The San Francisco call., 1913-07-20
Continued from Page 81

acteristic seems finally to be a con-
stancy of purpose and policy, which,
if occasionally defiant of other people,
is none the less cOnstancy. No ire
sponsible nation may repudiate an
English debt, or kill British subject,
without knowing what it may expect
and will inevitably get. But regard
ing our own government, and what
has been passing for foreign policy,
it seems as if the exact reverse were
true. 1t seems as if Indifference to
what has been already done, irreSOlu-
tion as to what shall be done next,
improvising a policy as occasion
arises, with no more settled purpose
than a supreme desire at all times to
avoid the tolls and snares of respon-
sibility abroad, were characteristic Of
ourselves. To the south Of us are a
bakers dozen of tumultuous and un-
stable republics, upon whom firm,
consistent policy could alone enforce
respect. But what has been done?
Z EX-SECRETARY ROOT employed
IL toward South America policy of
reconciliation - with his pacific jour
ney among them, his Bureau of South
American Republics, and all the rest
of it. Secretary Knox followed with
quite a different policy; to let we'll
enough alone, providing, only, that
South American peoples should pay
their debts. Yet even this seems now
too drastic for the State Department,
which announces that the collection
of debt shall be no longer cause for
intervention Could peaceat-any-
price policy go further? On the very
day, as it happened, that the Secre-
tary of State expressed his happy
wish ito launch the battleship
Friendship and the cruiser FellOl0-
ship as our only nary" (Uide press
dispatches of May 15) the English
gunboat Aeolus appeared off Guate-
mala for the collection of debt, which
was paid within twenty-fOur hours.
We should endeavor to free our
minds of cant. 1t is good business.
There is, however, a further result
from our unstable policy which over
shadows every other, namely, that
among Isthmian and Central Ameri-
can peoples the United States enjoys
the unenviable distinction of being,
as we'll as the most despised, the
most hated nation on earth. I be-
lieve this to be no eXaggeratiOn OF
fact, and a fact the importance of
which it is hard to exaggerate. In
the almost daily accounts, for while,
of Americans murdered in Mexico
City and elsewhere throughout Mex
leo, and of the expulsion of Ameri-
cans from the country, one never read
of the deaths of Germans or English,
or of similar methods employed
against them. Alone among the
navies of the world, by direct order
from Washington, American blue
jackets are not allowed liberty in
Cuban or Caribbean ports for fear
of trouble, as indeed the toll of sail
ors and marines killed there is heavy
enough, with no indemnity exacted
or received. Only the other day two
chief petty officers of the navy, ashore
in the line Of duty, were set upon in
a populous thorOughfare of Guaymas,
and left dead in their tracks, shot by
a Mexican Government police official.
Who remembers the incident? 1t
seems hardly credible, but it is
fact that one can hear Americans Of
substance in Cuba, Panama, or Vera
Cruz assert that they would welcome
the smashing to pieces of the Monroe
Doctrine, and the armed interposi-
tion of any European power. This,
ono admits. is scarcely pleasant read