Evening star., 1935-02-03
MONROE DOCTRINE BLOCK
TO PAN-AMERICAN AMITY
World Court Debate in Senate Held
Proof Past Misunderstanding
Have Not Disappeared.

The text Of the Vandenberg amend
ment, sanctioned both by administra-
ton and opposition forces, reads as
follows: Resolved further, That ad-
herence to the said protocols and
statute hereby approved shall not be
so construed as to require the United
States to depart from its traditional
policy of not intruding upon, inter-
fering with or entangling itself in the
political question of policy or internal
administration of any foreign State;
nor shall adherence to the said pro-
tocols and statute be construed to i'm
ply a REIMBURSEMENT by the United
States Of its traditional attitude to-
ward purely American questions.
Now, this Senate resolution can
have only one meaning. The first
part is absolutely unnecessary and.
in reference to the World Court,
meaningless, because no nation which
joins the court is asked to intrude
upon, or interfere with, the internal
administration of others. Besides
and this is another queStion-any one
who has studied inter- American rela-
tions knows that that has not been
the traditional policy of the United
States.
The Vandenberg resolution then
comes down to an emphatic reasser-
tion by the United States "of its ira
ditional attitude toward purely Amer
ican questions" OF course, there is
nothing original in this declaration.
AS Senator Vandenberg himself
stressed, its language is almost identi-
cal to that employed by the Senate
as early as the first Hague peace con-
ference in 1889, and continuously re-
peated ever since, whenever an occs =
sion arose. But that is precisely why
its reassertion at this time is so sig
nificant.
What of Good -Neighbor" Policy?
What becomes of the "good-neigh-
Dor" policy and the pledges of nom
intervention and respect for Latin
American sovereignty if the United
States is to continue its traditional
attitude toward purely American
questions? We all know what that
attitude means, what it has meant in
the past. The Monroe doctrine, as
Senator Vandenberg rightly pointed
out, is included in 1t. And, herein
lies the danger, not the original Mon
roe doctrine alone, but the modern
and distorted Monroe Doctrine, which
claims American solutions for Amer
ican questions" and seeks to per-
petuate the notion that the United
States has certain paramount rights
and duties in the Western Hemisphere
which no international organization,
even with the consent Of the other
American republics, can disregard, is
also included.
AS long as the official policies of the
United States in Latin America, and
particularly in the Caribbean area,
were hegemonic and avowedly pa
ternaistic, as they were until few
years ago, the Senate's repeated reserv-
ations as to the traditional attitude
toward purely American questions"
were, If not justified in law, at least
logical and consistent with such
policies. But today, when Latin
Americans are being promised new
deal" in pan-Americanism, when
they are being asked to forget the
abuses of yesterday, the preservation
of the Senate's traditional attitude as
to the traditional attitude" amend
ment Is disconcerting, to say the least.
toopvrishts 1es5.a