THE ARBITRATION TREATIES 
office. There was a good deal of trouble 
about foreign debts. Finally, I don’t 
know exactly how, we did get into such 
a relation with Santo Domingo, subse- 
quently confirmed by treaty, that we ap- 
pointed revenue officers to collect the 
revenue, under an agreement to deposit 
45 per cent in New York to meet the 
foreign debt, which had been scaled 
down properly, and to pay 55 per cent 
of the revenue to Santo Domingo. That 
has been in operation for five years. 
Meanwhile they have not had any revo- 
lution there at all, and the 55 per cent 
of the present revenue far exceeds the 
whole revenue they collected when they 
were not paying anything on the debt at 
all, and the debt under the application of 
this 45 per cent is now nearly wiped out. 
Now, how explain this? Why, the pro- 
fessional revolutionist learned that if he 
sought the only object of a revolution, 
to wit, the custom house, where he might 
collect the taxes, Uncle Sam would inter- 
fere. We did not have to send any naval 
force or any army there. The revolu- 
tionist simply had to know that Uncle 
Sam would be there if he interfered, and 
they have gone on now and are becom- 
ing, | hope, a prosperous republic. 
THE REVOLUTIONIST WILL GO OUT OF 
: BUSINESS 
The center of most wars in this hemi- 
spheres is in the five republics of Central 
America, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guate- 
“mala, Costa Rica, and San Salvador. In 
Honduras they have had 7 revolutions in 
I5 years, and now they are a little tired. 
Honduras reaches from one ocean to 
the other, and whenever they have.a fight 
in any one of the republics they seek a 
battle-ground in the territory of Hondu- 
ras; and so she maintains an army and 
spends I don’t know how much a year 
on it. But just now she hasn’t got any 
money to maintain an army—she hasn’t 
any credit—and, having learned of the 
successful operation of the system we 
established in Santo Domingo, she has 
asked us to help her. Accordingly we 
have made a treaty with her by which 
she is authorized to make a contract of 
loan. She has a 26-million debt, which, 
with compound interest that has not been 
IAL 
paid, amounts to 126 million dollars. 
Arrangements with her foreign creditors 
reduce the whole debt, under certain con- 
ditions, to 4% million dollars, and she 
wishes to borrow 10 million dollars in 
order to pay off this debt and, in addi- 
tion, make certain improvements that are 
very necessary to the prosperity of the 
country. She has succeeded in making 
that contract in New York with an 
American banking firm. ‘The treaty pro- 
vides that we shall advise her as to 
whether the contract is a good one, and 
that we will join with the fiscal agent in 
recommending the collectors of the reve- 
nue, which is pledged as a security for 
the payment of the loan of to millions. 
Then there is a provision in the treaty 
that the United States reserves to itself 
the right to exercise such direction as 
may seem wise over the revenue agents 
thus appointed. There is not any obliga- 
tion on our part to go in there if we do 
not want to; but the very fact that we 
have the right to go there is enough to 
eliminate the profession of the revolu- 
tionist from Honduras, because there is 
no profit in the business unless they can 
get at the revenues. 
Now the Senate objects—or some of 
the Senate object—and they have pub- 
lished this treaty for the consideration 
of the people. A similar treaty, under 
similar circumstances, has been made 
with Nicaragua, and I say those treaties 
ought to be confirmed. It is said that 
the Monroe Doctrine does not require us 
to see to the collection of loans; but that 
is not the question. Of course we know 
that the Monroe Doctrine was directed 
against an invasion by the Holy Alliance 
of the republican governments which had 
been established in the countries that had 
made themselves independent of Spain. 
But the condition that confronts us today 
is this: we live in a hemisphere with 21 
different republics. All are close neigh- 
bors of ours with whom we trade. We 
are a great, rich nation, able to do a great 
many things, able to help others in the 
community of nations; and there rests 
upon us as a nation just as much of an 
obligation to help in a community of na- 
tions like that as there rests upon a great, 
fortunate, wealthy man in a small com- 
