to Canada. They were competent to assert it for
themselves. Of course if one of these nations, or if Canada, should be
overcome by some Old World power, which then proceeded to occupy its
territory, we would undoubtedly, if the American Nation needed our help,
give it in order to prevent such occupation from taking place. But the
initiative would come from the Nation itself, and the United States
would merely act as a friend whose help was invoked.

The case was (and is) widely different as regards certain--not all--of
the tropical states in the neighborhood of the Caribbean Sea. Where
these states are stable and prosperous, they stand on a footing of
absolute equality with all other communities. But some of them have
been a prey to such continuous revolutionary misrule as to have grown
impotent either to do their duties to outsiders or to enforce their
rights against outsiders. The United States has not the slightest desire
to make aggressions on any one of these states. On the contrary, it
will submit to much from them without showing resentment. If any great
civilized power, Russia or Germany, for instance, had behaved toward us
as Venezuela under Castro behaved, this country would have gone to war
at once. We did not go to war with Venezuela merely because our people
declined to be irritated by the actions of a weak opponent, and showed a
forbearance which probably went beyond the limits of wisdom in refusing
to take umbrage at what was done by the weak; although we would
certainly have resented it had it been done by the strong. In the case
of two states, however, affairs reached such a crisis that we had to
act. These two states were Santo Domingo and the then owner of the
Isthmus of Panama, Colombia.

The Santo Domingan case was the less important; and yet it possessed a
real importance, and moreover is instructive because the action there
taken should serve as a precedent for American action in all similar
cases. During the early years of my administration Santo Domingo was in
its usual condition of chronic revolution. There was always fighting,
always plundering; and the successful graspers for governmental power
were always pawning ports and custom-houses, or trying to put them up as
guarantees for loans. Of course the foreigners who made loans under
such conditions demanded exorbitant interest, and if they were Europeans
expected their governments to stand by them. So utter was the disorder
that on one occa