ine it cannot
see any European power seize and permanently occupy the territory of
one of these republics; and yet such seizure of territory, disguised
or undisguised, may eventually offer the only way in which the power in
question can collect its debts, unless there is interference on the part
of the United States."

Roosevelt had already found such interference necessary in the case of
Germany and Venezuela. But it had been interference in a purely negative
sense. He had merely insisted that the European power should not occupy
American territory even temporarily. In the later case of the Dominican
Republic he supplemented this negative interference with positive
action based upon his conviction of the inseparable nature of rights and
obligations.

Santo Domingo was in its usual state of chronic revolution. The stakes
for which the rival forces were continually fighting were the custom
houses, for they were the only certain sources of revenue and their
receipts were the only reliable security which could be offered to
foreign capitalists in support of loans. So thoroughgoing was the
demoralization of the Republic's affairs that at one time there were
two rival "governments" in the island and a revolution going on against
each. One of these governments was once to be found at sea in a small
gunboat but still insisting that, as the only legitimate government,
it was entitled to declare war or peace or, more particularly, to make
loans. The national debt of the Republic had mounted to $32,280,000 of
which some $22,000,000 was owed to European creditors. The interest due
on it in the year 1905 was two and a half million dollars. The whole
situation was ripe for intervention by one or more European governments.

Such action President Roosevelt could not permit. But he could not
ignore the validity of the debts which the Republic had contracted or
the justice of the demand for the payment of at least the interest. "It
cannot in the long run prove possible," he said, "for the United
States to protect delinquent American nations from punishment for the
non-performance of their duties unless she undertakes to make them
perform their duties." So he invented a plan, which, by reason of
its success in the Dominican case and its subsequent application and
extension by later administrations, has come to be a thoroughly accepted
part of the foreign policy of the United States. It ought to be known
as the Roosevelt Plan, just as