Birmingham age-herald., 1895-04-22
HILL ON THE DOCTRINE, The New York Senator's View of
 Monroe's Idea. COMMON SENSE THE GUIDE
To Its Proper and Equitable lnterpretati2h, He
 Contends, in Effect.
HOW 1T HAS BEEN MlSC0NsTRUED.
and It Does Not Constitute Us the Wet Nurse of tho Weak
 ling Latin Republics.

AiDany, IN. l., Aprll 21-Senator Hill was interviewed today upon the subject of the Monroe doctrine. The senator was asked, among other things. whether experts in public law think the Monroe doctrine has given to the United States special right, not given by the general law, to intervene between Great Britain and Venezuela in the pending boundary dispute, or to assume a protectorate over Spanish America.
 He answered that he had never thought so.
 But does not the Monroe doctrine" was inquired, declare that the United States cannot permit any Spanish-Amer- ican republic on this continent to be op- pressed, or it's destiny controlled by a European state?"
 That would not have referred" he said, Ito a legitimate dispute such as we or any other government might have with a Spanish-Ameriean state. It protested against using such a controversy with an intention to increase European political dominion on this hemisphere, or control the destiny of an American state, or transfer a colony like Cuba to new Flu ropean power, but did not change the law of nations. The estimation of year or two before 1923 of more than a dozen in- dependent states at the south of us nat urally forced the United States into new lines of thought and action. John Quincy Adams, our then minister of foreign af fairs, had the eyes to discern it. En- tangling alliances on this side as well as on the other side of the ocean were to be avoided so far as could be. We had to maintain impartial neutrality in the af- fairs of the new and independent Span ish-American states, and suppress, as we should do today, piratical expeditions from our shores against any of them or any remaining European colony.
 ''The Monroe doctrine has exerted powerful influence at home and abroad in regard to Cuba, Yucatan, Nicaragua and its tribes of Mosquito Indians in vented by England, in regard to a Napo- leonic dynasty set up thirty years ago in Mexico and dominion over all the regions of the projected inter-oceanic canals"
 But was not the Monroe declaration to congress a national pledge, a guaran- tee of our intervention, forcible if need be, in behalf of each Spanish-American republic whenever, in our opinion, op- pressed by an European state?" was asked.
 "I think not" he replied. Not other wise, certainly, than if Chilli shall op- press Peru, or Mexico shall be unreason- able in dealing with Guatemala. Con- gress has never affirmed the Monroe doc trine In 1868 President Johnson pro- Jected a treaty with Colombia, which was signed, embodying the Monroe doc Urine, but neither the Colombian senate nor our own senate ratified 1t. You re- member that when, two years after President Monroe made his declaration a congress was convened by Bolivia at Panama for the consideration and dis cussion of an American alliance to force the declaration, there was substantial concurrence of opinion between John Quincy Adams, who had formulated the Monroe doctrine, and the members of the senate and house, especially the demo- crats, including Senator Van Buren of New York, participated in long debate, that the declaration did not pledge the United States to forever thereafter pre- vent European power from interfer- ing with the independence or form of government of Central American state.'
 ''So you think that President Monroe has the reputation of having given his name to a rule of conduct by the United States for which neither he nor MT. Adams contendcd?"
 Precisely that" the senator answer ed 'rhe doctrine cannot be formulated in treaty or a statute, but yet it's moral influence has been, and is and ought to be very great. Discrimination, however, should be made between the legitimate disputes and illegitimate purposes be- hind the disputes, such as imposing by force European political control over the destiny of "a reluctant, independent Spanish-American state. President Lin coin must have felt that some thirty years ago.
 Again, in the treaty of 1862 between England, Spain and France. negotiated to regulate combined military operations in Mexico in order to obtain redress which Mexico had withheld, he did not ask congress to intervene, but when the first two governments had withdrawn therefrom and France remained in Mex ico to prevent us, as Louis Napoleon de- clared, from acquiring more Mexican territory, to establish an empire in Mexico favorable to France and to pre- vent our influence in Central America, President Lincoln refused to recognize sovereignty of Maximilian and of the blockade he instituted.
 Under the influence then exerted by us France withdrew her army, Maximil- Ian was deserted and Mexico again be- came independent. In 1S79 when the United States of Colombia granted to Frenchmen a concession for building and controlling an inter-oceanic canal at Panama, President Hayes did not inter congress did not intervene to prevent the work. And yet in 1883 President Ar thur did authorize Secretary Freling- huysen to go so far as to say officially that the state department will not sanc- tion an arbitration by Europe of differ ences between South American states, even with the consent of the parties.
 Two years before that Secretary Blaine had written to our minister at Paris that the president would regard with grave anxiety an attempt by France to force by hostile pressure the payment by Venezuela of her debt to French citizens.