The Cook County news-herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Cook County, Minn.) 1909-current, 1922-04-27

a teacher of history who does mot
know that 1.-THE Monroe doctrine was
fairly we'll understood half a genera
ton before Monroe took his inaugu-
ration oath. But the Monroe doc
trine, is still current, and probably
will be when the Senate pages gaze
on the baseball games of their great
grandchildren.
Why does this phrase rise to the
lips of every speaker, whether he
springs from the deepest dye of De-
mocracy or from the fount of fixed
Federalism? Certainly not because
Monroe was the leading mind of his
generation. He had not the lustre
of a captured Yorktown to shine
around his head. He had not the elo-
quence that Webster sought to repro
duce. He had no power to make
state papers as fascinating as TO-
mances. He was rot a walking Ii
brary Of constitutional law. James
Monroe was painfully conscious that
he was not a George Washington or
a John Adams. He knew as did all
his contemporaries that he won the
Presidency because Jefferson wanted
him to have it and because Madison
was through with it. Yet what his
predecessors had thought and ex-
pressed with comparatively no results
so, in his day, impressed the pubic
g the Monroe Doctrine is better
known than Marshalps argument for
implied powers, or than Stewards
''irrepressible conflict 1t conveys
some sort of an idea to audiences
that are not quite sure as to the
difference between ad valorem and
ex post facto.
The reason is when Monroe wrote
down the argument which John Quincy
Adams had broadened and sharpened
for him we had navy at which
''all the world wondered" In Wash
ington's time we had neither a navy
nor navy department. In the days of
Adams our hastily built ships and
their purchased companions did, it
is we'll known,awe the French in the
Indies, but the French Were constant
ly lowering their colors to the English
that our successes made little i'm
preston on the British Admiralty
Under Jefferson Preble's squadron
served brilliantly on the Tripolitan
coast, yet few combats with Mos
lens did not prove that we could
hold our own with the veterans of
Rodney and Nelson.
When James Monroe became Presi-
dent he found navy small but su-
peru. In construction and in arma-
ment it had so departed from British
precedent as to invite British ridi-
cule,-but the ridicule was followed
by imitation 0utsailing a Brit
ish squadron, the Constitution
sailed away to gain three victories
over the British. With little damage
to his own frigate Decatur made a
slaughtering block of his opponent,
It took but a short time to send the
Peacock to the bottom. Under the
guns of a gigantic English ship the
Wasp took prize, and in two COM
bats she was triumphant. On Lake
Erie the mistress of the seas lost
every vessel that entered the fight
with Perry. On Lake Champlain the
American squadron destroyed all hos
tile hope of a sweep down from the
North. On Lake Ontario British ves-
sells lay sullenly in port while Ameri-,
cans dared them to come forth to.
battle. Far in the Pacific Porter did
indeed surrender the ESSEX to an
overwhelming force, but not until his.
defense had well nigh stunned the
enemy. Hastily equipped as were the
little craft on the Mississippi they
acquitted themselves well Impossi-.
BILE assit seemed that the little Hora
net could escape the burly CORVALLIS,