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Updated: June 4, 2025
With this as a starting point President Wilson presently formulated an entirely new principle for dealing with Latin-American republics. There could be no permanent order in these turbulent countries and nothing approaching a democratic system until the habit of revolution should he checked.
The plan to have Divisions of Latin-American and Far Eastern Affairs and to institute a certain specialization in business with Europe and the Near East will at once commend itself.
As long as the Monroe Doctrine was merely a policy of benevolent protection which Latin-American states could invoke after their unwise or evil conduct had brought European powers to the point of demanding just retribution, it was regarded with favor and no objection was raised to it; but the Roosevelt doctrine, that if we were to continue to protect Latin-American states against European intervention, we had a right to demand that they should refrain from conduct which was likely to provoke such intervention, was quite a different thing, and raised a storm of criticism and opposition.
The main features of President Wilson's Latin-American policy, if we may draw a general conclusion, have been to pledge the weaker American republics not to do anything which would invite European intervention, and to secure by treaty the right of the United States to intervene for the protection of life, liberty, and property, and for the establishment of self-government.
But recently several niches have been built into the American political structure on which a foothold may eventually be obtained. In general the political condition of the more powerful Latin-American states, such as Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, has become more stable and more wholesome.
Since the international convention was signed, adherence to it has been made by several European States not represented at the conference at The Hague and also by seventeen Latin-American Republics.
An essential condition of the realization of the proposed system would be the ability of American statesmen to convince the Latin-Americans of the disinterestedness of their country's intentions; and to this end the active coöperation of one or more Latin-American countries in the realization of the plan would be indispensable.
On such plateaus the chief civilization of the tropical Latin-American countries now centers. In the past, however, the plateaus were far surpassed by the Maya lowlands of Yucatan and Guatemala. We are wont to think of deserts as places where the plants are of few kinds and not much crowded.
The domestic condition of some of the Latin-American states presents a serious obstacle to the creation of a stable American international system. Such a system presupposes a condition of domestic peace.
It was expected that this plan would be applied to Latin-American countries and would increase our exports to them in return for sugar, molasses, tea, coffee and hides. In general, the McKinley act was the climax of protection. Under the impetus of President Cleveland's reduction challenge, the Republican party had recoiled to the extreme.
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