Panama to Patagonia

NEW BASIS OF THE MONROE DOCTRINE

John Quincy Adams’ Advice—Canning’s Trade Statesmanship—Lack of Industrial and Commercial Element—Excess of Benevolent Impulse—Forgotten Chapters of the Doctrine’s History—The Ecuador Episode—President Roosevelt’s Interpretation—Diplomatic Declarations—Spectres of Territorial Absorption—Change Caused by Cuba—Progress of South American Countries—European Attitude on Economic Value of Latin America—German and English Methods—Proximity of Markets to United States Trade Centres—Conclusion.

WHEN John Quincy Adams was Secretary of State, he issued instructions to the minister accredited to Colombia after that country’s recognition as an independent Republic. They related to the negotiation of a commercial treaty with a single nation, but their blunt advice might have been given to all Spanish America. “Let Colombia,” wrote Secretary Adams, “look to commerce and navigation, and not to empire.”

I have shown in the preceding chapters how the West Coast countries are looking to navigation, and to the commerce that comes from the railway which was undreamed when Secretary Adams issued his instructions to the minister to Colombia. They have laid the bases of industrial development in public works and private enterprise. They have prepared the approach to financial stability which is demonstrated by the adoption of the gold standard and the very marked success of some of them in maintaining it. They have given a hint of the possibility of refunding national obligations and of the profitable employment of reproductive savings. They have sought to induce the currents of immigration, which in the case of South America never will rise with the phenomenal flood of the great West, but which may be expected to grow in depth and movement. They have given the proofs of political progress in the substitution of civilian presidents, bankers and sugar-planters, for the old-time military dictators, and they are working out their own destinies after their own manner.

But what of the United States?

The United States, in its relations with South American countries during the eighty years since the monitory words of John Quincy Adams were written, has not dreamed of political empire, and, unfortunately for its international prestige, has not looked to trade dominion. The lack of a commercial and industrial basis for the Monroe Doctrine never has been fully appreciated by the nation which promulgated it and accepted the responsibility for maintaining it, though some understanding of this defect has been felt in the countries to which the Doctrine applies, and a keener realization has been shown in Europe.

Canning, by patient and adroit manœuvres, was able to consolidate the mercantile classes as a counter-irritant to the prejudices of the English aristocracy, which sympathized with the Holy Alliance in its war against republican institutions. His cold and calculating intellect perceived that the commerce which Spain had monopolized in her colonies was drifting to Great Britain as a result of their revolt, and he was resolved that it should be held. The threat was made to France that the independence of the colonies would be recognized in case Spain should seek to restore her former monopoly system and should attempt to stop the intercourse of England with them. When the British trade instinct began to manifest itself, the edifice of aristocratic intrigue crumbled. England supported the United States in the recognition of the revolted Spanish colonies, the Holy Alliance failed, and British merchants and manufacturers sought the channels which Canning’s statesmanship had opened for them. They never have ceased to follow those channels. Much later came Germany. But the United States always has been indifferent.

If they gave the subject any thought, public men failed to grasp why there was not invariably a warmer welcome to their promulgations, and why the grateful South Americans did not buy more goods in the United States. Now, sentiment alone does not bring trade. The Monroe Doctrine, beneficent as it has been, at no period has caused the sale of a dollar’s worth of merchandise in Southern markets. Nor in their most benevolent and belligerent moods, when ready to fight all Europe in behalf of some other Republic, have the North American people ever ordered an extra ship’s cargo from these markets. Fraternal sentiment does not change the currents of commerce, but commerce sometimes strengthens brotherly relations. And in this manner it will strengthen the Monroe principle by increasing the material interests of the United States, which in the past have been so immaterial in comparison with Europe. When they see and come in contact with the concrete Yankee nation as represented by trade and by industrial investments, the South Americans will understand better what the Monroe Doctrine is and why it is. The Panama Canal extends the responsibility of the United States. It enlarges the commercial opportunity commensurate with the increased responsibility, and the rest remains for the enterprise and the initiative of the individual citizen.

