The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-01-02
MORE OF MONROE DOCTRINE.
The Great Unsettled World Question
OF the Twentieth Century.


is not content to leave it the way this
country wants it. and this country is
not content to abandon it. There are
probably going to be. some stirring
times before one side or the other backs
down. And it will be the other. Ameri-
cans think that European nations ought
not to NEEDLE in the affairs of this
continent. The people who settled
America came over here to get away
from them and their kings and queens
and emperors. and we, their descend
ants, do not want their interfering over
here now.
The Europeans think that the Mon
roe doctrine is a piece of insolence on
the part of America, and are deter
mined, either to make us back down,
or to dodge it by what they call their
superior diplomacy. They are trying
the diplomacy game now. When I'm
Gle Sam wakes up he is going to rub
his eyes just long enough to see what
they are after, and then their is going
to be something doing"
A short time ago this country, led
by a Southern Senator, concluded to
build a canal across the American
isthmus. England shoves herself in,
and tells us that we have first to ask
her permission. And Mckinley and
Hay asked it. That is what makes
real American feel bad.
That is the Republican idea of main
tanning the Monroe doctrine. One
would think that the Republican party
had its main Office in London. They
should get King Edward Wis gracious
permission now to increase our navy.
Let it be noted that all of this trouble
is stirred up alongside of this same
canal; that it is instigated by Eng
land, who opposed the canal, and back
ed by Germany, whose greatest states
man, Bismarck, said that the Monroe
doctrine was a piece of impudence
Let it be noted that the English flag
is still flying at Port Caballo, which
England bombarded as she did Alex
andria,~ and the English and Germans
are still blockading and capturing
prizes, and are still engineering in
open day, the revolution behind the
existing Venezuelan government, and
up to the present moment, their whole
attitude towards arbitration has been
a farce on the face of it.
Let the Democrats take note also
that the entire South American ques-
ton was quiet and at rest, until Roose-
welt at dinner party stirs up this
whole mess by the announcement of
his Interpretation of the Monroe doc
trine.
Is Roosevelt greater than Monroe
and all the intervening Presidents put
together that when they invite Europe
to keep out, he can turn around and
invite them to come in? His announce
ment of his Interpretation of the Mon
roe doctrine was tantamount to an
open invitation for all the Powers of
Europe to come over and camp out in
South America, and make it their
theater of war for the twentieth cen
fury.
They have come. How could they
have been so impolite as to stay away?
They We're away. Had no thought of
coming. When they received Roose-
velt's invitation probably, as the say
ing is, You could have knocked them
over with feather" they were so sur
prised But they have come. Here they
are. And they are simultaneously
bloekading and arbitrating and having
war and peace, and the whole old
Egyptian and East Indian and Chinese
game over again right under our
noses and under the very cloak of
the Monroe doctrine as interpreted by
the great, only and inimitable Roose-
welt. That is bad. But We shades
of Monroe, John Quincy Adams and
..
what the Monroe doctrine was intended
for.
Theodore, where do you expect to go
when you die?
The whole matter, moreover. includ-
ing the Monroe doctrine has been re-
ferred to an European tribunal. 1t is
idle to deny that this whole question
involves the Monroe doctrine.
One would think that we were all
colored people, and that Roosevelt was
our Booker T. Washington. that he can
tell us right and wrong like this. He
seems to have all the Democrats as
we'll as all the Republicans following
him.
Our Democratic party leaders seem
of late to be like lot of small boys
at a circus, with Roosevelt in the ring
as trick rider. The only signs of life
they give is to applaud Roosevelt.
Some of them will be dining with him
and Booker It. at the White House
yet. They don't seem to have a word
to say for or against anybody or any
thing. Even Cleveland. In a recent in
terView probably brought out by
Musey's January article. leaves olney,
the brightest of the Democrats, COM
pletely ain the lurch." He indirectly
praises Roosevelt as much as Olney.
and practically said nothing when he
pretended to, and ought to have said
a great deal.
Suppose Roosevelt had had the nerve
to arbitrate the Venezuelan question.
The logical outcome would have been
the guarantee by the United States of
the Venezuelan debts, and the seizure
by the United States of the Venezuelan
custom houses to pay the indemnity.
Ultimately the policing of much of
South America by the United States
army and navy-and the loss of the
second term by Roosevelt Now that
the matter has been referred to an
European tribunal what is the logical
outcome? An irksome decision, with
subsequent repetitions of
the same acts by the aggressive Euro
mean Powers-England and Germany
until we become involved in a war
with them.
II requires no great imagination,
then to see Russia making a. grab for
india and Constantinople, and France
sefzing the opportunity to make a
strike for her lost provinces, Alsace
and Lorraine.
When the smoke of battle shall have
cleared away maybe the oppressor of
the Armenians will be no more, and
naybe there will be a few incidental
changes of the map over here towards
the North. But we will have to keep
those children in South America
straight all the same, just as If Roose-
Welt had done the arbitrating now.