field where circumstances give it special rights, it does so frankly upon the basis of open rivalry-that all have the right to compete, and competition must be adjusted on the principle of "give and take." Nearly all the nations have participated in the subdivision of Africa. Nearly all have taken a hand in Asia. The United States has as much right in China as Russia or England, if our policy is such as to send us thither. As Theodore Roosevelt so well said at Minneapolis last September: "The United States must not shrink from playing its part among the great nations. We cannot avoid hereafter having duties to do in the face of other nations." The United States is not shrinking. We have been in China. We are in the great Philippine archipelago with our sovereignty, and we shall build a new nation there, nearly twice as far from our shores as Brazil is from Germany or Italy. We are more or less a factor in what may be called all the world politics of the times. We could not keep out if we would, and we would not if we could. Wherever we go we encounter no arbitrary dead-lines, no trespassing placards. It is not wholly consistent for us to play the game with a free hand in Europe, in Asia, in the islands of the sea, wherever we wish, and at the same time sit as the dog in the manger in all the great region to the south of us.

Century. 87: 233-41. December, 1913

Is There a Sound American Foreign Policy? W. Morgan Shuster

Conceding perfectly that it was a splendid stroke of diplomacy to frighten land-hungry monarchies away from South and Central America at a time when that territory was politically unformed and in a state of chaos, the question remains whether to-day, on impartial analysis, any reason exists for continuing such a stand. The following inquiries should aid in reaching a conclusion:

I. Is the Monroe Doctrine based on any great moral or ethical ground?

2. Is it of any strategical advantage to the United States? 3. Does it cement friendly relations between the United States and other great nations?

4. Does it create friendly political bonds between the United States and the South and Central American countries?

5. Does it aid those countries to maintain stable and enlightened governments, and thus assure to the world peace, order, and justice within their borders?

6. Does it tend to make those countries keep faith in their financial relations and engagements with the rest of the world? 7. Does it raise American prestige and create respect for the American citizen in those countries?

8. Does it benefit American trade and commerce with those countries or any other place?

The answer to every one of these questions must be an emphatic no, except to the second, to which a modified no may be returned.

I. The United States never assumed moral or ethical grounds in warning Europe against forcible colonization in the western hemisphere. It announced a policy then believed to be one of necessary self-protection. There was no other principle involved. The United States, on the contrary, has itself gone into the eastern hemisphere and colonized, with the avowed intention of bettering political and economic conditions.

2. There is no strategical advantage in keeping European nations out of the western hemisphere, except as to the zone of danger of attack on the Panama Canal, and if the Monroe Doctrine disappeared to-morrow, it would still be the right of the United States to take steps against the gathering of any armed force which might threaten the canal, either on territory now forming independent states or on adjacent colonies already possessed by European nations. There would be no need to invoke the Monroe Doctrine against any demonstration of that kind, now or at any time in the future.

3. Far from cementing friendly relations, the Monroe Doctrine is considered by Europe to be an offensive display of American arrogance, dictated by motives purely selfish, however futile might be the effort to follow them up.

4. The Monroe Doctrine, and especially certain official interpretations which have recently been put on it, is genuinely feared and hated by South Americans, whatever professions may be made by some. I happened to be in Buenos Aires during the summer of 1912 when the news of the Lodge resolution, adopted

by the Senate as a result of the Magdalena Bay discussion, was received. I can testify personally that this officially sanctioned interpretation or extension of the Monroe Doctrine aroused there great indignation against the United States, despite the fact that the Argentine people are naturally and normally most friendly toward Americans. That this resolution produced similar feelings in other South American countries was amply confirmed later.

5. That it could never aid the people of any nation, where the temptation to pay personal politics is ever present and strong, to know that they might riot with comparative immunity from punishment, seems self-evident. The whole tendency of such a situation is to foster national irresponsibility.

6. The answer to the fifth question applies equally well to the sixth. The belief that the Monroe Doctrine could be invoked to protect them in the last extremity has steadily encouraged extravagance and reckless financial engagements on the part of several Latin-American nations. The appeal made last April by Guatemala that the United States should stand between her and her European creditors is exactly in point.