Since these commercial and industrial elements cannot be entirely divorced from political subjects and international policies, a brief review of the Monroe Doctrine in its historic and political aspect may be permitted.

Has national polity ever been more bragged about and less understood than this Doctrine? It was dogma, creed for the American people, but with the vaguest ideas of what it meant. Heretofore one fundamental error has obtained in the United States,—an error which explains why South America did not always welcome our paper assertions of it. In the loose discussion and affirmation of the principle we usually assumed that it was purely philanthropic, and that our national benevolence was to be exerted solely for the good of the weaker nations of the hemisphere,—an altruistic, even quixotic, mission on our part. Internationally our motives are benevolent, but the Monroe Doctrine was asserted in the first place for the welfare and the self-protection of the United States. When John Quincy Adams told Russia that the Western Hemisphere was not to be used territorially for the extension of monarchical institutions, he made the declaration for our own safety. When that official pronouncement was applied to the Spanish colonies which lately had secured their independence, the fear that the establishment of kingships on this continent would threaten the United States was what gave the declaration force as the will of the American people. Protection of the neighboring infant Republics was secondary. The United States was no more disinterested than was Canning in giving effect to the will of British commercial interests rather than to the prejudices of the British aristocracy against republican government.

Nor were the revolted colonies themselves in that formative period so averse to European alliances. Some of them began their republican careers under dictatorships, but others turned to Europe. O’Higgins, the liberator of Chile, would have had another viceroyalty with a deputy monarch from some European Power. La Plata, which is the Argentine Republic of to-day, sent the Rivadavia mission to Europe to borrow some member of a reigning house. It was Canning’s perception that the effort to maintain a balance of South American power by lending European princes as rulers would only add to the difficulties of preserving the European balance that caused the Rivadavia mission to be discountenanced.

I recall this forgotten chapter of history very briefly in order to show that in their infancy not all the South American countries were averse to monarchical institutions, and that therefore the objection by the United States to such institutions because of the danger to itself was the more marked. The Monroe Doctrine in the beginning was enlightened and necessary national selfishness, with incidental benefit to the nations protected. It is only within the last half-century, since Maximilian was overthrown in Mexico, that the American people have learned they have nothing to fear from kingdoms and empires in the New World, and it is during this period that the Latin-American Republics have reaped the substantial and most disinterested results of the original assertion of the policy of the United States.

Nor has aggressive South American support of the Monroe Doctrine been lacking. It was during the French occupation of Mexico that the Peruvian Foreign Office invited an interchange of views and an agreement on a general policy repudiating European interference. Argentina and monarchical Brazil did not at that time join heartily in the proposed concert of action, and Ecuador actually was trying to consider herself under a French protectorate. A coterie of individuals there had proposed an arrangement with Napoleon III, the Dictator-President of Ecuador favored it, and the Emperor had assumed that the protectorate was a fact. When a proposition was made to incorporate Ecuadorian territory into Colombia, the French minister at Bogota formally protested, under directions from his government, that this could not be done, because France had paramount interests of sovereignty in Ecuador. This episode is one of the most interesting of all the forgotten chapters in the history of the Monroe Doctrine.

In Chile in 1864, at the period of Maximilian’s attempted usurpation of Mexico, the Chamber of Deputies passed a resolution asserting the historic Doctrine.

The Monroe principle, as it has been interpreted by President Roosevelt’s administration, has two phases. One was asserted quietly and without calling out special comment. It was that no European military power should be established within striking distance of the American Continent. This assertion would apply to the Galapagos Islands and to naval coaling-stations in the Caribbean.

The second phase, and the one which received more attention, was the President’s declaration that the Doctrine was not to be used as a shield to prevent the collection of just debts. This interpretation sometimes has met with prompt acceptance, and sometimes has been received with mild interrogation. The direct statement was given most specific endorsement by the distinguished public man who has had so much to do with shaping the policy of the United States in recent years. This was in the address of Mr. Elihu Root, when, as a private citizen, he proclaimed the rights of the United States as a police power over the affairs of all other Republics on the American Continent.[18] He was referring especially to claims and international obligations, and the responsibility of the United States for redressing wrongs. In substance this was not different from Secretary Olney’s declaration during the administration of Mr. Cleveland, that the United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subject to which it finds its interposition. At that time Lord Salisbury could find no support in international law for the Monroe Doctrine, but Great Britain afterward, for reasons affecting her policy in other parts of the world, became willing to accept the Olney-Root interpretation, even to the point of letting her holders of Latin-American bonds look to the United States for the collection of their debts, though that responsibility never has been accepted by the United States, and never should be.

