I9I4-] A FACTOR IN WORLD POLITICS. 91 



our foreign policy is not a part of the Alonroe Doctrine, and has no 

 organic relation to the fundamental principle upon which the Mon- 

 roe Doctrine rests, namely, national safety and self-protection. It 

 is a new and strange principle which has aroused the opposition of 

 the countries for whose benefit it is intended, and has engendered 

 bitterness of feeling amongst European peoples. If it is to be main- 

 tained it must justify itself by basic reasons of national interests and 

 international obligation entirely independent of the Monroe Doctrine. 

 These, in brief, are the more important influences that have 

 aroused the opposition of many sections of the American continent 

 and the animosity of Europe, and have placed the United States in 

 a position of international isolation. It would be idle to argue that 

 we have been the victim of circumstances because, as we have seen, 

 the position in which the United States finds herself at the present 

 time is traceable to the fact that our national thought and national 

 consciousness have not kept pace with our international responsibili- 

 ties. The most serious aspect of this condition of isolation is that it 

 prevents us from fulfilling the high mission in international affairs 

 which, by reason of our exceptional geographical position, by reason 

 of our exceptional relationship to European as well as to American 

 affairs, we are manifestly called upon to perform. The words spoken 

 by Mr. Root at the Fourth Pan-American Conference at Rio Janeiro 

 set the standards which should ever remain before the American 

 people : 



"We wish for no victories but those of peace; for no territory except 

 our own ; for no sovereignty except the sovereignty over ourselves. We 

 deem the independence and equal rights of the smallest and weakest member 

 of the family of nations entitled to as much respect as those of the greatest 

 empire, and we deem the observance of that respect the chief guaranty of 

 the weak against the oppression of the strong. We neither claim nor desire 

 any rights, or privileges, or powers that we do not freely concede to every 

 American Republic. We wish to increase our prosperity, to expand our 

 trade, to grow in wealth, in wisdom and in spirit, but our conception of the 

 true way to accomplish this is not to pull down others and profit by their 

 ruin, but to help all friends to a common prosperity and a common growth, 

 that we may all become greater and stronger together." 



