LATIN AMERICA AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE

Abstract

1 7 R L A T I N A M E R I C A A N D T H E M O N R O E D O C T R I N E H I R A M B I N G H A M Vol. 3, no. 4 Summer 1914 There is a feeling among some of those who are firm believers in the Monroe Doctrine that we are in danger of misrepresenting the Latin-American attitude towards this doctrine, and of exaggerating its importance: ‘‘It has become of vogue in recent years,’’ says a lawyer writing in the Baltimore ‘‘Evening Sun,’’ of April 17, 1914, ‘‘among a certain class of oracular schoolmen and scholastic statesmen [sic] in the United States, who take no account of the lessons of history, and ignore the plain facts of the present, to decry and condemn the Monroe Doctrine, thus giving aid and comfort to its detractorsabroadandfomentingthemisunderstandingandill-will of which they claim it is the cause in our international relations. Conspicuous examples of the anti-Monroe doctrinaires who add fuel to the otherwise innocuous flame of hostile criticism are Professor Hugo Münsterberg of Harvard, who decries ‘the error and folly of the moribund doctrine’; [and] Professor Hiram Bingham of Yale, in whose booklet, which he dubs ‘The Monroe Doctrine, an Obsolete Shibboleth,’ he compiles and magnifies every hostile criticism that he can gather from alien tongue and pen.’’ To magnify every hostile criticism which can be gathered from alien tongue and pen, is undoubtedly a mischievous and inexcus- 1 8 B I N G H A M Y able performance. If true, it justifies this lawyer in his characterization of those who condemn the Monroe Doctrine. On the other hand, if it be true that our most sacred foreign policy, known as the Monroe Doctrine, is, in the words of a recent member of the Argentine National Congress, ‘‘hurting your country, and hurting it badly,’’ it seems to me essential to call vividly to the attention of my countrymen the attitude towards the Doctrine which I have found to exist in considerable measure in Latin America. Did I believe that this were likely to promote discord between the other American republics and ourselves, I should regard a discreet silence as the better part of valorous patriotism. So far as ‘‘magnifying ’’ these hostile criticisms is concerned, if calling attention to them and giving chapter and verse for their occurrence is magnifying them, then I plead guilty to the charge. But if magnifying them is understood to be exaggerating their importance, or overstating their meaning so as to depict extravagantly the feeling they represent, then I plead not guilty. In this paper, I shall endeavor to portray the prevailing LatinAmerican attitude towards the Monroe Doctrine by giving, first, reports brought back from South America by scientific travellers and other trained observers; second, editorial opinions gathered from representative journals and newspapers in several South American countries; and third, quotations from the writings of various leaders of Latin-American thought, including the presidents or ex-presidents of three Latin-American republics. The opinion of travellers is likely to vary in accordance with their familiarity with the countries they have visited; with their o≈cial position; and according to their ability to secure informal expressions of opinion from friends and acquaintances in the countries visited. In talking with many who have returned from the southern continent, and in reading the press dispatches of interviews with others with whom I have not talked, I have noticed that those who report a favorable attitude towards the Monroe Doctrine are either visitors who, owing to their o≈cial position , have not had an opportunity for getting at the undercurrents of thought; or representatives of expositions or advertising agencies , or others whose business it is to find friendship and to record only friendly impressions; or superficial travellers who have not succeeded in getting below the surface. As I have travelled in L A T I N A M E R I C A A N D T H E M O N R O E D O C T R I N E 1 9...