Germany’s acquiescence in the Monroe Doctrine has not been so complacent or so sudden, but this acquiescence may be accepted as a fact. A statement was attributed to Baron von Sternberg, the German Ambassador in Washington, that the Kaiser would not accept territory within the Monroe Doctrine’s jurisdiction if brought to him on a silver platter. An interview with Chancellor von Bülow, published in a South American organ of German interests, was even more positive.[19] “We know,” the Chancellor was quoted as saying, “that commercial relations are cemented by peace and confidence.... We have absolutely no political aspiration in the New World, but since we possess extensive industrial interests we desire to obtain the greatest possible participation in South American commerce.”

While the declarations of diplomats sometimes may be accepted with reservation, the conditions in South America are such that no reason exists why their pronouncements with reference to the Monroe Doctrine should not be given full force. Except as to debts and debt collections, at most the question is an academic one and has little practical bearing. In the matter of the international obligations, while the American people approve President Roosevelt’s position that the Doctrine shall not be construed to enable debtor countries to avoid paying their just obligations, nevertheless in practice probably they would expect the national administration to question whether it is necessary for a European government to occupy any portion of the territory of a Latin-American Republic for debt collection.

The United States is justified in fearing that the repression shown by the landing of troops for purposes of debt collection might assume the form of indefinite territorial occupation by a Power not American, and that would be acquisition. The actual circumstances would have to be considered; but official disclaimers of such intention might not be sufficient. Nor would the experience in the reference of the Venezuela claims to The Hague Court be likely to convince the American people that territorial occupation and administration could be permitted pending the settlement of the disputed questions.

The excessive timidity with which the United States Senate approached the sane and sensible provision for a receivership in Santo Domingo, which was a sure way of preventing this question of European occupancy from arising, indicated that further education was necessary before this perplexing phase of the Monroe Doctrine could be assured of full support along the lines proposed by the national administration. But speaking in terms of actuality rather than of speculation, the perplexity relates chiefly to the West Indies, the shores of the Caribbean, and possibly some of the Central American countries. The West Coast republics, in their great industrial strides and their immense advances toward financial and political equilibrium, give little reason to expect that the question will arise with reference to them.

The Venezuela imbroglio in its influence on South American sentiment has to be understood in the light of the agitation which had been going on for the abrogation of the Monroe Doctrine. This movement had supporters in the United States as well as in Europe. The argument was, that, since we had gone to the Philippines, and since Europe had great interests in South America, we no longer had a right to say to the European Powers that they should keep hands off. Instead, they were to be told to carry out their colonizing aims, which only could be successful by territorial acquisition. Until the United States undertakes to exercise sovereignty on the European Continent or along the Mediterranean, there can be no comparison. And until the continental Powers adjust their balance of greedy and mutually distrustful ambitions, so that the Balkan States may enjoy the privileges of civilized government, their mission to civilize South America and establish a balance there cannot be expected to receive serious attention.

And let not the notion obtain that there can be a geographical limitation of the responsibility of the United States. After the war with Spain, when our new duties pressed heavily on us, the suggestion was made that we might draw the line, say at the Equator, and that we should not go farther afield. It was an impracticable suggestion, and does not need discussion now. Having the isthmian canal to protect, we could not, if we would, limit our responsibilities by a line anywhere through South America.

Another aspect of the same subject may be considered in brief space. This is the figment of territorial ambition and territorial absorption on the part of the United States. It is a phantom to the well-informed Northern mind, yet to the South American imagination it is a spectre. In the Republic of Washington and Lincoln are two classes. One talks vaguely on the Fourth of July, and other occasions of national boasting and self-gratulation, about the destiny of the rest of this hemisphere to become a territorial appanage of the United States. The majority of these talkers have the vaguest possible notion of the geography of the Southern Continent, of the physical conditions, and of the political relations. If they knew more, they would talk less. At home their outgivings receive little attention, but in South America they are given undue importance, and often distorted into supposed policies of the government.

