University of Virginia Library

XVI
AT CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, APRIL 2, 1903

Mr. Chairman, ladies, and gentlemen:

To-day I wish to speak to you, not merely about the
Monroe Doctrine, but about our entire position in the
Western Hemisphere—a position so peculiar and predominant
that out of it has grown the acceptance of the
Monroe Doctrine as a cardinal feature of our foreign
policy; and in particular I wish to point out what has
been done during the lifetime of the last Congress to
make good our position in accordance with this historic
policy.

Ever since the time when we definitely extended our
boundaries westward to the Pacific and southward to the
Gulf, since the time when the old Spanish and Portuguese
colonies to the south of us asserted their independence,
our nation has insisted that because of its primacy in
strength among the nations of the Western Hemisphere
it has certain duties and responsibilities which oblige it to
take a leading part thereon. We hold that our interests
in this hemisphere are greater than those of any European
power possibly can be, and that our duty to ourselves
and to the weaker republics who are our neighbors requires
us to see that none of the great military powers
from across the seas shall encroach upon the territory of
the American republics or acquire control thereover.

This policy, therefore, not only forbids us to acquiesce
in such territorial acquisition, but also causes us to object

to the acquirement of a control which would in its effect
be equal to territorial aggrandizement. This is why the
United States has steadily believed that the construction
of the great Isthmian canal, the building of which is to
stand as the greatest material feat of the twentieth century,
—greater than any similar feat in any preceding
century,—should be done by no foreign nation but by
ourselves. The canal must of necessity go through the
territory of one of our smaller sister republics. We have
been scrupulously careful to abstain from perpetrating
any wrong upon any of these republics in this matter.
We do not wish to interfere with their rights in the least,
but, while carefully safeguarding them, to build the canal
ourselves under provisions which will enable us, if necessary,
to police and protect it, and to guarantee its neutrality,
we being the sole guarantor. Our intention was
steadfast; we desired action taken so that the canal could
always be used by us in time of peace and war alike, and
in time of war could never be used to our detriment by
any nation which was hostile to us. Such action, by the
circumstances surrounding it, was necessarily for the
benefit and not the detriment of the adjacent American
republics.

After considerably more than half of a century these
objects have been exactly fulfilled by the legislation and
treaties of the last two years. Two years ago we were
no further advanced toward the construction of the
Isthmian canal on our terms than we had been during
the preceding eighty years. By the Hay-Pauncefote
treaty, ratified in December, 1901, an old treaty with
Great Britain, which had been held to stand in the way,
was abrogated and it was agreed that the canal should be
constructed under the auspices of the Government of the
United States, and that this Government should have
the exclusive right to regulate and manage it, becoming
the sole guarantor of its neutrality.

It was expressly stipulated, furthermore, that this
guaranty of neutrality should not prevent the United
States from taking any measures which it found necessary
in order to secure by its own forces the defence of the
United States and the maintenance of public order. Immediately
following this treaty Congress passed a law
under which the President was authorized to endeavor to
secure a treaty for acquiring the right to finish the construction
of, and to operate, the Panama Canal, which
had already been begun in the territory of Colombia by a
French company. The rights of this company were accordingly
obtained and a treaty negotiated with the Republic
of Colombia. This treaty has just been ratified
by the Senate. It reserves all of Colombia's rights,
while guaranteeing all of our own and those of neutral
nations, and specifically permits us to take any and all
measures for the defence of the canal, and for the preservation
of our interests, whenever in our judgment an
exigency may arise which calls for action on our part.
In other words, these two treaties, and the legislation to
carry them out, have resulted in our obtaining on exactly
the terms we desired the rights and privileges which we
had so long sought in vain. These treaties are among
the most important that we have ever negotiated in their
effects upon the future welfare of this country, and mark
a memorable triumph of American diplomacy—one of
those fortunate triumphs, moreover, which redound to
the benefit of the entire world.

About the same time trouble arose in connection with
the Republic of Venezuela because of certain wrongs
alleged to have been committed, and debts overdue, by
this republic to citizens of various foreign powers, notably
England, Germany, and Italy. After failure to reach an
agreement, these powers began a blockade of the Venezuelan
coast and a condition of quasi-war ensued. The concern
of our Government was of course not to interfere

needlessly in any. quarrel so far as it did not touch our
interests or our honor, and not to take the attitude of
protecting from coercion any power unless we were willing
to espouse the quarrel of that power, but to keep an
attitude of watchful vigilance and see that there was no
infringement of the Monroe Doctrine—no acquirement of
territorial rights by a European power at the expense of
a weak sister republic—whether this acquisition might
take the shape of an outright and avowed seizure of territory
or of the exercise of control which would in effect
be equivalent to such seizure. This attitude was expressed
in the two following published memoranda, the
first being the letter addressed by the Secretary of State
to the German Ambassador, the second the conversation
with the Secretary of State reported by the British
Ambassador:

Sir Michael Herbert to the Marquis of Lansdowne:

