(New Jersey). The tension diminished while a modus vivendi was under discussion, and though General Pershing's force still remained in Chihuahua, a considerable proportion of the militiamen were sent back to their own States. The position at the end of 1916 was that the Commission had worked out a scheme for a joint patrol of the border calculated to remove the danger of future raids. Carranza declined the proposal. Villa had not been caught, and there was little prospect that he would be. Under those circumstances the early withdrawal of General Pershing's force was regarded as certain, and at the end of January 1917 the War Department at Washington definitely announced its recall. Mexico was once more to be left to work out its own salvation.

A comparatively detailed examination of the Mexican problem has been needed to demonstrate the nature and magnitude of President Wilson's difficulties. His critics-and they are manymaintain that he has shown himself a pure opportunist in his attitude towards Mexico; that he has never evolved a settled policy; and that such action as he has taken from time to time has been bad for the United States and bad for Mexico. Mr. Roosevelt has characteristically declared that more American lives have been sacrificed while peace was raging in Mexico than were lost in the whole of the Spanish-American War. It is contended that in declining to recognize Huerta the President actually defeated his own object, by enabling the usurper to appeal effectively to

national resentment against foreign interference ; that in attempting to influence the succession to Diaz, Mr. Wilson went beyond his constitutional powers; that he has throughout failed to uphold American prestige and defend American material interests; that his advice to American citizens to leave Mexico was a confession of weakness; and his impositions and withdrawals of the embargo on the export of arms an indication of vacillation and indecision.

That on the one hand. On the other, it is certain that even in the crisis of 1916 the bulk of the American nation desired above all things to be kept out of war, partly on account of the inadequacy of the military establishment, partly because it was generally held that the result of war must be annexation, a course which would have aroused bitter hostility and suspicion throughout the whole of Latin America. As it is, the supporters of Mr. Wilson's Mexican policy maintain, signal proof has been given of the absolute disinterestedness of the United States, and the fruits of the President's adhesion to that high principle will be reaped in the establishment of a new relationship of trust and confidence with the numerous republics of Central and South America.

Full justice will be done to the case for Mr. Wilson under this head if it is finally summarized in some striking declarations made to a New York paper in July 1916 by one of the ablest members of the Cabinet, Mr. Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior.

1 New York World, July 16, 1916.

President Wilson's Mexican policy," Mr. Lane asserted, "is one of the things of which, as a member of his Administration, I am most proud.. It shows so well his abounding faith in humanity, his profound philosophy of democracy, and his unshakable belief in the ultimate triumph of Liberty, Justice, and Right. He has never sought the easy solution of any of the difficult questions that have arisen in the last three years. He has always sought the right solution.

"Mr. Wilson's Mexican policy has not been weak and vacillating. It has been definite and consistent, firm and constructive. The policy of the United States toward Mexico is a policy of hope and of helpfulness; it is a policy of Mexico for the Mexicans.

"President Wilson has clearly seen the end that he desired from the first, and he has worked toward it against an opposition that was cunning If he and intensive, persistent and powerful. succeeds in giving a new birth of freedom to Mexico, he most surely will receive the verdict of mankind."

Between these conflicting estimates every student of the facts is qualified to make his choice.

CHAPTER VIII

FOREIGN POLICY AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE

One of the chie. objects on my Administration will be to cultivate the friendship and deserve the confidence of our sister republics of Central and South America. The United States has nothing to seek in Central and South America except the lasting interest of the peoples of the two continents, the security of governments intended for the people and for no special group or interest, and the development of personal and trade relationships between the two continents, which shall redound to the profit and advantage of both, and interfere with the rights and liberties of neither. From these principles may be read so much of the future policy of this Government as it is necessary now to forecast.-Presidential Statement of March 11, 1913.

FOR ninety years the Monroe Doctrine has been the charter of American foreign policy. It has never had, and has not now, any legal sanction. It is not embodied in the American Constitution. It has never been adopted as a permanent policy by a joint vote of the two Houses of Congress. Its prima facie authority is such as pertains to an enunciation of policy by a President of no particular distinction at a time when little more than a generation had elapsed from the final establishment of American independence.

The true importance of the Monroe Doctrine. is derived, not from the immediate circumstances which evoked its formulation, but from the fidelity with which it voices the consensus of political thought on the foreign relations of America from

Washington's day to Wilson's. The history of the Doctrine may be briefly recalled. Throughout the second decade of last century the Spanish colonies in Latin America had been in revolt

against the mother country. In 1822 the Holy Alliance (Russia, Austria, and Prussia) took in hand the chaotic affairs of Spain, and it became apparent that the immediate sequel to the settlement of Spain in Europe would be an expedition for the subjugation of the revolted Spain in America.

That prospect was equally distasteful to Great Britain and to the United States; to Great Britain by reason of her distrust of the growing power of the Holy Alliance; to the United States on account of her sympathy with what were now the South American republics, and her fear of the consequences of a bitter and prolonged war close to her borders. Accordingly Canning took counsel with the then American Minister in London, Richard Rush, and out of their conversations emerged the declaration in respect of which Canning three years later claimed that he had "called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old."

That declaration was addressed by President Monroe to Congress in his (written) message of December 2, 1823. It fell under three heads, the following being the salient clauses :--

1. "We should consider any attempt on their [the members of the Holy Alliance] part to extend their system to any part of this hemisphere as i.e. monarchy.