ropean powers.

In a few cases, a part of the doctrine has been included in treaties, but no such treaty has ever been ratified by the Senate."

The doctrine or policy had its birth in an attempt of Russia to colonize a part of the region called Oregon, and the threat of foreign powers to recover and coerce South American colonies. It was the result of the irresistible progress of events. America stood as the defender of the rights of free nations.

While the Monroe Doctrine did not blossom until 1823, its roots went back to 1787, when Washington and Hamilton and John Adams laid deep the foundations of national protection and national self-preservation. The wisdom of those men supported the American doctrine of protection, and all these springs of patriotism finally led, naturally and inevitably, to the broad, strong current the world has recognized as the Monroe Doctrine. It was, and is, nothing but protection. Monroe merely enunciated an established policy, instead of launching a new doctrine. It was the natural outgrowth and development of Washington's famous declaration, and Jefferson's well-known pronouncement that our second duty is "never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with cis-Atlantic affairs.”

Daniel Webster supported it ardently and said:

This declaration of Mr. Monroe's is wise, reasonable and patriotic. . . . The tone which it utters finds a corresponding response in the heart of the free people of the United States... The country's honor is involved in that declaration. I look upon it as a part of its treasure of reputation, and for one, I intend to guard it. I look upon the message of 1823 as forming a

I will help

bright page in our history. neither to erase it nor tear it out. Nor shall it be by any act of mine blurred or blotted. It did honor to the sagacity of the government, and I will not diminish that honor.

Edward Livingston termed it "a pledge to the world involving national obligations which will never die so long as we remain a free Republic."

THE PANAMA CONGRESS. The South American Republics in 1826, sought protection under the official sanction of the doctrine, by inviting the United States to send. delegates to a Panama Congress. The refusal of Congress was the result of politics and the slave question, and for that reason not an accurate index of public sentiment.

Polk and Buchanan both took part in the debate over the Panama Congress and opposed it; but the former in 1845 and again in 1848 when President, and the latter in 1848, repudiated their former position and invoked the Monroe Doctrine to protect the United States and southern republics from foreign colonization. In 1845, Polk in the Oregon case, affirmed the principle of the Monroe Doctrine as a "sound principle and policy." He said that "the official protection of our laws should be ex

tended over our whole territorial limits," and that "no future European colony or dominion shall with our consent, be planted or established on any part of the North American Continent." Buchanan's position in 1848 in regard to Mexico, and the appeal to the Monroe Doctrine to drive the French out of the republic south of us, is familiar to all.

Thus the Monroe Doctrine was naturally and logically expanded into the non-colonization phase. Secretary Seward and President Grant invoked it. Secretary Fish did likewise in the San Domingo case. In this affair Secretary Fish said:

The United States is solemnly committed by repeated declarations and repeated acts to this doctrine. This policy is not a policy of aggression, but it opposes the creation of European domination on American soil. It will not be presumptuous to say with entire consideration for the sovereignty and national pride of the Spanish American Republics, that the United States.

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pies of necessity a prominent position on this continent which they neither can nor should abdicate, which entitles them to a leading voice, and which imposes upon them duties of right and of honor regarding American questions, whether those questions affect emancipated colonies or colonies still subject to European domination.

When the Monroe declaration was offered to the world, the United States had recognized four South American republics, but not one had achieved a democratic or republican government, or possessed a Congress or stable financial system. The English looked upon the Spanish American colonies as opportunities for trade and influence; and the Monroe Doctrine, like the doctrine of protection through import duties, was a part of the great policy of American selfpreservation. In the doctrine there was something more than the dangers to the Latin American people; there was protection bristling in the phrases such as "the rights and interests of the United States," "only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced," "the defence of our own (political system)," "dangerous to our peace and safety."

The doctrine can be understood

only as a statement of a right of protection against foreign powers, and to prevent disturbances to our institutions. The Latin-American states willingly accepted it in 1823, and even asked for protection; and many of the South American republics are still unable to defend themselves, should some European power make hostile demonstrations.

ONLY DEPARTURE FROM DOCTRINE.

The Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850, whereby the United States agreed to admit England into joint and equal partnership in a canal across the isthmus of Panama, is the most notable instance of departure from the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine; and the story of that treaty is a dark page in American diplomatic history. It will never be satisfactorily explained how British diplomacy thus managed to get the best of American diplomacy. Hon. John W. Foster said of it:

The Clayton-Bulwer treaty marks the most serious mistake in our diplomatic history, and is the single instance of a tacit disavowal of the Monroe Doctrine.

In 1882 Secretary Frelinghuysen wrote Mr. Lowell in London that "to place the isthmus under the protection and guarantee of the powers of Europe instead of the United States would seriously threaten and affect the political interests of the United States." Secretary Hay attempted to remedy the matter in the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, but England held fast to most of what she gained. And the free canal tolls provision now in force deprives the United States of a large part of the advantage that should belong to her, for Great Brit

ain can produce ships and operate ships cheaper than the United States, and the United States cannot protect American shipping in the Panama Canal trade by discriminating tolls. Thus is surrendered a large part of our doctrine of protection. The work of Secretary Blaine in the direction of American rights under the Monroe Doctrine is too well known to need comment here. Charles H. Sherrill well sums it up by saying:

The tree of American liberty becomes all the more symmetrical since we learn that the Monroe Doctrine is one of its branches. Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and the Monroe Doctrine is but the American expression of that homely maxim.

THE VENEZUELA CONTROVERSY. The controversy in 1896 between England and Venezuela over the Venezuelan boundary, resulted in an appeal to the Monroe Doctrine. President Cleveland and Secretary Olney brought the country face to face with war with England, to test the Monroe Doctrine. England undertook to take 109,000 square miles of territory from Venezuela, a tract larger than Nevada, and larger than New England. England finally consented to arbitrate and withdrew her ships. President Roosevelt also invoked the Monroe Doctrine when Germany undertook to test it in South America. The time had arrived when it was necessary tɔ finally test the question whether we had a real Monroe Doctrine or not.

When in 1898, the United States won the war with Spain and as a result acquired Porto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, there arose a studied attempt on the part of some foreign nations, especially Germany, to bring into question the sanctity and author

ity of the so-called Monroe Doctrine. The American declaration of policy had stood for seventy-five years, and while not international law, had the force and effect of law. But both Germany and England began to chafe, for economic reasons. English and French writers and German agents started a propaganda against the Monroe Doctrine and the seeds of discontent were sown in all the Central and South American republics.

In 1903, an English writer in the Westminster Review said:

The German Emperor has pledged us to joint action with him and we are bound to take it as regards our claims against Venezuela, but we are not pledged to aid him in his attempt to test the Monroe Doctrine. . . . It is perhaps, sometimes, too hastily assumed that the Monroe Doctrine binds the United States to intervene in every dispute which may arise between an American and non-American power.

Moreton Frewen in the "Nineteenth Century" of February, 1916, writes:

This colossal war is really America's own war, and is the legacy of a vicious and incomplete instrument, the so-called Monroe Doctrine, that President Monroe was tutored into. The United States is involved by it in "weltpolitik" to a degree which no other policy could have possibly entangled. It has imposed a straight-waistcoat on Germany, and filled Central Europe with a homicidal mania. It is the sword of Damocles which threatens the world and the times. Germany sought expansion in South America and found Uncle Sam claiming all out doors. . . England must decide whether she longer intends to endure the Monroe Doctrine.

Hiram Bingham in the Atlantic Monthly of June, 1913, writes of what he calls the "Monroe Doctrine, an absolute shibboleth." He says that to South Americans the Monroe Doctrine "is a display of insolence and conceit on our part" and we must abandon it. He seeks to point out

what he considers inconsistencies on the part of the United States after the war with Spain, and the prejudice that is, as he claims, arising in South America against the United States. And this man claims to be an American!

In May, 1911, Hon. Alejandro Alverez, Chilian Minister of Foreign Affairs, discussed the Monroe Doctrine at the Fourth Pan-American Conference and said that the "extension of the Monroe Doctrine did not coincide with the wishes of the South American countries" and "was a menace to them." He deplored what he called the "imperialism" of the United States, and charged the United States "with seeking economic and political supremacy."

