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of our institutions and of our foreign policy, which has sought to reflect, with rare exceptions, the ideals of liberty; they menace us by stimulating a distrust which has no real foundation. They find no sanction whatever in the Monroe doctrine. There is room in this hemisphere, without danger of collision, for complete recognition of that doctrine and the independent sovereignty of the Latin American Republics."
What was the cause of the last two rather heated re-statements of the spirit of the Monroe doctrine? What had been done since the lofty expressions of John W. Foster to call forth the above indictment from President Wilson or the violent protest of Mr. Hughes?
PRESIDENT TAFT'S VIEW.
Viallate, in his Economic Imperialism (p. 62), quotes William Howard Taft, who, in the meantime, has also been President, as stating our Latin American policy as follows:-
'While our policy should not be turned a hairbreadth from the straight path of justice, it may well be made to include intervention to secure for our merchants and our capitalists opportunity for profitable investments which shall inure to the benefit of both countries." (Senate hearings on Foreign Loans," p. 86. The italics are mine.)
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It is to Theodore Roosevelt that we must look for a solution of this apparent contradiction of aims and policies. Under President Roose- velt the spirit of the Monroe doctrine suffered a fundamental change. Until his administration the European Powers had been left free to collect their own loans and protect their own nationals and property in the Latin American countries. For over 80 years European govern- ments had from time to time bombarded Latin American ports and landed troops on Latin American territory to enforce settlement of disputes; and our diplomacy had always allowed a reasonable time to elapse before the Monroe doctrine was strictly applied. One of the chief results of this was that the enmity of the Latin American Republics rested on the direct aggressors.
But President Roosevelt initiated the policy of making the United States the "policeman of the Western Continent." The assumption which he raised was that it was our duty to use the military forces of the United States to insure the settlement of all disputes in Latin America, and to protect European as well as American life and property there if they were endangered; that if we did not do so the European Powers would come in, would stay permanently on the Western Continent, and so would threaten our national safety. The Monroe doctrine was stretched to cover this new policy. At once Latin American enmity began to rest on the United States alone, since we were the policeman in all difficulties.
Obviously the Roosevelt policy itself was nothing but an indication of a fundamental change in our own attitude toward Latin America, From this it was only a logical step to the policy of President Taft, Roosevelt's successor "intervention to secure for our merchants and our capitalists opportunity for profitable investments."
At the beginning of President Wilson's first administration we had made such progress in this direction, and the Monroe doctrine had been stretched so far that John Callan O'Laughlin, First Assistant Secretary
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of State under President Roosevelt, and at present editor of the Army and Navy Journal, could say in his "Imperiled America
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We are seeking to make and we proudly call the Caribbean Sea an American lake. We are maintaining a financial protectorate over Santo Domingo. We are applying the same system to Haiti and Nicaragua, and have arranged for the pur- chase of the Danish West Indies. We kept a dictator out of Venezuela and drove another out of Nicaragua.”
It is interesting to compare these various interpretations of the Monroe doctrine with what our Latin American policy actually has been at the times they were uttered and under the men who were uttering them. Mr. O'Laughlin states the case correctly for the day in which he was speaking. President Wilson, in spite of his fair words at Mobile, did nothing to arrest and everything to sustain the very policy in Latin America against which he was protesting. Mr. Hughes's policy will be referred to later. In terms of deeds, not words, our course in Latin America has advanced without a single deviation along the channel laid down for it by Presidents Roosevelt and Taft.
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At the present time, instead of maintaining financial protec- torates over our sister republics in Latin America, it would be more correct to say that we are holding them under a form of military and financial dictatorship. These various military and financial dictator- ships have been imposed upon the Latin American countries under successive administrations and by the force of American arms since 1909 up to and including the present day.
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In the case of the Dominican Republic, we began by placing over her a military government under United States auspices, supported by the United States marines, with a lieutenant-commander of the Navy as the officer administering the affiairs of finance and commerce for the military government." To secure payment of six different American loans, the first in 1907 and the last in 1922, and a seventh loan in 1924, a specific charge on the customs revenues was made, these revenues to be collected during the life of the bonds by an official appointed by the President of the United States." The agreement" by which the revenues of the Dominican Republic were thus laid under mortgage was made between the United States and the United States controlled military government in Santo Domingo, the bond issue bearing the guarantees of the military government as an irrevocable obligation of the Dominican Republic." (Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate, hearing before sub-committee on foreign loans. Exhibits 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 et seq.)
MILITARY RULE IN SANTO DOMINGO.
A provisional government was established in Santo Domingo by the military governor, United States Admiral Robison, on 21st October, 1922, to provide for holding elections and reorganising the government. On 12th July, 1924, General Horacio Vasquez, elected president for four years, was inaugurated. The convention between the United States and the new Vasquez Government stipulated that all acts of the United States military for the past 17 years be ratified; all American loans be assumed as public debt, including a sinking fund issue bearing 9 to 18 per cent. interest; and a new refunding loan be accepted running up to $25,000,000. The customs receivership was extended until all loans were paid. Thus liberty in our sister Republic of Santo
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