The other class not only entertains no idea of territorial absorption, but dreads the notion of the due and just exercise of our influence. It looks on South America as a nest of revolutions with which the United States should have nothing to do, ridicules the possibilities of commerce, and professes disbelief in the capacity for progress.

After the war with Spain, in Latin America the same idea was entertained of the good faith of the United States that was held in Europe. The belief was that in relation to Cuba it would be a case not only of England in Egypt, but of outright annexation. This class of prophets have not fully recovered from the staggering effect of the withdrawal of the United States from Cuba. It made a deeper impression in dissipating their jealousy and fear of the giant Republic of the North than any of them were ready to admit. Yet I have heard South American public men of the reactionary group, who would have been loudest in condemning the United States for staying in Cuba, and would have used it as an object lesson to terrify their people with the shadow of the North American Colossus, seriously argue that we should have remained, that annexation is inevitable, and that this should have taken place at once instead of being allowed to await the normal evolutionary process. My friend Don X, whom I had known in Mexico, when I met him in Buenos Ayres pointed out to me the errors of my own contention, that in getting out of Cuba we had kept the national faith and had done our duty. “Cuba,” he said, “belongs to you. You should have taken her. We would have used it as an awful example against you, but we would have known you were only doing what you had a right to do.”

Thus it appeared that the reactionary South Americans held it as a grievance against the United States, that we did not give them an example of overweening territorial ambition. But the proof that we were not greedy permeated all classes; helped to convince the intelligent population, and even the unintelligent mass, that there could be such a thing as a nation with disinterested purposes, and that nation the Yankee Republic.

The position of the United States with reference to absorption was set forth so fully in the letter of Secretary Hay to Minister Leger of Haiti, and this position was approved so fully by the American people, that no further declaration is required.[20]

That the attitude of the United States is better understood and better appreciated in the farthest countries of South America was shown during the presidential campaign of 1904, in an article on the views of the two candidates, which was published by an influential Chilean paper.[21]

In considering the economic effect of the Canal on the West Coast countries it has not been my thought to discuss in detail its political influence. Moral influence is the better term. This is one of the great forces that counts in their industrial development. The United States is on the Isthmus. It is there to stay for all time. Its presence, rightly understood, gives no support to those who dream of territorial aggrandizement, or to the other class who see spectres and have nightmares. But its authority, fully established in the control of the Canal Zone, does give assurance of increased stability to the various governments, and this stability is the greatest inducement that they can offer to the investment of foreign capital. The Monroe Doctrine became automatic from the ownership of the interoceanic waterway by the United States; yet the influence on the Pacific coast countries will be even more beneficial in relation to their internal affairs than with reference to their protection from possible European aggression. What is needed is for the Fourth of July orator who ignorantly hints at territorial absorption, either to inform himself on the subject and to understand how the Panama Canal becomes the greatest factor in enabling the Spanish-American Republics to work out their own destinies, or else for him to confine his ambitious dreams to Canada. Let Canada be his theme, while Latin America solves her own problems.

In the analysis of the South American countries credit should be given them for what they have accomplished and are accomplishing among themselves. A very competent observer in an exhaustive volume has noted the change in the Spanish character in the South American countries, the modifying influence of environment, and the growth of the constructive element.[22]

It may be said that every boundary dispute is either settled or in process of settlement. The inheritance of these controversies from the Spanish and Portuguese colonial epochs was a grievous one, because in the vast interior regions it was impossible to have positive knowledge of the limits. The doctrine of uti possidetis was wittily translated by a Spanish diplomat as meaning that the territorial possession of the discovering nation extended from the coast as far as the eye could not see, to whatever frontier the discoverer could imagine. But no serious difficulties have arisen over the application of this principle. The respective parties in interest are settling these border disputes without going to war. All the boundaries will be delimited before the interoceanic waterway is completed.

