American Society of International Law. Proceedings. 1914: 155-69

Monroe Doctrine: National or International? William I. Hull

The Monroe Doctrine has been, during the past twelve months, the subject of such animated and far-reaching debate that it may be well at this point to observe the example of Daniel Webster, who began his reply to Senator Hayne with the words:

Mr. President, When the mariner has been tossed for many days in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true course. Let us imitate this prudence and, before we float further on the waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we departed, that we at least may be able to conjecture where we now are.

We Americans in discussing the Monroe Doctrine appear to be concerned chiefly with the growth and present scope of the doctrine itself, and seldom if ever pause to consider the reasons why the United States undertook and continues to enforce it by its own unsupported sanction. It is the object of this contribution to the great debate to consider chiefly the major premise of the accepted conclusion, and to examine the Monroe, or national, sanction of the Doctrine, rather than the Doctrine itself. In other words, the writ of quo warranto having been issued against the United States, let us frankly respond to the summons to show why our country alone, rather than the family of nations as a whole, or several members of it, at the least, should be bearing the burden in our own and the world's behoof.

As a preliminary to this discussion, it is essential to state as concisely as possible the present status of the Doctrine. In the first place, its terminus ad quem has been changed or greatly broadened. Directed at first against Spain and the Holy Alliance it has become a warning to the governments of Europe, Asia, and Latin America as well,-for the whole world, indeed, to heed and obey.

From the territorial point of view, it began with an assertion of America's territorial integrity against European acquisitions either by force or by colonization; but it now prevents the voluntary transfers of American soil by old-world Powers to other

old-world Powers, by new-world Powers to old-world Powers, and doubtless, if the case should arise, by new-world Powers to other new-world Powers. In these days of large corporations, also, it has been made to forbid any foreign corporation subsidized or controlled by an old-world government to acquire land in the Americas which is so situated as to menace the safety or communications of the United States. At present, the interpretation or extension of the Doctrine in this direction has not gone far enough to exclude all foreign corporations from doing business on the soil of the Americas; but there is sufficient elasticity in such phraseology for indefinite expansion in the future, and already some foreigners are complaining that such is the logical outcome of President Wilson's Mobile declaration against Latin American "concessions."

From the point of view of American self-government, the Doctrine began with a declaration against the restoration to Latin America of the monarchical government of Spain. Its author condemned, however, any intervention on the part of the United States in favor of a republican form of government; and this condemnation was repeated by his successors, even including President Polk,-who in most matters far out-Monroed Monroe. But within the past two decades, our self-restraint in this particular has been cast to the winds. One of our most highly esteemed Secretaries of State,—intoxicated, possibly, by the exuberance of a temporary pugnacity,-declared that "the United States is practical sovereign on this continent and its fiat is law upon the subject to which it confines its interposition." Every administration since that time has made popular government of the fiat variety one of its specialties in dealing with Latin America.

In President McKinley's administration, the Platt Amendment was applied to Cuba to protect the new republic against any hankering on its part after the fleshpots of Spain or other European monarchies, by providing that Cuba should make no treaties with foreign governments tending to destroy its independence or territorial integrity and should contract no public debts disproportionate to its ordinary revenue, and that the United States should or might intervene to protect Cuban independence and to maintain a government adequate for the protection of life, property and individual liberty.

In President Roosevelt's administration, we insisted that a province of Colombia should exercise the divine right of revolution, at the same time we prevented the mother country from exercising its right of coercion over its recalcitrant daughter, and we speedily recognized and permanently guaranteed, for a substantial quid pro quo, the independence of the new republic. In the same administration, also, the Big Stick was raised to conserve popular government in the Dominican Republic, this time by preventing revolutionists from looting the custom-houses for their sinews of war, and, after the rebellion was suppressed, by collecting and distributing the revenues so as to prevent other revolts and to forestall foreign Shylocks from demanding their pound of flesh in the form of Dominican lands.

In President Taft's administration, the Roosevelt policy in the Dominican Republic was continued, one revolt was suppressed and another prevented, one president was compelled to resign and his successor was sustained,-contrary to Napoleon's dictum,—on the points of American bayonets, while American appointees continued to collect and administer the customs. Nicaragua's popular government, also, was the recipient of President Taft's particular attention. One president was forced to resign; his successor, whom the people thought they had elected, was refused recognition, and a revolt against him was supported by 2,350 United States marines, who drove him into exile, placed a third president in the chair, captured five of the republic's towns, suppressed another revolt, distributed food supplies to the victims of the war, and left four hundred marines "on guard" in the republic's capital city. All this was justified on the plea of "the protection of the life and property of United States citizens and the influencing in all appropriate ways the restoration of lawful and orderly government."

