the various Pan-American conferences have been held from time to time. Our interests in the European struggle were identical with those which we asserted in the period of the Monroe Doctrine. We stand now, as then, for Democracy, Liberty, non-militarism, and friendly adjustments for all international differences. We have joined in the war against Germany, not to help one set of European powers obtain the advantage over another group of powers for selfish reasons of their own, but because the interests of all the American republics, as of democracies everywhere, were imperiled everywhere by the methods which Germany had adopted, and by the doctrines and policies that Germany and her allies were supporting with an organized application, such as the world had never seen, of science and skill to military ends.

The Monroe Doctrine was a part of that larger message of peace, democracy, and universal friendship that the best thinkers of modern times had delivered to Europe and America in the latter part of the eighteenth century. With many blemishes, but faithful in the main, North America and South America have gone forward trying to realize in practice those great dreams of Democracy and International Peace. Over against these high doctrines, announced in the eighteenth century by utilitarian philosophers and Christian moralists alike, we are now combating the destructive and hideous doctrine of the right to dominate in the affairs of the world by unrestrained force.

The object of the Monroe Doctrine was the peaceful evolution of Democracy in the western hemisphere. Our particular interest in the war against Germany is in strict fulfillment of the aims of the Monroe Doctrine. We are fighting for the rights of Democracy and the claims of International Peace. Fundamentally, the whole of the western hemisphere, South America no less than North America, had become imperiled by the doctrines and methods of Germany and her allies. The cause of the United States in this war, therefore, is also

the cause of Brazil and other South American republics. We are entitled to the moral support, if not to the physical aid, of all the members of the Pan-American Union. If in this crisis the western hemisphere shall see alike, it will be fortunate indeed for the future relations of the United States with the sister republics of South America, and the communities of the mainland and of the islands around the Caribbean.

OUR LATIN-AMERICAN POLICY 1

RICHARD OLNEY

[Richard Olney (1835-1917) was educated at Brown and Harvard universities and was a member of President Cleveland's Cabinet from 1893 to 1897, first as Attorney-General and then as Secretary of State. The chief incident of his term of office was the Venezuela Affair, in which the United States by a rather tart note induced Great Britain to refer her boundary dispute with Venezuela to arbitration. The present discussion is valuable for showing clearly the chief recent development of the Monroe Doctrine since President Wilson took office.]

Twenty years ago a practical application of the Monroe Doctrine seemed to be called for and was made. Subsequent events have not weakened it, but rather enlarged its scope and increased the esteem in which our people hold it.

The relations between the United States and the countries of South and Central America - commonly spoken of collectively as Latin America-have as a rule been friendly, though not intimate. Those countries on the one hand have relied for their commercial and financial connections almost wholly upon Europe and treated their relations with the United States as mostly official and perfunctory. The United States, on the other hand, has viewed those relations in pretty much the same way, while until within a very short time our capitalists, producers, and manufacturers have failed to realize the advantages of trade and intercourse with the peoples of the South American continent. The one marked exception to this condition of things has been the Monroe Doctrine a policy whereby the United States declares itself prepared to resist any aggression by a European state upon the independence or territorial integrity of any other American state.

1 1 From North American Review, February, 1916. Reprinted by permission.

The policy simply means protection and security for any other American state, and, maintained and exercised in good faith, cannot easily be objected to by any other American state. In that view it is a policy directed against Europe only, and until recently it represented our entire Latin-American policy. Within a short period, however, the United States has developed a distinctive rule of action in respect of Latin America, which in one sense certainly is in the interest of Europe and not against it, and whose only connection with the Monroe Doctrine is the desire and purpose of the United States to avoid any clash with Europe over the practical application of the Doctrine. Perhaps what has been done in the course of developing the new policy may be considered as a tacit acknowledgment and acceptance of the claims of European jurists and statesmen that if the United States assumes to protect the political independence and territorial integrity of other American states it must see to it that such states abide by and perform their international duties and obligations. At all events, that is what the United States has been doing and is doing with the acquiescence of European states in various well-known instances. Instead of standing by and looking on while a European state enforces its international rights as against a lawless or defaulting American state, the United States has intervened, has in effect warned the European state concerned off the premises, and has itself caused international justice to be done. It has undertaken the protection of the lives and property of Europeans when threatened by riots and revolutionary movements. It has exacted indemnities and penalties for injuries suffered by them, and has collected debts for European states and their citizens by occupying ports and collecting and applying customs revenues. In cases of this sort it has, in effect, charged itself with duties and trusts analogous to those devolving upon the receiver of a bankrupt corporation.

Consequently, whether the supplemental policy above sketched is or is not the logical and inevitable sequence of

the Monroe Doctrine, it is now no longer aimed at Europe only, but also trenches upon American states themselves. It is a policy, indeed, which as respects such states impairs their independence. It does not alter the case that the intervention of the United States in the manner described may be for the best good of such states. Such intervention is in clear conflict with the basic principle of international law, which asserts the absolute equality inter sese of all states, great and small.

But our Latin-American policy, hitherto practically limited to the Monroe Doctrine and its corollaries, has necessarily taken on a wholly new development by reason of our acquisition of the Panama Canal and the Panama Zone. The United States is now a South American power, with extensive territorial interests acquired at immense cost. It holds the Canal in double trust on the one hand for the people of the United States, on whose behalf it is bound to make the operation of the Canal efficient and, if possible, fairly remunerative; on the other hand for the world at large, on whose behalf it is pledged to give to all nations the like facilities in the use of the Canal upon equal terms. In both relations it has assumed to protect the Canal against all assaults from every quarter, whether they come in the shape of military invasion or of economic competition. Hence, on the one hand the United States has fortified the Canal and will undoubtedly take all other measures necessary to protect it against military attack. Hence, on the other hand the United States has initiated measures looking to the preëmption of all other routes practicable for a rival canal.

It sufficiently appears from these premises that the LatinAmerican policy of the United States now has the following objects:

First. To secure every American state against loss of independence or territory at the hands of a European Power, as means to which end the United States will resist aggression by such Power by force of arms, if necessary, while, in