The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1895-12-26

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Monroe doctrine sufficiently that we
younger people and ignorant ones should
have an Intelligent idea of it; also /
should like to know something more of
the Red Cross.
SCHOOL GIRL
After the downfall of the First Napo-
leon the sovereigns of Russia, Austria
and Prussia entered into a compact
known as Tho Holy Alliance; the osten-
sible object of which was to maintain
peace and amity, but the real purpose of
which was to check the progress of liber-
alism and perpetuate despotic power. Eng
land was not q party to the compact,
though she did nothing to antagonize it
until George Canning, upon the death of
Lord Castlereagh, became Secretary of
Foreign Affairs. In opposition to the
Holy Alliance, Canning set up the doc
trine of non-interference in the national
affairs of foreign states, a doctrine which
he enforced some years later by sending
troops into Portugal to defend that
country against Spanish Intervention.
Canning suspected, or pretended to suspect
that the Holy Alliance would undertake
to restore TO Spain her colonies in South
America, which had succeeded in estab-
fishing their independence, and in 1898
he mentioned his suspicious to the Amer
lean minister in London, and expressed
a desire that the United States should
join with England in defeating the
alleged purpose of the allied powers 1t
has been matter Of more OF less dispute
whether the Holy Alliance really cher
ished any such intention as Canning at
tributed to it, but that has no bearing
upon the question in hand.
Mr.. John Quincy Adams, who was,
then the American Secretary of State,
thought lightly of MIR. Oanning's suspio-
ions, but they made more impression
message to Congress, he define the poll
oy ard attitude of the United States in
these words:
We owe it, therefore, to candor and to
the amioable relations existing between
the United States and the allied powers
to declare that we should consider any at
tempt on their part to extend their sys-
tenn to any portion of this hemisphere AS
the existing colonies or dependencies of
any European power we have not inter-
fered and shall not interfere, but with the
governments who have declared their in
dependence and maintained it, and whose
Independence we have, on great consid-
GRAFTON and just principles, acknowl-
edged, we could not view an interposi-
ton for the purpose of depressing them or
controlling in any other manner their
destiny by any European power, in any
other light than manifestation of an
unfriendly disposition toward the United
States
In another part the message says:
The American continents should no
longer be subjects for any new European
colonial settlement.
In these passages is embodied what
has since been known as the Monroe
doctrine" There is no question that the
'utterance had the special purpose of
thwarting a particular enterprise which
was then believed to be underway, and
was specially directed against the Holy
Alliance, or the CALLED powers" as the
President called it. But the declaration
was made broad enough to apply not
merely to that alliance aud the mem hers
of it. but to every power in Europe, Eng
land included. An "in5erposition by any
European power" is the language of the
President in the first of the passages
quoted.
Every American statesman since
Monroe, has endorsed this doctrine, and
on one notable occasion it was enforced,
not by war, but by diplomacy. During
ON Cix,i1 hxy+ IL
the Archduke Macmillan was made
Emperor of Mexico. Our hands were
then tied, but after our war was over, at
the demand Of our government, the
French troops were withdrawn and the
empire fell. That was an assertion of
the Monroe doctrine.
OF course contention that the Monroe
doctrine is a part of the law of nations,
cannot be maintained. 1t is not a law
at all. but the statement of policy; and
it is policy which We have adhered to
in theory ever since it was enunciated,
and once at least have enforced. AS we
have shown, the first suggestion of it
came from an Englishman. I6 was sugges-
ted too for England's benefit for she was I'm
doubtedly afraid that if the Holy Alliance
enforced its purpose of restoring the
South American states to Spain, she
would lose the large and growing trade
which she had built up with those states
after they had thrown off the Spanish
yoke. Now that it is invoked to prevent
her from enoroaohing upon the territory of
a South American state. she processes to
think that it is obsoIete-all of which is
very English.
The Red Cross Society is an organiza-
ton primarily for mi tigating the hor-
rors of war. 1t came into being during
our. civil conflict. In 1868 conference of
persons interested in the project, met at
Geneva and drew up an international
compact for the. amelioration of the
condition of the wounded of armies in the
Held = year later this compact was
assented to by most of the powers of Eu-
rope and subsequently by all of them.
The badge agreed upon by which the per-
SONS and places declared neutral by the