Both powers assured us in explicit terms that there
was not the slightest intention on their part to violate
the principles of the Monroe Doctrine, and this assurance
was kept with an honorable good faith which merits full
acknowledgment on our part. At the same time, the
existence of hostilities in a region so near our own borders
was fraught with such possibilities of danger in the future
that it was obviously no less our duty to ourselves than
our duty to humanity to endeavor to put an end to that.
Accordingly, by an offer of our good services in a spirit
of frank friendliness to all the parties concerned, a spirit
in which they quickly and cordially responded, we secured
a resumption of peace—the contending parties agreeing
that the matters which they could not settle among
themselves should be referred to The Hague Tribunal
for settlement. The United States had most fortunately
already been able to set an example to other nations by
utilizing the great possibilities for good contained in The
Hague Tribunal, a question at issue between ourselves
and the Republic of Mexico being the first submitted to
this international court of arbitration.

The terms which we have secured as those under which
the Isthmian canal is to be built, and the course of events
in the Venezuela matter, have shown not merely the ever
growing influence of the United States in the Western
Hemisphere, but also, I think I may safely say, have
exemplified the firm purpose of the United States that
its growth and influence and power shall redound not to
the harm but to the benefit of our sister republics whose
strength is less. Our growth, therefore, is beneficial to
human kind in general. We do not intend to assume

any position which can give just offence to our neighbors.
Our adherence to the rule of human right is not merely
profession. The history of our dealings with Cuba shows
that we reduce it to performance.

The Monroe Doctrine is not international law, and
though I think one day it may become such, this is not
necessary as long as it remains a cardinal feature of our
foreign policy and as long as we possess both the will and
the strength to make it effective. This last point, my
fellow-citizens, is all important, and is one which as a
people we can never afford to forget. I believe in the
Monroe Doctrine with all my heart and soul; I am convinced
that the immense majority of our fellow-countrymen
so believe in it; but I would infinitely prefer to see
us abandon it than to see us put it forward and bluster
about it, and yet fail to build up the efficient fighting
strength which in the last resort can alone make it respected
by any strong foreign power whose interest it
may ever happen to be to violate it.

Boasting and blustering are as objectionable among
nations as among individuals, and the public men of a
great nation owe it to their sense of national self-respect
to speak courteously of foreign powers, just as a brave
and self-respecting man treats all around him courteously.
But though to boast is bad, and causelessly to insult
another, worse; yet worse than all is it to be guilty of
boasting, even without insult, and when called to the
proof to be unable to make such boasting good. There
is a homely old adage which runs: "Speak softly and
carry a big stick; you will go far." If the American
nation will speak softly, and yet build, and keep at a
pitch of the highest training, a thoroughly efficient navy,
the Monroe Doctrine will go far. I ask you to think
over this. If you do, you will come to the conclusion
that it is mere plain common-sense, so obviously sound
that only the blind can fail to see its truth and only the

weakest and most irresolute can fail to desire to put it
into force.

In the last two years I am happy to say we have
taken long strides in advance as regards our navy. The
last Congress, in addition to smaller vessels, provided nine
of those formidable fighting ships upon which the real
efficiency of any navy in war ultimately depends. It
provided, moreover, for the necessary addition of officers
and enlisted men to make the ships worth having. Meanwhile
the Navy Department has seen to it that our ships
have been constantly exercised at sea, with the great guns,
and in manoeuvres, so that their efficiency as fighting
units, both individually and when acting together, has
been steadily improved. Remember that all of this is
necessary. A warship is a huge bit of mechanism, well-nigh
as delicate and complicated as it is formidable. It
takes years to build it. It takes years to teach the officers
and men how to handle it to good advantage. It is an
absolute impossibility to improvise a navy at the outset
of war. No recent war between any two nations has
lasted as long as it takes to build a battleship; and it is
just as impossible to improvise the officers or the crews as
to improvise the navy.

To lay up a battleship and only send it afloat at the
outset of a war, with a raw crew and untried officers,
would be not merely a folly but a crime, for it would
invite both disaster and disgrace. The navy which so
quickly decided in our favor the war in 1898 had been
built and made efficient during the preceding fifteen
years. The ships that triumphed off Manila and Santiago
had been built under previous Administrations with
money appropriated by previous Congresses. The officers
and the men did their duty so well because they had
already been trained to it by long sea service. All honor
to the gallant officers and gallant men who actually did
the fighting; but remember, too, to honor the public

men, the shipwrights and steel-workers, the owners of
the shipyards and armor plants, to whose united foresight
and exertion we owe it that in 1898 we had craft so
good, guns so excellent, and American seamen of so high
a type in the conning towers, in the gun turrets, and in
the engine-rooms. It is too late to prepare for war when
war has come; and if we only prepare sufficiently no war
will ever come. We wish a powerful and efficient navy,
not for purposes of war, but as the surest guaranty of
peace. If we have such a navy—if we keep on building
it up—we may rest assured that there is but the smallest
chance that trouble will ever come to this nation; and we
may likewise rest assured that no foreign power will ever
quarrel with us about the Monroe Doctrine.