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"deserve the confidence of our sister republics of Central and South America" and to "promote in every proper and honorable way" not merely the interests of the United States, but "the interests which are common to the peoples of the two continents." There is nothing startling in the statement that we desire the friendship of our neighbors to the south, but the determination to deserve their confidence recognizes a duty which is an indispensable prerequisite to any lasting friendship.

President Wilson pledges co-operation, but he properly conditions co-operation upon "the orderly processes of just government based upon law, not upon arbitrary or irregular force." There is a ring of the Declaration of Independence in the statement that "just government rests always upon the consent of the governed," and that "there can be no freedom without order based upon law and upon the public conscience and approval." The friendship to which he refers is not the friendship arising from concession or the advancement of special interests. Mutual respect is the basis; for does he not say that "mutual respect seems to us the indispensable foundation of friendship between states as between individuals?"

If the paragraph of the statement from which these quotations have been taken can be regarded as a word of advice or warning to Latin America, the next paragraph states in clear and unmistakable terms the attitude which the United States should observe toward Latin America. Thus, "The United States has nothing to seek in Central and South America except the lasting interests of the peoples of the two continents, the security of governments intended for the people and for no special group or interest, and the development of personal and trade relationships between the two continents which shall redound to the profit and advantage of both and interfere with the rights and liberties of neither." The importance of this passage at the very beginning of the new administration cannot be overestimated, for within a single sentence the President reaffirms the best traditions of American diplomacy. It recalls the noble language of a great Secretary of State, Mr. Elihu Root, who, standing for the first time on South American soil, surrounded by the official representatives of every American state at the Conference of Rio de Janeiro in 1906, assured them that

We wish for no victories but those of peace; for no territory except our own; for no sovereignty except the sovereignty over ourselves. We deem the independence and equal rights of the smallest and weakest member of the family of nations entitled to as much respect as those of the greatest empire, and we deem the observance of that

respect the chief guaranty of the weak against the oppression of the strong. We neither claim nor desire any rights, or privileges, or powers that we do not freely concede to every American republic. We wish to increase our prosperity, to expand our trade, to grow in wealth, in wisdom, and in spirit, but our conception of the true way to accomplish this is not to pull down others and profit by their ruin, but to help all friends to a common prosperity and a common growth, that we may all become greater and stronger together.

WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN, SECRETARY OF STATE

It is said that the lawyers of the country look to the first decision of a newly appointed Justice of the Supreme Court upon a question of constitutional law as a test of his qualifications for the Supreme Bench. In the same way it may be said that the country looks to the President's choice of a Secretary of State as the measure of the Cabinet's efficiency, and to the policy framed by the Secretary of State in the first few weeks of his incumbency as an earnest of a successful or unsuccessful administration. While President Wilson is to be credited with the selection of Mr. Bryan as Secretary of State, the choice, while personal and agreeable to Mr. Wilson, was in reality a recognition of the rank and file of the Democratic Party, whose candidate for the presidency Mr. Bryan had been on three different occasions and whose confidence he had never forfeited. The President and the Secretary of State are in hearty accord upon the principles which should govern the United States in its foreign policy and, if the administration is to be judged by the foreign policy as framed and proclaimed in the first month of its existence, it is evident that we may expect a highly successful administration.

A distinguished Secretary of State attributed his success to the fact that he continued and carried to completion the policies of his predecessor in so far as they were based upon the traditions of the Department, and that he handled the new questions that arose in his own administration according to the same traditions. Secretary Bryan has evidently acted upon this principle. The Latin-American policy contained in the statement of March 12, issued by the President after consultation with Secretary Bryan, is the almost uninterrupted and traditional policy of the United States toward its neighbors to the south. The statement on the Chinese loan, which seals the doom of dollar diplomacy, framed after consultation with Secretary Bryan and issued by the President on March 19, is likewise in accordance with the almost uninterrupted and traditional policy of the United States in the Far East. The views ex

pressed in these remarkable documents entitle them to rank as state papers of the highest importance, and a continuation of the policy therein outlined cannot but benefit Latin America and China, and redound to the credit of the United States.

In Mr. Bryan's long and distinguished career he has invariably stood for the rights of all, as distinguished from a part, of the American people. It is to be expected that he will consider each and every member of the society of nations as entitled to equal rank and respect, and that he will, in so far as in him lies, encourage by just action and sympathetic consideration the states of the Western World to continue their development and to assume in the society of nations the rank, dignity and importance which belong to them as independent states. As an American Mr. Bryan is naturally interested in our neighbors to the south; as an American who has traveled widely among them, his interest is personal, and we are justified in expecting that his official acts will bear the impress of the personal friendship and respect which intercourse with them cannot fail to engender. Fortunately we do not need to speculate as to his attitude toward South America, as he himself has stated it in clear and unmistakable terms in an address which he delivered as Secretary of State at a dinner given him on March 13 by the Governing Board, of which he is chairman, of the Pan American Union. In his very opening sentence he made this clear beyond peradventure.