Their limits fixed beyond dispute, the question of the permanent relation of the countries to one another becomes important. South America for South Americans is a wholesome doctrine, so long as they are willing to work in their respective spheres for the advancement of the whole continent. As some of their writers have pointed out, it never can mean a continental alliance.

While much is made at times of the distrust of the United States, a state of mind which is disappearing, it is usually overlooked that there is just as much distrust of one another among themselves. Though it cannot be said that racial antipathies exist, there are national jealousies. The little Republics fear the big ones. When the talk was loudest about an alliance of Chile, Argentina, and Brazil, the other South American commonwealths refused to believe that such an agreement would not mean their own destruction. At least one of them caused representations to be made to Washington, asking whether it could not be taken under a United States protectorate. And it was a far-away Atlantic coast country, too. The smaller and weaker nations feel that, like the fowl in Voltaire’s fable, they might express their preference as to how they should be carved up, but in objecting to be carved up at all they would be told they wandered from the question.

There is really only one acute South American question, which is that between Chile and Peru relative to Tacna-Arica, and since it does not enter into the economic conditions of political progress I omit its discussion here.

In the European attitude with regard to the commercial and industrial bases of the Monroe Doctrine has been much that is both grotesque and humorous. But at the bottom of it all is the full appreciation of the economic value of Latin America. France frequently chides herself for her failure to profit more by the moral influence of Latin ideas and literature on the neo-Latin countries. “We know,” wrote one authority,[23] “the grand scheme of economic absorption of the Latin Republics by the imperialism and the industrialism of the North.”

The imperialism may be dismissed, but the industrialism of the United States, when it once ventures into South America and becomes rooted, is worthy of the attention which European economists give it.

Though Germany and Great Britain are engaged in a ceaseless struggle for supremacy, the French writer bewailed the Anglo-Teutonic commercial movement as if it were a joint one. He proposed Latin-American leagues; the Spanish moral and economic re-conquest of the colonial empire with the aid of France; a kind of family pact, Hispano-Americanism as opposed to Pan-Americanism or Germanic-Anglicism. On their side the Germans complain of the loss of German prestige in South America, and some of their writers advocate a European trade combination against the Yankee invasion of the Southern Continent, just as a similar combination is proposed in Europe. Each nation in the international trust would expect to get the lion’s share of the benefit. John Bull occasionally has a tearful period of brotherly affection, and asks Uncle Sam to poke his long fingers into the hot coals where the English walnut has been dropped.

With regard to these suggestions it may be said that in international commerce racial affinity counts for as little as do sentimental ties. The presence of English, German, or French capitalists and immigrants in any foreign country naturally draws some home trade, but this has little influence on the general volume. European colonization of South America need not mean Europeanizing it commercially any more than politically. In spite of the large German colonies in southern Brazil, Germany lost commerce with that nation, while she gained it with other South American countries. It is often remarked that much of Germany’s profitable traffic is with British colonies.

In an analysis of European interests in South America it is necessary to distinguish between the securities or various forms of national debts and the actual investments in trade and industry, including railways and mines. While the statisticians vary widely in their estimates, it is reasonable to conclude, from an examination of the leading ones, that Great Britain has $2,000,000,000 in South American investments, of which $300,000,000 to $350,000,000 may be assigned the West Coast; Germany has from $475,000,000 to $500,000,000, with possibly $150,000,000 in the Pacific countries; and France, with about the same amount, has West Coast investments reaching $100,000,000, her Chilean holdings amounting to $42,000,000.

The relative characteristics of the two principal European competitors in South America are very marked. The Germans are slow, cautious, persistent; taking few pioneering risks, but always on the ground, filching markets and industries on a thoroughly scientific system. They are very largely in the commission trade and in banking. It may be said without injustice, that, in proportion to the amount of actual capital risked, Germany has contributed the smallest share of all the leading European nations to South American development, and has done least for industrial projects.

