ons are interested. Had the United States refused
to intervene in San Domingo, while forbidding the great powers to
secure redress by threats, we might possibly have been forced to fight
against overwhelming odds in defence of a people and cause, for which
we had little sympathy. By its very prohibitions the Monroe Doctrine
compels us increasingly to intervene between the weaker Latin-American
countries and the warlike creditor nations of Europe.

The gradual extension of the Doctrine, moreover, vastly increases our
possible area of friction with Europe. Originally planned to prevent
European nations from conquering parts of the Americas, the Doctrine
has now been extended to forbid foreign corporations subsidised or
controlled by an Old World government to acquire any land in the
Americas which might menace the safety or communications of the United
States. Our action in Mexico indicates that we are determined not only
to prevent Europe from introducing monarchical institutions into
American countries, but to insist that those countries themselves
adhere to the outward forms of popular government. Secretary Olney was
speaking no doubt largely for home consumption when he declared that
"the United States is practical sovereign on this continent
(hemisphere), and its fiat is law upon the subject to which it confines
its interpretation." Nevertheless the extension of control either by
the United States or some group of powers is almost inevitable, and
with the widening of the Monroe {57} Doctrine, as a result of closer
relations between Latin America and the Old World, the necessity for
some arrangement between the United States and the great European
powers becomes increasingly obvious.

Our possession of Hawaii and the Philippines acts in the same manner.
In a military sense the Philippines are indefensible; we cannot secure
them against a near-lying military power. Nor can we in the present
stage of national feeling permit them to be conquered. Consequently we
watch the actions of Japan with quite different feelings than if we had
not given her provocation and a bait. The building of the Panama Canal
equally increases our international liabilities. It contributes a vast
new importance to the Caribbean Sea and adds a new weak point to
American territory. Having built and fortified the canal, we are
compelled to think of ways and means of defending it, of armies,
navies, _ententes_ and alliances.

While all