Thus, "Whatever lack of confidence I may have," he said, "in regard to other duties that may fall to the occupant of the office with which his Excellency, President Wilson, has honored me, I feel sure that he could have found no one either in our party or in our country who could meet more cordially the representatives of Central and South America. When the office was tendered me, one of the reasons that I gave for being willing to accept it was that it would enable me to join with our President in cementing even more closely to us the nations that live so near us and are so identical with ours in their purposes and aspirations."

After describing his visit to Latin America, its pleasant memories and the information resulting from it, he said:

As a representative of our government as the one who by virtue of his office comes into closest contact with those who are here, the accredited representatives of other lands as the occupant of this position, I say, I am grateful for this opportunity to meet you and to mingle with you. I am glad to assure you of the pacific purpose and the genuine friendship which the President of our great nation entertains toward all the people and all the governments of Central and South America, and to assure you

that I am in complete sympathy with him in this friendship and this interest. We desire that you shall know us and that our people should know you. We desire that our exports to your country shall increase and that our imports from your country shall increase, but I believe that the most valuable thing that can be sent across the border line of nations is an ideal. I am glad, therefore, that however we may feel about the tariff on other commodities there is free trade in ideals; we have gathered ideals from all the world; we are indebted to the world for ideals selected from every section. I have no doubt that we shall be able to borrow from the experiences of our neighbors on the south and we shall be glad to loan to them anything that has been developed and perfected here. We are not only glad to give you the advantages of our experience, not only glad to allow you to learn by our trials, our experiments and our mistakes, but we are glad to have our people go among you, to assist you in developing the resources of the great countries that lie to the south of us. I am sure that I speak for his Excellency, the President, as I speak for myself and for all associated with him in authority, when I say that we shall insist that the business men who go from our country to yours, to help to develop your resources, shall carry with them the same high standard of honor and integrity that we demand of business men in our country. We shall be even more exacting of them, for when people come among us, if they find a man who is bad their good opinion of our country will be unshaken because they will know that he is an exception; but when a man goes from us to a foreign country he must be even better in behavior because there are not so many to help him represent our nation. I am sure that this administration will be quick to admonish all who go among you that they go to represent the highest ideals of our country and that they must not fall below that standard.

It would be invidious to single out for commendation any expression in this admirably worded address, but Mr. Bryan's statement that "the most valuable thing that can be sent across the border line of nations is an ideal" will, if carried into effect as those who know Mr. Bryan cannot possibly doubt not only assure the success of his administration, but will restore and enhance the prestige of the United States of which we are justly so proud, for American ideals are and always have been our real claim to distinction and respect.

THE PASSING OF DOLLAR DIPLOMACY

The United States as a government and a people has always been interested in the development of China, and both government and people have sought to aid China in various ways and with varying degrees of success. Mr. John Hay, as Secretary of State, felt that the best way to protect China against dismemberment and to enable it to increase its standing in the society of nations was a declaration of policy on the part of all nations to be satisfied with equal opportunity, and formally and

in explicit terms to renounce any intention, either at present or in the future, to obtain special privileges. This policy, called the "Open Door," has already become a tradition, and is not the least claim of Mr. Hay and of the country he served to respect and consideration. It may properly be considered as the formal desire of the United States to protect the independent existence of China and to prevent separate or concerted action on the part of foreign nations, which might consciously or unconsciously affect the independent existence of China in the future. As further indicating the interest of the United States in the independence and integrity of China and the principle of equal opportunity for the commerce and industry of all nations, attention is called to the notes of November 30, 1908, exchanged between Mr. Hay's enlightened successor, Secretary Root, and the Japanese Ambassador, Mr. Takahira. These two documents, identical in their material parts, are not a treaty in the formal sense of the word, but rather a declaration:

1. It is the wish of the two Governments to encourage the free and peaceful development of their commerce on the Pacific Ocean.

2. The policy of both Governments, uninfluenced by any aggressive tendencies, is directed to the maintenance of the existing status quo in the region above mentioned and to the defense of the principle of equal opportunity for commerce and industry in China.

3. They are accordingly firmly resolved reciprocally to respect the territorial possessions belonging to each other in said region.

4. They are also determined to preserve the common interest of all powers in China by supporting by all pacific means at their disposal the independence and integrity of China and the principle of equal opportunity for commerce and industry of all nations in that Empire.

5. Should any event occur threatening the status quo as above described or the principle of equal opportunity as above defined, it remains for the two Governments to communicate with each other in order to arrive at an understanding as to what measures they may consider it useful to take.1

As illustrating the friendly interest which the United States has taken and, as appears from President's Wilson's formal statement on the SixPower loan, still takes not merely in the independence and integrity of China, but in its people, one further reference should be made to a transaction more likely to secure the friendship of the Chinese people and to enhance the prestige of the United States in the Far East than any loan that could possibly be negotiated. Reference is made to the action of

1 Foreign Relations of the United States (1908), p. 511; this JOURNAL, Vol. III, pp. 168-170.

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