World Power Status
The opening lines of the poem “The Second Coming,” by William Butler Yeats,
have always seemed to me the best words in the English language to describe the 20th
century as it dawned:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
The predictions of the isolationists were exactly right. Our sons did die in far-flung
wastes of the world, but also in the seat of Western Civilization, Europe. The great crisis
of the Great War should not have been the surprise nations claimed it to be. World-wide
imperialism practiced by competing nations seems now a sure recipe for disastrous war.
Into this drama stepped the United States of America, a hitherto isolationist power that
had its “ceremony of innocence . . . drowned.” The painstaking process of managing
world affairs began for the US in China, but on a “widening gyre” swept around the
globe. There was no turning back after 1917 even though we tried.
China had always been the hidden focus of American history. Remember, this
whole hemisphere was discovered because Europeans were trying to find an easier route
to the East, and even when colonized the search for a Northwest Passage continued for
over a century. Exploration and colonization were tremendous accomplishments in and
of themselves, but those who wanted an easy route to China considered them fruitless.
With the Pacific coast in our possession, however, China was a jewel again. Trade with
China made up 2% of all our foreign trade in 1900. China was why we wanted coaling
stations across the Pacific Ocean that made us inclined toward imperialism in the first
place.
China was weakened by 1900 having lost a war with Japan in 1895. Germany,
France, Russia, and Japan were carving out spheres of influence from this prostrate
ancient giant, but Secretary of State John Hay sent a “note” to all the nations involved.
The Open Door Note, as it came to be called, evoked from one historian the line, “With
Hay’s Open-Door policy, the US jammed a foot into the fast-closing door of the East.”
Well, I wasn’t really an historian when I wrote that line in an A. P. US history essay for
Mr. Pickle, but he liked the line and read it aloud to the class. Maybe that’s why I
became a history teacher. Hay’s Open-Door policy did warn the imperialistic powers of
Europe and Asia (Sphere Nations) to leave room for the United States to carve out its
own sphere.
The Open Door Note contained three major provisions. First, Sphere Nations
were to respect other nations’ spheres (including that of the US). Hay then said that the
Chinese could still collect customs duties in all spheres (big of him to allow a sovereign
nation to charge its own tariffs). Finally, China would charge the same customs duties
for all nations (interesting that he would set the tariff rate for a foreign country). These
and other presumptions on the part of foreign powers ignited the Boxer Rebellion in
1900. Anti-foreigner Chinese militants rioted and killed missionaries and representatives
of foreign governments, including the German ambassador. All Sphere Nations sent
military rescue missions to save their besieged personnel. The US sent 2,500 troops, and
the combined foreign forces crushed the retaliating Chinese nationalists. Then Hay did
another interesting thing; he pledged to maintain China’s sovereignty. That was big of
him.
As you might have guessed, these arrangements did not remain peaceful. The
Russo-Japanese War broke out in 1904 over railroad rights across spheres in China. Just
as the Japanese had beaten the larger nation of China, she was beating Russia when
Theodore Roosevelt stepped in as mediator in 1905 and negotiated the Portsmouth
Treaty, receiving emissaries from Japan and Russia aboard the Presidential Yacht. The
Russians were much taller than the Japanese, but the Japanese walked away dominant.
For ending the war (which was exhausting both countries and threatening to throw the
whole region into turmoil), TR won the Nobel Peace Prize.
TR’s own selection for Secretary of State, Elihu Root, further negotiated the
Root-Takahira Agreement that allowed Japan and Russia (and the US) to divide influence
in key areas, tacitly rewarding Japan for the sneak attack that nearly destroyed the
Russian Navy. Watch for that strategy again around Dec. 7, 1941. Indeed, since the
Root-Takahira Agreement excluded other Open Door Nations, historians say it launched
Japan on an imperialist course that would one day include most of the Pacific Ocean and
all of East Asia. China, meanwhile, had been destabilized to the point of the overthrow
of the ancient imperial dynasty in a revolution in 1911. The United States bowed out of
these conflicts gracefully, but not without becoming an Asian power and therefore a
target.
Theodore Roosevelt believed in a hands-on approach to foreign policy. Not only
did he intervene personally in the Russo-Japanese War, but in the Moroccan Crisis. He
embroiled the US in a conflict stemming from Germany’s occupation of North Africa
when both the United Kingdom and France had already set their sights on carving out
spheres there themselves. TR traveled to Algeciras, Spain, to personally direct a peace
conference in 1906. The Algeciras Conference drew lines for all three European powers
to share North Africa.
This type of management of the world was most pronounced around the
Caribbean Sea. TR was responsible for a new interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine
called the Roosevelt Corollary. He said that since Europe cannot interfere in the Western
Hemisphere, America would have to intervene in times of crisis. We did intervene, and
before the 20th century was over we angered virtually every Latin American nation by
either exerting economic dominance or by acting as an international police force or both.
During TR’s presidency this activity centered on the Panama Canal. US investors
took over the rights to dig a canal in Central America from the French who had failed
because of yellow fever. American military doctors discovered the cause of malaria as
well as ways to combat it, plus lobbying in Congress changed the route from the country
of Nicaragua to the Isthmus of Panama. The only problem was that Panama belonged to
Colombia who wouldn’t negotiate with the US, so TR aided the Panamanian Revolution.
