New-York tribune., 1906-11-03
CONFIRMED, NOT OBSOLETE.

So now the Monroe Doctrine is obsolete
Poor thing, how it has suffered, 1t has been
dead and buried so many times. 1t has been
smashed into smithereens. 1t has been dis
torted, exaggerated. stretched to cover every
thing from free silver to the binomial theorelr
We distinctly remember some saying that it
was violated and annulled by our excursion into
the philippines, and others contending that it
made us responsible for the Dominican Repub-
lies debts. If time and the law of permuations
hold out, we shal: probably hear it invoked for
the squaring OF the circle or be told that it
specifically defines the United States as
bounded on the north by the Aurora Bore8lis
ION the south of the procession of the equnoxes,
"on the east by primeval chaos and on the west
by the day of Judgment
Meantime Professor Burgess, of Columbia
University, informs an audience at the Univer-
sity of Berlin that the doctrine Is obsolete, and
there Is In consequence degree of popular agi-
tation which has scarcely been exceeded since
jeffrey spoke dsrespectfuly Of tha equator. 1t
seems TO be imagined by some persons that the
PROFESSIONAL ipse dirit-or perhaps more prop
erly obtter dictEm, for the full text of the dis
course is not yet at hand to show just what he
said and how he came to say it-has settled
the matter for all time. and that henceforth no
American statesman will ever dare to mention
the Doctrine, and no American citizen travelling
in foreign parts will be embOldened to say
Boo to goose. 1t is all very sad or would
be If it were true. But this is a skeptical age,
and we cannot help doubling whether things are
really quite so bad. Indeed, inclined to
suspect the old Doctrine will in some way con-
trive to keep right on doing the same old busi-
ness at the same old stand.
For the fact is that the Monroe Doctrine is
not obsolete. nor obsolescent but rather esab-
lished and confirmed. We mean the Monroe
Doctrine as Adams devised it and Monroe pro-
mulgated it, and not the fantastic imagina-
tions Of either Overzeaous friends or sneerng
enemies have pictured it. There is no longer
it is true. occasion for aggressively asserting it.
as we had to do years ago in Mexico and Cuba
and elsewhere. But that is not because of the
decay of the Doctrine, but rather because of it's
strength and its triumph. Its principle has be-
come fully established that no responsible
statesman now ventures to challenge It. The
nation which enuncated it and the other na-
tions in whose behalf it was put forth have
become so powerful and have so amply justified
that Doctrine in the eyes of the world that any
challenge of it would be at once morally ground
less and physically hopeless.
There could be no greater mistake than to
suppose that diminution, almost to disappear
ance, of need for asserting it indicates that the
Doctrine is becoming obsolete. If that were So
we might on precisely the same ground and
with equal cogency argue that Magma Charta
was obsolete because the barons were no longer
encamped at Runnymede, that the Declara-
ton Of Independence was obsolete because we
were no longer fighting against Great Britain.
At the time when Russias menaces provoked
Adams to devise it in self-defence the Monroe
Doctrine was the potential battle cry of num-
Der of young, weak states which might at any
time be forced to fight for their lives. For
eighty-three years it has been triumphantly
maintained without the firing of shot or the
striking of blow in It's support. In that time
it has been steadily gaining respect and power
And now, with that record of maintenance, with
the ends for which it devised so we'll at
tained, with its principles triumphant and
with its wisdom and equity so amply vindicated
with the greatest powers of the Old World In
the most practical manner recognizing its valid
ity and bowling to it's authority. and with the
United States ITSELF more resolutc and mora
competent than ever before for its enforcement
how. the old Doctrine is obsolete! OF truth
sit Is to laugh