onal interest and its national
principle. It should be added, however, that this unwholesomely
aggressive quality is only a tendency, which will not become active
except under certain possible conditions, and which can gradually be
rendered less dangerous by the systematic development of the Doctrine as
a positive principle of political action in the Western hemisphere.

The Monroe Doctrine has, of course, no status in the accepted system of
International Law. Its international standing is due almost entirely to
its express proclamation as an essential part of the foreign policy of
the United States, and it depends for its weight upon the ability of
this country to compel its recognition by the use of latent or actual
military force. Great Britain has, perhaps, tacitly accepted it, but no
other European country has done so, and a number of them have expressly
stated that it entails consequences against which they might sometime be
obliged strenuously and forcibly to protest. No forcible protest has as
yet been made, because no European country has had anything to gain from
such a protest, comparable to the inevitable cost of a war with the
United States.

The dangerously aggressive tendency of the Monroe Doctrine is not due to
the fact that it derives its standing from the effective military power
of the United States. The recognition which any proclamation of a
specific principle of foreign policy receives will depend, in case it
conflicts with the actual or possible interests of other nations, upon
the military and naval power with which it can be maintained. The
question as to whether a particular doctrine is unwholesomely aggressive
depends, consequently, not upon the mere fact that it may provoke a war,
but upon the doubt that, if it provokes a war, such a war can be
righteously fought. Does the Doctrine as usually stated, possibly or
probably commit the United States to an unrighteous war--a war in which
the United States would be opposing a legitimate interest on the part of
one or a group of European nations? Does an American foreign policy of
the "Monroe Doctrine and the Golden Rule" proclaim two parallel springs
of national action in foreign affairs which may prove to be
incompatible?

There is a danger that such may be the case. The Monroe Doctrine in its
most popular form proclaims a rigid policy of continental isolation--of
America for the Americans and of Europe for the Europeans. European
nations may r