In return, newly independent Panama gave the US a 6-mile-wide Canal Zone (for $10
million and a $250,000/year lease). Construction of the Canal remains one of the greatest
civil engineering feats of human history. It took seven years and $400 million to move
211 million cubic yards of dirt out of the way, and did you know the Canal goes up and
then down again? The Panama Canal was not merely a ditch dug all the way across.
Congress was alarmed at TR’s use of presidential power, but TR famously said, “While
Congress debated me, I dug the Canal.” Some historians claim that this feat is Theodore
Roosevelt’s greatest contribution to mankind.
Obviously, TR believed in the president’s duty to personally manage foreign
policy, and every president since has had to at least appear to do so. TR spoke of noble
duties while providing for the economic realities of big business expansion. American
presidents have ever since had to balance humanitarian stances with America’s
“interests” abroad. TR both busted trusts and cooperated with them. All the while he
spoke in regard to foreign policy with his famous, borrowed African proverb, “Speak
softly and carry a big stick . . . .” He used the “bully pulpit” to make pronouncements to
other countries as well as to Americans, and he backed up his assertions largely with the
United States Navy. In fact, TR had sixteen of the newest US battleships painted white
and sent them to circumnavigate the globe, stopping at all major ports along the way.
The Great White Fleet accomplished this feat in 1907, and our friends and enemies all
realized we could project our power anywhere in the world. The fleet was TR’s Big
Stick, and when it returned it went immediately into dry dock and was painted grey again
in order to be able to pounce upon enemies out of the fog.
William Howard Taft had yet another innovation on the Monroe Doctrine. He
said that the US needed to “subordinate idealistic humanitarian sentiments to the dictates
of sound policy and strategy, and to legitimate commercial aims.” In other words, the
American government was going to allow American investment dollars to go to
cooperative countries and cut off the supply to countries that opposed American policy,
just as if the president had a spigot to either turn off the flow of dollars or let them pour
out. Taft’s innovation has been our chief method of foreign intervention ever since, and
it is known as Dollar Diplomacy. Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, and Haiti were the
biggest recipients of US investment dollars under Taft. President Taft believed Dollar
Diplomacy would work with international arbitration to spare the US from involvement
in the growing animosity in Europe.
Woodrow Wilson and his Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, agreed.
The egotism of these men along with their noble intentions resulted in American
intervention in foreign affairs, and eventually the US had to apply force despite Bryan’s
anti-imperialism. By 1914, just prior to World War I, the world believed a new age of
international harmony was at hand—PEACE ON EARTH! The “melting pot” of
America was going to lead the way to a worldwide brotherhood of man, and arbitration
was the solution. The International Court was begun in the Netherlands in 1899, and its
mission has been that of major beauty queens throughout the 20th century—world peace.
Even Woodrow Wilson publicly predicted peace within weeks of the outbreak of World
War I. On the Fourth of July in 1914 he said in a speech
My dream is that as the years go on and the world knows more and more of
America, it will turn to America for those moral inspirations which lie at the basis
of all freedoms . . . and that America will come into the full light of day when all
shall know that she puts human rights above all other rights and that her flag is the
flag not only of America but of humanity.
Meanwhile Wilson intervened in Latin America more than TR or Taft. He sent the
military into Haiti in 1915, American investment dollars and the Marines into the
Dominican Republic in 1916, and both into Cuba in 1917.
Mexico proved his complete confidence to take Progressivism to the international
level and to solve problems that other nations “could not” solve for themselves. The
dictator of Mexico, Porfirio Diaz, was overthrown by Francisco Madero in 1911 while
Taft was president. Taft recognized the new government, but a counterrevolution ousted
and assassinated Madero in a coup led by Victoriano Huerta. Wilson denounced Huerta
as a murderer and “picked” Venustiano Carranza to stabilize Mexico for US investment
dollars, especially in an oil industry, but also for democracy. By the way, there is nothing
in the US Constitution about the president picking the leaders of foreign countries.
Tension escalated when Mexico arrested some US sailors. Wilson demanded an
apology but received none. He ordered the US Army to occupy Vera Cruz, which is a
polite way of saying he ordered the invasion Mexico. Huerta resigned and Carranza took
power, but just like Emilio Aguinaldo in the Philippines, Carranza wanted US forces out
of Mexico. Wilson and Carranza turned to the new miracle cure, international arbitration.
The “ABC Powers” (Argentina, Brazil, and Chile) were asked to arbitrate a settlement.
Before a solution could be worked out, however, Pancho Villa rose up to
challenge Carranza and in the process killed 16 US citizens. Before Wilson could react,
Villa killed 19 more US Citizens. Then Wilson sent John J. Pershing (the future
commander of US forces in World War I) to bring Pancho Villa to justice. Carranza
decried another invasion of Mexico. Did you know the US almost had another Mexican
War? Perhaps the only reason we did not is that the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir of
the thrones of Austria-Hungary, was assassinated in Serbia on June 28, 1914.