The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-06-10
BLAINE'S FOREIGN POLICY.
The Defense He Made of II in a Letter
Written Nearly Two Years Ago.
A Statesman Who Believes that This Country
Should Assume Its Proper Place Among
the Great Nations.

Garfield administration, Mr.. Blaine wrote the
following letter to the Chicago Tribune. 1t was
extensively published through the country at
the time. There is an active desire to read it
anew. The letter is as follows:
AUGUSTA, Me-, September l, 1882.
The foreign policy of President Garfeld's ad-
minist1ation had two principal objects III view:
l. To bring about peace and prevent future
wars in North and South America. ,. To cul-
tivate such friendly commercial relations with
all American countries as would lead to a large
increase in the export trade of the United States
by supplying those fabrics in which we are album
dainty allie to compete with the manufacturing
nations of Europe
To attain the second object the first must be
accomplished. 1t would be idle to attempt the
development and enlargement of our trade with
the countries of North and South America II
that trade were liable at any unforeseen moment
to be violently interrupted by such wars as that
which for three years has engrossed and almost
engulfed Chill, Peru and Bolivia: as that which
was barely averted by the friendly offices of the
United States between Chlh and the
Argentine Republic; as that which has
been postponed by the same good Offices, but
not decisively abandoned, between Mexico and
Guatemala; as that which is threatened between
Brazil and Uruguay; as that which Is even now
foreshadowed between Brazil and the Argentine
States. Peace is essential to commerce is the
gerry life of honest trade, is the solid basis of
international prosperity; and yet there is no part
81 the world where a resort to arms IS so prompt
as in the Spanlsh-American republics. Those
republics have grown out of the old colonial di-
visions; formed from capricious grants to favor
ties by royal charter, and their boundaries arc in
many cases not clearly defined, and consequently
afford the basis of continual disputes, breaking
forth too often in open war. To induce the
Spanish American states to adopt some peaceful
mode of adjusting their frequently recurring
contentious was regarded by the late
President as one of the most honor
able and TSpfnl ends to which the
diplomacy of the United States could contribute
useful especially to those states by securing
permanent peace within all their borders, and
useful to our own country by affording a coveted
opportunity for extending its and
securing enlarged fields for our products and
manufactures.
MOTIVE FOR CALLING A PEACE coNGREs
Instead of friendly Intervention here and
there, patching up a treaty between two coun
tries to-day, securing a truce between two others
tomorrow, it was apparent to the President
that a more comprehensive plan should be
adopted if war was to cease in the Western Hem.
isphere. 1t was evident that certain European
powers had in the past been interested in pro-
noting strife between the Spanish-American
countries, and might be so interested in the
future, while the interest of the United States
was wholly and always on the side of peace with
all our American ~neighbors, and peace between
them all.
1t was therefore, the Presidents belief that
mere incidental and partial adjustments failed
to attain the desired end, and that a common
agreement of peace, permanent in its character
and continental in its extent. should, if possible
be secured. To effect this end, it had been re-
solved, before the fatal shot of July =, to invite
all the independent governments OF North and
South America to meet in a peace congress at
Washington. The date to be assigned was the
10th of March, 1852, and the invitations would
have been issued directly after the New England
tour which the President was not permitted to
make. Nearly six months later, November %,
President Garfield's successor issued the invita-
tons fer the peace congress in the same spirit
and scope, and with the same limitations and
restrictions that had been originally designed.
As soon as the project was understood in
South America it received a most cordial APP
prevail, and some of the countries, not following
the leisurely routine of diplomatic CORE
spondenee, made haste toaccept the invitation.
There can be no doubt that within a brief period
all the nations invited would have formally sig
niied their readiness to attend the congress; but
in six weeks after the invitations had gone to
the several countries, President Arthur caused
them to be recalled, or at least suspended. The
elbiect was afterward referred to Congress in a
special message, in which the President ably
vindieated his constitutional right to assemble
the peace congress, but expressed a desire that
the legislative department of the government
should give an opinion upon the expedieney of
the step before the congress should be allowed
10 convene. Meanwhile the nations that re-
ceived the invitations were in an en-
barrassing situation; for after they
were asked by the President to
come they found that the matter had been recon
sidered and referred TO another department of the
government. This change was universally &C.
cepted as a practical, though indirect, abandon
ment of the project, for it was not from the first
probable that Congress would take any action
whatever upon the subject. The good will and
welcome of the invitation would be destroyed by
n lone debate in the Sppatp and HOuSa in which
the question would necessarily become inter
mixed with personal and party politics, and the
project would be ultimately wrecked from the
same cause and by the same process that de
stroyed the usefulness of the Panama congress,
more than fifty years ago, when Mr.. Clay was
Secretary of State. The time for congressional
action would have been after the peace confer
ence had closed its labors. The conference
could not agree upon anything that would be
binding upon the United States, unless assented
to as a treaty by the Senate, or enacted
into law by both branches. The assembling of
the peace conference, as President Arthur SO
we'll demonstrated, was not in derogation of any
right or prerogative Of the Senate or House.
The money necessary for the expenses of the
conference-which would not have exceeded
$40, 000-could not, with reason or propriety,
have been refused by Congress. If it had been
refused, patriotism and philantrophy would have
promptly supplied it.
NECESSITY OF FRIENDLY INTERVENTION.
The S-panish-American states are in special
seed of The help which the peace congress
would afford them. They require external
pressure to keep them from war. When at
var they require external pressure to bring
chem to peace. Their outbreaks are not only
frequent, but are %sanguinary and at times
cruel. The inhabitants of those countries are
a brave people, belonging to a race that has
always been brave; descended of men who
have always been proud, they are of hot
temper, quick to take affront, ready TO avenge a
the same time generous and chivalrous, and,
though tending for years past to estrangement
and alienation from us, they would promptly
respond to any. advance made by the great Re
public of the North, as they have for two gen.
%erations termed our government. The moral