in view of the construction of the Panama Canal. As
a mere matter of self defense we must exercise a close watch over the
approaches to this canal, and this means we must be thoroughly alive to
our interests in the Caribbean Sea." "When we announce a policy... we
thereby commit ourselves to the consequences of the policy." "Chronic
wrongdoing or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the
ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately
require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western
Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may
force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such
wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police
power."

To prevent European intervention for the purpose of securing just claims
in America, then, the United States would undertake to handle the case,
and would wield the "Big Stick" against any American state which should
refuse to meet its obligations. This was a repetition, in a different
tone, of Blaine's "Elder Sister" program. As developed, it had elements
also of Cleveland's Venezuela policy. In 1907 the United States
submitted to the Hague Conference a modified form of the Drago doctrine,
which stated that the use of force to collect contract debts claimed
from one government by another as being due to its citizens should be
regarded as illegal, unless the creditor nation first offered to submit
its claims to arbitration and this offer were refused by the nation
against which the claim was directed. The interference of the United
States, therefore, would be practically to hale the debtor into court.

Around the Caribbean, however, were several nations not only unwilling
but unable to pay their debts. This inability was not due to the fact
that national resources were lacking, but that constant revolution
scared away conservative capital from seeking constructive investment or
from developing their natural riches, while speculators loaned money
at ruinous rates of discount to tottering presidents, gambling on the
possibility of some turn in fortune that would return them tenfold. The
worst example of an insolvent and recalcitrant state was the Dominican
Republic, whose superb harbors were a constant temptation to ambitious
powers willing to assume its debts in return for naval stations, and
whose unscrupulous rulers could nearly always be bribed to sell their
country as r