Part 37

The half of the earth reserved to the United States under these provisions contains some of the richest mineral deposits, some of the largest timber areas, and some of the best agricultural territory in the world. Thus at the opening of the new era, the United States, at the cost of a comparatively small outlay in men and money, has guaranteed to her by all of the leading capitalist powers practically an exclusive privilege for the exploitation of the Western Hemisphere.

XV. PAN-AMERICANISM

1. America for the Americans

In the partition of the earth, one-half was left under the control of the United States. Among the great nations, parties to the war and the peace, the United States alone asked for nothing--save the acceptance by the world of the Monroe Doctrine. The doctrine, as generally understood, makes her mistress of the Western Hemisphere.

The Monroe Doctrine originated in the efforts of Latin America to establish its independence of imperial Europe, and the counter efforts of imperial Europe to fasten its authority on the newly created Latin American Republics. President Monroe, aroused by the European crusade against popular government, wrote a message to Congress (1823) in which he stated the position of the United States as follows:

"The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers."

Monroe continues by pointing out that the United States must view any act which aims to establish European authority in the Americas as "dangerous to our peace and safety."

"The United States will keep her hands off Europe; she will expect Europe to keep her hands off America," was the essence of the doctrine, which has been popularly expressed in the phrase "America for the Americans." The Doctrine was thus a statement of international aloofness,--a declaration of American independence of the remainder of the world.

The Monroe Doctrine soon lost its political character. The southern statesmen who were then guiding the destinies of the United States were looking with longing eyes into Texas, Mexico, Cuba and other potential slave-holding territory. Later, the economic necessities of the northern capitalists led them in the same direction. Professor Roland G. Usher, in his "Pan-Americanism" (New York, The Century Company, 1915, pp. 391-392) insists that the Monroe Doctrine stands "First, for our incontrovertible right of self-defense. In the second place the Monroe Doctrine has stood for the equally undoubted right of the United States to champion and protect its primary economic interest against Europe or America."

Through the course of a century this statement of defensive policy has been converted into a doctrine of economic pseudo-sovereignty. It is no longer a case of keeping Europe out of Latin America but of getting the United States into Latin America.

The United States does not fear political aggression by Europe against the Western Hemisphere. On the contrary, the aggression to-day is largely economic, and the struggle for the markets and the investment opportunities of Latin America is being waged by the capitalists of every great industrial nation, including the United States.

2. Latin America

Four of the Latin American countries, viewed from the standpoint of population and of immediately available assets, rank far ahead of the remainder of Latin America. Mexico, with a population in 1914-1915 of 15,502,000, had an annual government revenue of $72,687,000. The population of Brazil is 27,474,000. The annual revenue (1919) is $183,615,000. Argentine, with a population of 8,284,000, reported annual revenues of $159,000,000 (1918); and Chile, with a population of 3,870,000, had an annual revenue of $77,964,000 (1917). These four states rank in political and economic importance close to Canada.

Great Britain holds a number of strategic positions in the West Indies. Other nations have minor possessions in Latin America. None of these possessions, however, is of considerable economic or political importance. There remain Bolivia, Uruguay, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela, and the Central American states. The most populous of these countries is Peru (5,800,000 persons). All of the Central American states combined have a population of less than 6,000,000. The annual revenues of Uruguay (population 1,407,000) are $30,453,000 (1918-19). The combined government revenues of all Central America are less than twenty-five millions. (Statistical Abstract of the U. S., 1919, p. 826ff.)

Compared with the hundred million population of the United States; its estimated wealth (1918) of 250 billions; and its federal revenues of a billion and a half in 1916, the Latin American republics cut a very small figure indeed. The United States, bristling with economic surplus and armed with the Monroe Doctrine, as accepted and interpreted in the League Covenant, is free to turn her attention to the rich opportunities offered by the undeveloped territory stretching from the Rio Grande to Cape Horn. What is there to hinder her movements in this direction? Nothing but the limitation on her own needs and the adherence to her own public policies. This vast area, containing approximately nine million square miles (three times the area of continental United States), has a population of only a little over seventy millions. The entire government revenues of the territory are in the neighborhood of six hundred million, but so widely scattered are the people, so sharp are their nationalistic differences, and so completely have they failed to build up anything like an effective league to protect their common interests, that skillful maneuvering on the part of American economic and political interests should meet with no effectual or thoroughgoing opposition.

