mean repute; we enjoy the advantages, conveniences, and comforts that contribute to the happiness of Europeans and North Americans. We welcome to companionship those of every clime and, with the exception of your own people, they come in generous numbers, and in our cities and settlements are a necessary and component element of our population. For example, Buenos Ayres has over 1,300,000 inhabitants, half of whom are of European birth or descent. Our trade is largely with European countries-particularly with Great Britain and Germany. The foreign merchant does not tell us what to buy, but he studies our wants, and makes his goods and products in the shapes and forms that suit us, and he favors us in matters of payments—not infrequently with long credits. Is it not a fact that you yourselves have been so intent on your home market that you have neglected Latin-American fields, that might have afforded opportunities for profitable enterprise, and that by cultivating these fields you might have brought all the American republics into a union of interest and sympathy and effort? Pardon us, if we remind you that the United States took no part in any Congress with the Latin-American States until nearly two-thirds of a century had elapsed since the declaration of President Monroe. The recent efforts of some of your Chambers of Commerce, and of your advanced men of affairs, to work up markets with us, is highly gratifying. Not the least beneficient result, if their efforts are successful, will be the coming to our shores of many of your people, who, we are sure, will deal with us as fairly as the Europeans have done and are donig. We thank you for expressions of friendship and esteem, and await the approaching day, we trust, when we may extend to your own citizens the felicitations, which we are now endeavoring to pour into your national ear." It is not easy to advance definite views on an indefinite subject, but it is natural to foresee possible contingencies and occurrences, and to suggest dispassionate treatment of them. Nearly thirty years ago the speaker published a monograph on the Monroe Doctrine, which was intended to be an impartial and colorless presentation of the subject, and his reason therefor was that the declaration of President Monroe a proper promulgation for a time when apprehension of interference of European powers in the affairs of the Spanish-American countries was justified-had never been indorsed by congressional action, and had never been accorded a place in the code of international law by the nations on the other side of the Atlantic. The questions asked to-day by the speaker are prompted by the fact that circumstances in the last ninety years have greatly modified the relations of nations, and absolutism-if indeed it exists-no longer alarms the friends of democracy. That the Monroe Doctrine may be again set up as a warning or inhibition, is not improbable, but it is to be hoped that there may be brought, and it is believed that there will be brought to the consideration and adjustment of differences and misunderstandings not the inflamed temper of the jingoist, but the catholic spirit of the patriot. THE MODERN MEANING OF THE MONROE DOC TRINE By J. M. Callahan, Ph.D., Professor of History and It is unfair to say that the Monroe Doctrine was a mere pronunciamento based on provincialism and selfishness, and that it has never served any useful purpose. True, one of its earlier basic ideas was the natural separation between the old and the new world-an idea of two separate spheres which was unwarranted however much it may have seemed desirable to Jefferson in the Napoleonic period of "eternal war" in Europe. This idea of isolation was never a vital principle of the doctrine. The United States was a world power from the beginning and early felt the need of naval bases in the Mediterranean. world power it has rights in Europe, Africa and Asia. As a True, the Doctrine was largely due to self interest, together with the feeling that the United States was logically the political leader among the American powers. Secretary Adams in his instructions to Rush, on November 29, 1823, said: "American affairs, whether of the northern or southern continent, can henceforth not be excluded from the interference of the United States. All questions of policy relating to them have a bearing so direct upon the rights and interests of the United States that they can not be left to the disposal of European powers animated and directed exclusively by European principles and interests." The United States, beginning with the transfer of Louisiana from Spain to France in 1801 and the apprehended transfer of Florida from Spain to some other European power in 1811, has steadily opposed any European acquisition of American territory which as a European colony might prove dangerous to American peace and security. The Monroe Doctrine, based upon this principle, has been preeminently a doctrine of peace-especially secured by freeing the Americans from the contests of European diplomacy and politics. In 1905, President Roosevelt said the doctrine as gradually developed and applied to meet changing needs and conditions, and as accepted by other nations, was one of the most effective instruments for peace in the western hemisphere. Although its policy was based on self interest, the American government under Monroe gave proper consideration to the interests of Latin America. Although in recognizing the independence of Spanish American countries, it had issued a declaration of neutrality, Secretary Adams later (October, 1823) informed the Russian minister that this declaration "had been made under the observance of like neutrality by all the European powers" and might be changed by change of circumstances. The Monroe Doctrine which followed was directly caused by the belief in the right of free peoples to determine their destinies—and by it the United States, with unusual courage, became a protector of liberty and self government in the western hemisphere. Its high purpose and convenient usefulness was properly recognized at the time by the weak LatinAmerican republics. It was the outgrowth of the sympathy felt for Latin American peoples who were struggling to free themselves from conditions imposed by European politics and who had been recognized as independent nations by the United States. Monroe, who previously as secretary of state was familiar with Latin American conditions, at first contemplated a bold stand to prevent European interference in Spain itself. After the decision to limit the scope of active opposition to the threatened European intervention in American affairs, he appointed a special secret representative to visit Europe, to watch the operations of European congresses and to furnish reports as a basis of determination of American policy. Luckily he was successful in blocking intervention without resort to more active measures. The Doctrine has prevented the partition of Latin America, and without any request of remuneration for the service rendered. Its unselfish purpose and unusual daring, in face of what seemed a serious peril, gave it a well deserved popularity both in the United States and in Latin America countries many of which have in many instances since endeavored to secure treaty stipulations based upon its principles, or have invited the United States actively to intervene to protect them from the apprehended intervention of European powers or from despots who might prepare the way for European intervention. In spite of apparent lapses of consistency, illustrated in the case of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty (which was supported as a measure which was expected to free an important part of the continent from European intervention), the basic principles of the Doctrine, interpreted with proper elasticity to meet changing conditions, were asserted with success in other later cases. The most notable cases were the termination of French intervention in Mexico in 1867, and the settlement of the Venezuelan boundary dispute with England in 1895-96-after the famous ClevelandOlney interpretation which resulted in a triumph of the American demand for arbitration, awakened the entire world to the modern meaning of the "menaces of Monroe," and caused someone to regard the Doctrine as an international impertinence. Although originally a mere declaration of Monroe, nobody since the action of the United States in the Venezuelan affair can surely say it has never had the sanction of Congress. The Doctrine, although based primarily upon the right of Latin American states to govern themselves, has been sometimes erroneously regarded as a doctrine of American expansion. It is not based on territorial conquest-although over half a century ago it was sometimes associated with that idea. It expresses a duty and a sympathy toward Latin America and not a desire for territory. Americans, who logically in their early history established their boundaries on the gulf, for a half century have not been inclined to encroach upon the territories of their neighbors. It is true that much Latin American suspicion of Ameri |