Great Britain on her part has gone in with her capital, roystering and swaggering, and always has blundered boldly and courageously. The personnel of her enterprises has been honeycombed with younger sons, dependants of the London directors, and the whole class of inefficient parasites which clog the administration of English industrial undertakings abroad. Her capitalists have built railroads in the mountains, where the tropical torrents require enormous resisting works, just as though they were constructing lines across the plains of India or from London to Liverpool. The stolid and dogged British investor has paid for it all, and has kept on pouring more money into these enterprises. So it came that he floundered into the untold wealth of the Peruvian guanos, stumbled into the nitrates with their incalculable riches, drifted into the golden stream of mining lotteries, and even fell upon fortunate and undeserved surprises in the way of profitable railway projects; while the expansion of his banking facilities, sometimes undertaken with a recklessness that would paralyze conservative bankers, brought him returns that justified further plunges into doubtful financial enterprises. As a whole, this blundering, or even stupid, English policy of investments has paid pretty regular dividends,—in all probability greater in proportion to the capital than the timid and over-cautious German investor has received. When the United States fully appreciates the field which the Panama Canal opens on the West Coast of South America, her captains of industry will be as bold as the Britishers, but not so recklessly stupid, in their preliminary plunges.

These observations bring the subject back to the point that in international rivalry the country does best that meets its competitors on the vantage ground of better and cheaper goods, rather than by dependence on racial sympathy or fraternal sentiment. The great point for the United States is the very marked advantage in which it is placed with reference to the West Coast countries of South America by the Canal. The trade centres of the Eastern States and of the Mississippi Valley will front on the Pacific, as they now front on the Atlantic and the Caribbean. Proximity of markets is a clear gain, and it will help the commerce of the United States to adventure abroad. In that sense, for a section of South America it definitely enlarges the commercial basis of the Monroe Doctrine.

But proximity alone is not enough. The United States enjoys no extensive barter with the Caribbean countries, notwithstanding their nearness. Brazil and Argentina are as close to Europe as to the United States. The need of expanding the home market will be stronger in the future, and when that is felt more keenly the north and south trade-wave will deepen its channel.

Always there will be resourceful, persistent competition. The Pacific coast does not become a mare clausum. The United States would not and could not make it a closed sea. The foreign commerce of South America is approximating $1,000,000,000. Of this amount relatively $600,000,000 is exports and $400,000,000 imports. The ratio of the West Coast to the entire continent is about 25 per cent; that is, on the basis of $1,000,000,000 it will have $250,000,000 foreign commerce. The United States is in this trade to the amount of $175,000,000. In one year its exports were $53,000,000 and its imports $140,000,000. The disproportionate balance was caused largely by the coffee and rubber imports from Brazil. But on the West Coast the balance is in its favor.

I have written this chapter as though the admonition of John Quincy Adams had been addressed to my own country instead of to another commonwealth. But it again may be said that empire is not the national thought of the United States, and lust of territorial dominion is not a serious malady with the strongest South American republics. Commerce and navigation are based on agricultural and industrial development. The interoceanic waterway renders certain the permanent influence of United States capital on the industrial and commercial life of its southern neighbors. It is for them to reap the larger benefit in the increased development of the national resources and the more stable political institutions. Some of them chafe under the implication that the Monroe Doctrine will be necessary in the future, and view it as a shadow rather than a shield. The new basis, the economic basis, of that doctrine which is provided by the Panama Canal furnishes the foundation on which its evolution may begin, so that they may get out from under the shadow while enjoying the sheltering protection of the shield.

The lessons in physical and commercial geography embraced in these chapters have shown that the geographical sphere of the Canal includes the Amazon basins, the Argentine wheat plains, and the Andes treasure box of mines from Panama to Patagonia. They have shown how railroad progress is crowding mule-trail civilization, how the arteries of trade are lengthening, how fresh commercial currents are developing, how the new industrial life is unfolding, and how the problems in the political conditions of the Western Hemisphere are being solved. They give promise of the deferred realization of Henry Clay’s population prophecy. Finally, they bid the citizen of the United States to look out from the windows of his own self-contained nation down the South American Canal line, and, accepting the responsibility which that grand enterprise has brought, to share in the opportunity which it has created for contributing to the civilization that comes through the spread of commerce and industry.