The "hands off America" doctrine which the United States has enunciated, and which Europe has accepted, means first that none of the Latin American Republics is permitted to enter into any entangling alliances without the approval of the United States. In the second place it means that the United States is free to treat all Latin American countries in the same way that she has treated Cuba, Hayti and Nicaragua during the past twenty years.

3. Economic "Latin America"

The United States is the chief producer--in the Western Hemisphere--of the manufactured supplies needed by the relatively undeveloped countries of Latin America. At the same time, the undeveloped countries of Latin America contain great supplies of ores, minerals, timber and other raw materials that are needed by the expanding manufacturing interests of the United States. The United States is a country with an investible surplus. Latin America offers ample opportunity for the investment of that surplus. Surrounding the entire territory is a Chinese wall in the form of the Monroe Doctrine--intangible but none the less effective.

Before the outbreak of the Great War, European capitalists dominated the Latin American investment market. The five years of struggle did much to eliminate European influence in Latin America.

The situation was reviewed at length in a publication of the United States Department of Commerce "Investments in Latin America and the British West Indies," by Frederick M. Halsey (Washington Government Printing Office, 1918):

"Concerning the undeveloped wealth of various South American countries," writes Mr. Halsey, "it may be said that minerals exist in all the Republics, that the forest resources of all (except possibly Uruguay) are very extensive, that oil deposits have been found in almost every country and are worked commercially in Argentine, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, and that there are lands available for the raising of live stock and for agricultural purposes" (p. 20).

As to the pre-war investments, Mr. Halsey points out that "Great Britain has long been the largest investor in Latin America" (p. 20). The total of British investments he places at 5,250 millions of dollars. A third of this was invested in Argentine, a fifth in Brazil and nearly a sixth in Mexico. French investments are placed at about one and a half billions of dollars. The German investments were extensive, particularly in financial and trading institutions. United States investments in Latin America before the war "were negligible" (p. 19) outside of the investments in the mining industry and in the packing business.

Just how much of a shift the war has occasioned in the ownership of Latin American railways, public utilities, mines, etc., it is impossible to say. Some such change has occurred, however, and it is wholly in the interest of the United States.

Generalizations which apply to Latin America have no force in respect to Canada. The capitalism of Canada is closely akin to the capitalism of the United States.

Canada possesses certain important resources which are highly essential to the United States. Chief among them are agricultural land and timber. There are two methods by which the industrial interests of the United States might normally proceed with relations to the Canadian resources. One is to attack the situation politically, the other is to absorb it economically. The latter method is being pursued at the present time. To be sure there is a large annual emigration from the United States into Canada (approximately 50,000 in 1919) but capital is migrating faster than human beings.

The Canadian Bureau of Statistics reports (letter of May 20, 1920) on "Stocks, Bonds and other Securities held by incorporated and joint stock Companies engaged in manufacturing industries in Canada, 1918," as owned by 8,130,368 individual holders, distributed geographically as follows: Canada, $945,444,000; Great Britain, $153,758,000; United States, $555,943,000, and other countries, $17,221,322. Thus one-third of this form of Canadian investment is held in the United States.

4. American Protectorates

The close economic inter-relations that are developing in the Americas, naturally have their counter-part in the political field. As the business interests reach southward for oil, iron, sugar, and tobacco they are accompanied or followed by the protecting arm of the State Department in Washington. Few citizens of the United States realize how thoroughly the conduct of the government, particularly in the Caribbean, reflects the conduct of the bankers and the traders.