an Francisco to New York, telling Americans what was
actually taking place in China and urging this country to unite with
England and Japan in an effort to maintain the open door. Like the
Monroe Doctrine, the open-door policy was thus Anglo-American in
origin. There is little doubt that England and Japan were willing to
form an alliance with the United States for the purpose of maintaining
the open door in China, but our traditional policy of isolation
prevented our committing ourselves to the employment of force.
President McKinley, following the example of President Monroe,
preferred announcing our policy independently and requesting the other
powers to consent to it. Had John Hay been able to carry out the plan
which he favored of an alliance with England and Japan, the mere
announcement of the fact would have been sufficient to check the
aggressions of the powers in China. Instead of such an alliance,
however, we let it be known that while we favored the open door we
would not fight for it under any conditions.

The utter worthlessness of the replies that were made in response to
Hay's note of September 6, 1899, became fully apparent in the
discussions that soon arose as to the status of consuls in the various
spheres of influence. Japan claimed that sovereignty did not pass with
a lease and that even if China should surrender jurisdiction over her
own people, the lessee governments could not acquire jurisdiction over
foreigners in leased territory. This position was undoubtedly correct
if the territorial integrity of China was really to be preserved, but
after negotiations with Russia and the other powers concerned Mr. Hay
wrote to Minister Conger on February 3, 1900, that "The United States
consuls in districts adjacent to the foreign leased territories are to
be instructed that they have no authority to exercise extra-territorial
consular jurisdiction or to perform ordinary non-judicial consular acts
within the leased territory under their present Chinese exequaturs."
Application was then made to the European powers for the admission of
American consuls in the leased territories for the performance of the
ordinary consular functions, but in no case were they to exercise
extra-territorial jurisdiction within a leased territory.

The exploitation of China which continued at a rapid rate naturally
aroused an intense anti-foreign sentiment and led to the Boxer
uprising. Events moved with startling rapidity a