[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Later, toJohn Hay, he recorded what he had concluded at that time:The American people will never consent to allowing theAmerican Republics to come under the control of Europeanpowers by such subterfuges as exercising this [syndicate] con-trol under color of a protection to the guaranteeing or collect-ing a debt.Making things more difficult for Roosevelt to manage thetrouble in the Caribbean in 1902 was the reality that theEnglish were repositioning their navy around the world.Inorder to meet possible new threats from rising naval pow-ers like Germany and Japan, they were gradually with-drawing their powerful fleet from the Caribbean for otherstations.Realizing that England s new geopolitical strategyleft the United States naked in its neighboring seas, Roo-sevelt decided on negotiation.Roosevelt did not trust Germany s claim that it in-tended to bombard only Venezuelan ports and, with a fewtroops, seize custom houses to get the import duties it wasowed.The president asked the German government tosubmit to arbitration or face an American battle fleet inVenezuelan waters.When nothing happened, he gaveGermany twenty-four hours to accept arbitration, or he1570465010240-Donald.qxd:Layout 1 8/25/08 5:36 PM Page 158lion in the white housewould send orders to Admiral Dewey to sail.At that point,England decided not to support Germany.An unspokenEnglish-American entente seemed at work, isolating Ger-many.Ultimately, the international tribunal at The Haguesettled matters.Roosevelt exercised his  transitory intervention in amore forceful way in 1902 when turmoil broke out in SantoDomingo, an island coveted over the years by Spain,France, and England.It had a history of revolution and ofstrong black leadership against imperial powers, with littlestability or good government.The cause of the latest prob-lem was its typically late debt repayment, in this case toGermany, Italy, Spain, and Belgium.Then, Dominican in-surrectionists fired on an American cruiser.Not surpris-ingly, American property owners asked Roosevelt forprotection, and the redoubtable Admiral George Deweywas sent by the president to scout the problem.The trouble at Roosevelt s front door and the dangersposed by European imperialists led in May 1904 to a formalstatement: the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.It held that the United States would protect and would reg-ulate the countries of Latin America and would not allowEuropeans to interfere.While the corollary was forming inRoosevelt s mind, he took over customs duty payments toSanto Domingo; a part of the money was used to settledebts and build schools and roads.Even after these benefi-cial expenditures, the money returned to the government ofSanto Domingo was the highest amount that benightedcountry ever had in its treasury.Once more, Roosevelt hadforced good government on an underdeveloped nation.Aswas becoming customary, however, there was opposition tohis interventionist doctrine.1580465010240-Donald.qxd:Layout 1 8/25/08 5:36 PM Page 159The Accidental PresidentTo Elihu Root in June 1904, Roosevelt summed up hisrecent thoughts and actions on the expanded MonroeDoctrine and on its opponents:If we are willing to let Germany or England act as the police-man of the Caribbean, then we can afford not to interferewhen gross wrongdoing occurs.But if we intend to say  Handsoff  to the powers of Europe, then sooner or later we mustkeep order ourselves.What a queer set of (absent-) evil-minded creatures, mixed with honest people of preposterousshortness of vision, our opponents are.Getting the Senate to agree to the corollary was noteasy for Roosevelt.In his December 1904 annual messageto Congress, the president took on all comers who wereprotesting his foreign policy.Once more, Roosevelt de-fended himself by going on the offensive against his adver-saries, mostly Democrats in the South.He made hisopponents look at their own  sins before attacking him forhis policies.He challenged them  to war against the  sinsof our own before passing resolutions about wrongdoingelsewhere. Civic corruption,  brutal lawlessness, and  vi-olent race prejudice needed to end in this country.Thecorollary did not gain approval until 1907.The centerpiece of Roosevelt s strategic thinking in in-ternational affairs, a mindset that encompassed the protec-tion of America s far-flung interests and a strong andmodern navy, was put into place when he made possiblethe building of the Panama Canal.By any standard, it wasan undertaking of immense historic, scientific, and engi-neering significance.It stands alone as a federal govern-ment development until the making of the atomic bomb in1590465010240-Donald.qxd:Layout 1 8/25/08 5:36 PM Page 160lion in the white housethe 1940s and man s spacewalk on the moon in 1969.Thecanal would permit the navy to move from one ocean toanother in three weeks instead of two or three months inorder to respond to any threats to the mainland.A French company had tried to build a canal throughPanama in the late nineteenth century, but it met with de-feat on the wings of the malarial mosquito, which felledmost of the twenty-two thousand laborers and left theFrench with huge debts.Roosevelt had thought that a routethrough Nicaragua was better for a canal, but after a volcanoeruption there, he backed away.When American engineerssuggested that the Panama route was suited for transit, eventhough the French had met with stunning defeat there,Roosevelt, a man of science, backed them in 1903.The process by which the Panama Canal was madepossible is not entirely clear even after all these years.There were conspirators in Colombia working to getPanama to break away so that a route could be offered tothe United States.They got just the chance they looked forwhen Philippe Bunau-Varilla, the super-energetic andfussy chief engineer of the defunct French company, andnow a heavily invested spokesman for the New PanamaCanal Company, joined with William Nelson Cromwell ofthe top international law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell onWall Street [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]