In "Brazil and the Monroe Doctrine," a Brazilian statesman quotes J. Ribet, a French writer, as referring to the Monroe Detrine as "the American peril." Rivet is quoted as blaming the American school of protectionists for the Monroe Doctrine.

In November, 1915, Lord Cromer in the London Spectator said that "the Monroe Doctrine as held by the United States is unnecessary and involving a certain degree of patronage." Viscount Bryce in his "South America" adds to the discontent in the South American republics.

APPLIED TO THE PACIFIC. The Monroe Doctrine up to 1900 was interpreted by foreign nations (unwillingly it is true) as a prohibition against European aggression on the two Americas. In 1912 it was feared by the United States that Japanese interests were seeking a terri

torial foothold in Lower California, whereupon the United States Senate adopted the Lodge resolution which declared "that sales of property by Americans to any nation which might use the tract as a base to threaten the United States could not be viewed without concern by this government." This was a formal extension of the Monroe Doctrine to the Pacific, but in perfect harmony with its spirit. It was prompted by the broad doctrine of national protection. The Protectionist several months ago, called attention to this resolution, in connection with written evidence in the words of English publicists, that Great Britain was tired of the Monroe Doctrine and awaited an opportunity to assist in its overthrow. Publicists openly declared in 1916 that the Monroe Doctrine was becoming a menace and a "gag" to the Republics of Central and South America, and that the Lodge resolution of 1912 was particularly offensive to them.

In 1914, a Japanese writer, Oshima Shochi, in "Japanese View of the Monroe Doctrine," said that as "America is for Americans" so "Asia is for Asiatics," and that Japan must insist upon her own Monroe Doctrine in the far East. Japan's position now is of no little importance.

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

The proposed League of Nations brings the Monroe Doctrine to the bar of public opinion, and it is now awaiting the verdict. Mr. Wilson supported and indorsed this doctrine January 6, 1916, but appeared to be willing to surrender it in 1919. Reports from

Paris indicated that he shifted his position again, however, and in the face of the opinion of such men as Senator Knox, Senator Lodge and former Secretary Root, appeared willing to insert in the "Covenant of League of Nations" something calculated to save the Monroe Doctrine. Almost the last words written by the late Mr. Roosevelt were: "Moreover the American people do not intend to give up the Monroe Doctrine." Mr. Lodge in his debate with Mr. Lowell, March 19, 1919, said that the proposed League of Nations surrendered the Monroe Doctrine, and for that reason should not be agreed to. Mr. Taft, too, reached the conclusion that the League of Nations must preserve the Monroe Doctrine. But in attempting to thus save it, the hostile opinion of England, France, and the South American republics, largely induced by economic reasons and therefore manufactured, must be reckoned with. Only one thing will save the Monroe Doctrine in this crisis, and that is firmness and unity on the part of the American people.

According to dispatches from Paris the following section has been added to the proposed Covenant of League of Nations:

hearing no objection, said the paragraph would be added to the Covenant. This is claimed by Mr. Wilson to save and protect the Monroe Doctrine from the operation of the Covenant of League of Nations, when finally placed before the governments of the several countries involved. But does it? In the first place, the Monroe Doctrine is not "an international engagement." It is not a part of international law, but simply an American policy apparently agreed to and accepted by foreign countries. Just why it should be thus linked up with "treaties of arbitration" it is difficult to see, for the Monroe Doctrine is not a treaty, and cannot be treated as a treaty, or in the same paragraph with treaties. Why should a paragraph, added presumably to save the Monroe Doctrine, be loaded down and obscured by any consideration of formal treaties? It is simply confusing, and weakens the force of the attempted reservation. Neither is the Monroe Doctrine a "regional understanding." It is something more than this. It is a definite policy, and a part of the American plan of self-defence and protection, going back one hundred years. Furthermore, the Monroe Doctrine, as interpreted by the United States and made vital by many specific trials and tests, is something more than an understanding "for securing the maintenance of peace." It is a definite and specific part of America's protection against foreign attemps to secure a territorial or other foothold on this continent, for either economic, political or imperial purposes, and thereby deemed against the interests of the United States.