achieve real greatness if its people are not both essentially moral and essentially manly; both sets of qualities are necessary. It is an admirable thing to possess refinement and cultivation, but the price is too dear if they must be paid for at the cost of the rugged fighting qualities which make a man able to do a man's work in the world, and which make his heart beat with that kind of love of country which is shown not only in readiness to try to make her civic life better, but also to stand up manfully for her when her honor and influence are at stake in a dispute with a foreign power. A heavy responsibility rests on the educated man. It is a double discredit to him to go wrong, whether his shortcomings take the form of shirking his everyday civic duties, or of abandonment of the nation's rights in a foreign quarrel. He must no more be misled by the sneers of those who always write "patriotism" between inverted commas than by the coarser, but equally dangerous, ridicule of the politicians who jeer at "reform." It is as unmanly to be taunted by one set of critics into cowardice as it is to be taunted by the other set into dishonesty.

There are many upright and honorable men who take the wrong side, that is, the anti-American side, of the Monroe Doctrine because they are too shortsighted or too unimaginative to realize the hurt to the nation that would be caused by the adoption of their views. There are other men who take the wrong view simply because they have not thought much of the matter, or are in unfortunate surroundings, by which they have been influenced to their own moral hurt. There are yet other men in whom the mainspring of the opposition to that branch of American policy known as the Monroe Doctrine is sheer timidity. This is sometimes the ordinary timidity of wealth. Sometimes, however, it is peculiarly developed among educated men whose education has tended to make them over-cultivated and over-sensitive to foreign opinion. They are generally men who undervalue the great fighting qualities, without which no nation can ever rise to the first rank.

The timidity of wealth is proverbial, and it was well illustrated by the attitude taken by too many people of means at the time of the Venezuela trouble. Many of them, including bankers, merchants, and railway magnates, criticised the action of the President and the Senate, on the ground that it had caused business disturbance. Such a position is essentially ignoble. When a question of national honor or of national right or wrong is at stake, no question of financial interest should be considered for a moment. Those wealthy men who wish the abandonment of the Monroe Doctrine because its assertion may damage their business, bring discredit to themselves, and, so far as they are able, discredit to the nation of which they are a part.

It is an evil thing for any man of education to forget that education should intensify patriotism, and that patriotism must not only be shown by striving to do good to the country from within, but by readiness to uphold its interests and honor, at any cost, when menaced from without. Educated men owe to the community the serious performance of this duty. We need not concern ourselves with the emigre educated man, the American who deliberately takes up his permanent abode abroad, whether in London or Paris; he is usually a man of weak character, unfitted to do good work either abroad or at home, who does what he can for his country by relieving it of his presence. But the case is otherwise with the American who stays at home, and tries to .teach the youth of his country to disbelieve in the country's rights, as against other countries, and to regard it as the sign of an enlightened spirit to decry the assertion of those rights by force of arms. This man may be inefficient for good; but he is capable at times of doing harm, because he tends to make other people inefficient likewise. In our municipal politics there has long been evident a tendency to gather in one group the people who have no scruples, but who are very efficient, and in another group the amiable people who are not efficient at all. This is but one manifestation of the general and very unwholesome tendency among certain educated people to lose the power of doing efficient work as they acquire refinement. Of course in the long run a really good education will give not only refinement, but also an increase of power, and of capacity for efficient work. But the man who forgets that a real education must include the cultivation of the fighting virtues is sure to manifest this tendency to inefficiency. It is exhibited on a national scale by the educated men who take the anti-American side of international questions. There are exceptions to the rule; but as a rule the healthy man, resolute to do the rough work of the world, and capable of feeling his veins tingle with pride over the great deeds of the men of his own nation, will naturally take the American side of such a question as the Monroe Doctrine. Similarly, the anaemic man of refinement and cultivation, whose intellect has been educated at the expense of his character, and who shrinks from all these struggles through which alone the world moves on to greatness, is inclined to consider any expression of the Monroe Doctrine as truculent and ill advised.

Of course, many strong men who are good citizens on ordinary occasions take the latter view simply because they have been misled. The colonial habit of thought dies hard. It is to be wished that those who are cursed with it would, in endeavoring to emulate the ways of the Old World, endeavor to emulate one characteristic which has been shared by every Old-World nation, and which is possessed to a marked degree by England. Every decent Englishman is devoted to his country, first, last, and all the time. An Englishman may or may not dislike America, but he is invariably for England and against America when any question arises between them; and I heartily respect him for so being. Let our own people of the partially colonial type copy this peculiarity and it will be much to their credit.
The finest speech that for many years has been delivered by a college man to other college men was that made last spring by Judge Holmes, himself a gallant soldier of the Civil War, in that hall which Harvard has erected to commemorate those of her sons who perished when the North strove with the South. It should be graven on the heart of every college man, for it has in it that lift of the soul toward things heroic that makes the eyes burn and the veins thrill. It must be read in its entirety, for no quotation could do justice to its fine scorn of the mere money-maker, its lofty fealty to a noble ideal, and, above all, its splendid love of country and splendid praise of the valor of those who strive on stricken fields that the honor of their nation may be upheld.

It is strange, indeed, that in a country where words like those of Judge Holmes can be spoken, there should exist men who actually oppose the building of a navy by the United States, nay, even more, actually oppose so much as the strengthening of the coast defences, on the ground that they prefer to have this country too feeble to resent any insult, in order that it may owe its safety to the contemptuous forbearance which it is hoped this feebleness will inspire in foreign powers. No Tammany alderman, no venal legislator, no demagogue or corrupt politician, ever strove more effectively than these men are striving to degrade the nation and to make one ashamed of the name of America. When we remember that among them there are college graduates, it is a relief to remember that the leaders on the side of manliness and of love of country, are also college graduates. Every believer in scholarship and in a liberal education, every believer in the robust qualities of heart, mind, and body without which cultivation and refinement are of no avail, must rejoice to think that, in the present crisis, college men have been prominent among the leaders whose far-sighted statesmanship and resolute love of country have made those of us who are really Americans proud of the nation. Secretary Olney is a graduate of Brown; Senator Lodge, who took the lead in the Senate on this matter, is a graduate of Harvard; and no less than three members of the Boundary Commission are graduates of Yale.