Evening star., 1936-11-22
BY GASTON NERvAL.


TN SPITE Of the fact that all
references to the Monroe Doctrine
were left out of the official agenda
newspaper forecasts of the forth
coming Pan-American Peace Con-
ference are unanimously predicting
that one of the main tasks to be at
tempted at the Buenos Aires parley
will be a reinterpretation or con-
naturalization" of the famous doc
trine.
If the Monroe Doctrine had re-
manned, simply, a presidential declara-
ton safeguarding the interests and
safety of the United States-as Monroe
intended tor If it had been con-
verted, at the start, into continental
pact of mutual defense-as Bolivar
and other Southern leaders wished
its discussion now would be unneces-
sary.
Unfortunately, the Monroe Doctrine
has suffered so many alterations and
metamorphoses that, for several
decades now, it has been the greatest
source of conflict between Latin and
Anglo-Saxon Americans and Is still,
today, one of the remaining "sore
spots" in the otherwise greatly i'm
proved Pan-American relations re-
sulting from President Roosevelt's
good neighbor policy.
Revered Tradition.
In the United States the doctrine
has become a revered tradition, but
that tradition includes all the corol-
laries and distortions added by Mon
roe's successors, and therein lies the
danger. AS long as the current pop
ular conception of the Monroe Doc
trine Is allowed to prevail in the United
States, there is no act of hegemony or
political overlordship which could not
be re-enacted in its name, whenever
men less literally disposed than the
ones now in power succeeded in re-
gaining the reins of government.
Likewise, and because Of the same
transformations and misuses of the
Monroe Doctrine, in the public opinion
of Latin America, it enjoys little favor
and 1t will remain an object of sus-
picion and discord just as long as the
Northern statesmen are left free to
invoke, interpret and apply it at their
will.
The irony of the case is that when
the Monroe Doctrine was first given to
the world, it could have been-uncon-
sciously, 1t is true-the cornerstone on
which the edifice of Pan-Americanism
might have been built. later on. In
1923 both the cool, practical minded
statesmen Of Anglo-Saxon America and
the romantic patriots Of Latin America
believed in the danger of European
designs. They had far less reason to
fear that danger than Is generally ad-
mitted, but because they did fear it,
the original Monroe Doctrine appar-
emily made the Latin American ma
tions the beneficiaries of a policy
which claimed to have thwarted those
European ambitions. At the time of
its announcement, therefore, the
Monroe Doctrine was, supposedly, the
expression of a common cause, even If,
in reality, it was concerned only with
the security and the interests Of the
country which sponsored it. Thus, 1t
could have furnished the basis for the
Pan-American movement which geo
graphic, political and economic factors
were later to set in motion.
Misinterpretation Capricious.
Far from that, however, and due
to number of capricious misinterpre-
tations of it-corollaries of Adams,
Polk, Hayes, Grant, Frelinghuysen,
Olney, Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt,
Knox, Taft, Lodge, Wilson, Coolidge
the Monroe Doctrine has become the
greatest cause of misunderstanding be-
tween the very peoples which 1t could
have drawn together. Those corol-