In the present administration, a treaty is said to be pending between the United States and Nicaragua which, if ratified, would make the latter republic a veritable "protectorate" of our own and a base of naval operations, also, against domestic revolts, foreign land-grabbers, and European creditors in the other Central American republics. The enforcement of a fair trial of political offenders in Cuba, the "supervision" of Dominican elections, and the refusal to recognize Huerta, an enforced presidential election, and the rejection of the electoral returns,

in Mexico, are all too recent to need more than a mere mention. In view of such achievements as these by an administration only one year of age, we must all recognize grave significance in President Wilson's declaration in his first annual message that "we are the friends of constitutional government in America; we are more than its friends, we are its champions."

Thus, not only in our own dependencies, Porto Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippines, but in our neighboring republics, which are nominally independent, our government has become the schoolmaster in the science and art of popular government. Jefferson's and Monroe's confidence in democracy has grown into a determination that our neighbors in the western world shall enjoy for themselves, nolens volens, the blessings of constitutional government, even if we are obliged to blow these blessings upon them from the guns of super-dreadnoughts.

When it is suggested that this enterprise upon which we are engaged is a rather quixotic one, that it is in fact a superlatively and preposterously altruistic one for a mere government to be engaged in, the reply which has hitherto proved sufficient is, that popular government and financial solidity are essential to Latin America's political stability, that political stability is the sine qua non of its territorial integrity, and that its territorial integrity is imperatively demanded by the Monroe Doctrine for the safety and peace of the United States.

We Americans who have grown restive under the heavy burden of the Monroe Doctrine have sought for some means of evading or lessening our country's responsibility, and sundry alternatives have been suggested. Some have roundly denounced it as an "obsolete shibboleth" and demanded that the United States throw it overboard from its ship of state, leaving Latin America to shift for itself, on its own resources, or with such defensive alliances as it can make in the new world or the old. But in the present state of world politics, this policy of scuttle is rejected by the majority of Americans as fraught with certain peril to Latin America and to the United States as well. Not only is the specter of old world territorial aggrandizement in the new world,-with its military consequences to ourselves, seen in this policy of relinquishment, but the hope of efficient popular government throughout Latin America would be relinquished with it. If left entirely to themselves, it appears

too optimistic to hope for most of these republics, as President Wilson said of Mexico in his first annual message: "And then, when the end comes [after civil war has ceased], we shall hope to see constitutional order restored in distrest Mexico by the concert and energy of such of her leaders as prefer the liberty of their people to their own ambitions." Ambition, ignorance and lack of political training would long continue to retard the permanent adoption of constitutional government.

If, then, say other sincere critics, the United States must continue to bear the burden of the Monroe Doctrine, let us at least repress it within the straight-jacket of its modest original. The prevention of old world conquest or colonization, and the prevention of the restoration of monarchical government, in Latin America, are surely sufficient for the safety of the United States and are as much as Latin America can expect at our hands. But nulla vestigia retrorsum is the law here as elsewhere in national development; and in these days of complex civilization, conquest, colonization and monarchical government assume such subtle forms that eternal vigilance or constant watchful waiting on the part of the United States is held to be the price of America's freedom from them. Through the doorways of national bonds, of industrial concessions, of land companies, and of special privileges of many kinds, may come those old enemies of the Holy Alliance era whom Jefferson and Monroe so valiantly resisted.

Let us, then, say a third class of critics, bargain with those old-world Powers from whom, in our enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine, we are supposed to have most to fear,—Germany and Japan, for example, and secure their formal recognition of the Doctrine, not as a mere national policy, but as genuine international law. We have secured partial and sporadic recognition of it by some of the European Powers; let us induce them, by giving them some suitable quid pro quo,—such as the Philippines, or tariff concession,-to yield it once for all their formal acceptance. But students of the history of our country need not be reminded that our chief national characteristics and instincts are opposed to such international bargaining; while students of the history of international law need not be reminded that so-called international law which is based on