Could there, in fact, be a greater temptation to small nations to be reckless in their dealings with European lenders than to have the United States stand guard over their territorial integrity at all hazards? In addition, the American people thereby virtually undertake the thankless and noisome task of collecting Europe's debts. It is well known that the American Government will go to lengths for European creditors to which it would refuse to go for its own citizens. One result of this is that American bankers have always been loath to finance any LatinAmerican business, public or private, unless there was a substantial participation therein by European capital, in order that there might always be, in case of necessity, a club with which to beat the United States Government into more vigorous assertion of the lenders' or investors' rights. Could there be a more humiliating position for Americans?

Meanwhile the bankers of Europe laugh at our ingenuousness, and give thanks that there is a cheap and ready method of getting their Latin-American chestnuts pulled out of the fire.

7. In considering the question of American prestige as af

fected by the Monroe Doctrine, it must be remembered that one's reputation is always determined, justly or unjustly, by others. Not by its own consciousness of right is the standing of the United States fixed in the eyes of the Latin-American peoples, but by their opinions as to the real motives underlying the American political attitude toward them. It is true that the American nation is constantly misrepresented in the western hemisphere, but it is the Monroe Doctrine which gives the handle to those who wish to create suspicion and distrust.

In the United States there are already some who expect, and in South and Central America there are many who fear, the coming of a vast American federation, stretching from Alaska to Cape Horn, with every range of climate and production, but with a governing and directing nucleus situate in the north temperate zone, represented by appointive executives or elective officials and political agents, as the local situation may indicate, but all subject to the quickening impulses of those in power at Washington.

A dream it might be for an Alexander or a Napoleon, but a ludicrous nightmare in this twentieth century. Fortunately, it exists principally in the perfervid imaginations of persons of radical anti-American tendencies; but even so, it is a theme with which to excite antipathy, a horn on which to blow a call to unite against the feared and hated "imperialists" from the North.

8. There can be no doubt that the feelings of Latin-Americans toward the Monroe Doctrine do not help American trade and commerce with them, either on sentimental lines or in a practical way. Other things being nearly equal, a business man prefers to deal with those toward whom he feels friendly; in many cases he will even put up with something a little different from what he actually desires in order to do business with a friend. The personal equation plays a specially large part in business with Latin-America, and to that extent American trade competitors are actually handicapped.

Then the effect of the American Government's policy of hesitating to assert vigorously purely American financial claims, lest it touch an already irritated spot, is of course to give European bankers and investors an additional advantage in the South American field.

Viewed from every point, therefore, this unique American foreign policy does not stand forth as ethically sound, just, wise, practicable, or expedient.

There remain only two other questions: Could it be maintained, if it should actually be defied? Is it practical to modify or drop it?

As to the first question, it must be remembered that the European Powers, even Great Britain, have never accepted this policy save at times when it was convenient to tolerate it. It has escaped serious challenge thus far principally because the European nations have been torn by fears and jealousies of one another, and this state has served to keep active attention focused nearer home. There is no reason to think, however, that before the dream of universal disarmament comes true, some powerful nation or group of nations will not deliberately deny the United States' vaguely derived, loudly proclaimed, contingent, but exclusive, equity in every square mile of territory in the western hemisphere, which, through the partial or complete breaking down of the existing forms of government, may become exposed to intervention and occupation.

The world's present distribution of territory and inhabitants cannot last forever. The rapidly increasing population of certain European and Asiatic nations, the additional room which will be absolutely required by them, the growing trade and increasing interests of Europe in South America, the ever-present landhunger all these factors, in the face of the vast stretches of a rich undeveloped and sparsely settled continent, will inevitably bring it about that hitherto rival nations will recognize their common welfare, call a truce among themselves, and test this vague suzerainty of the United States at some convenient time and place. Pretexts for aggressive action will never be lacking.

When the day of trial approaches, the American people will receive scant warning. Ex-President Roosevelt recognized this when he said, "The Doctrine will be respected as long as we have a first-class, efficient navy-not very much longer." But did he mean a navy strong enough to defeat England's, or Germany's, or the English and French fleets combined?

Our national hat is already in the ring. When a serious move is made to kick it out, the American people will be suddenly faced by the most tremendous crisis in their history. There will be