Federated Americas
FEDERATED AMERICAS "IXT'HETHER or not the reluctance of the United * * States to sit down on equal terms with the powers who comprise the League of Nations is "childish," as Mr. Hamilton Holt...
...Possibly no aspect of all our current treaty activity is so efficacious as this...
...Hamilton Holt would have us believe, it is impossible to doubt that international action is forming an increasingly large part of Washington's business...
...In other words, we seem to be drifting quietly and normally into a stage when the problems dependent upon right relationship with other American peoples can be solved advantageously and correctly if only the old legacy of "imperialism" can be thoroughly liquidated...
...Whenever a new outburst of "imperialism" manifests itself in Nicaragua, Haiti and elsewhere, the whole continent rings with I-toldyou-so's and good will evaporates...
...The statisticians report that more than one hundred treaties have been signed with foreign countries during the past six years, some of them—for example, the all too quickly forgotten Kellogg Pact— involving policies of the greatest political importance...
...Again, public sentiment eddied and whirled rapidly, so that a nation which had just been crusading enthusiastically settled down to a new siesta of "isolation" while Entente Europe could find no adjective too unfavorable to describe the quondam saviours of liberty and humanity...
...that mediation by European sovereigns or powers has almost uniformly failed...
...He was able to show that disputes of this character form one of the greatest dangers to South American stability...
...Henry Kittredge Norton has recently analyzed this experience in an article written for the New York Times...
...Good will can be earned through service which is at the same time economically and financially profitable, owing to a gain in industrial stability...
...Take for example the matter of settling boundary disputes which threatened to cause wars...
...Even though a good deal of newspaper space were given to our relations with Greece and Esthonia, most of us would have neither time nor inclination to consider the problems involved...
...Leadership can come to mean "leadership for cooperation...
...When the Latin American republics say they are opposing the "aggression" of the United States, they are talking the same language used by their fathers after the Mexican and the Spanish-American wars...
...The best that can be hoped for is that intelligent diplomacy and reasonable statesmanship can pave the way for a more reliable amity than either side is ready for now...
...Now it is almost immediately apparent that the relations existing between the United States and the nations of Europe are quite different from those obtaining between the United States and the other peoples of the new world...
...This situation does nobody any good...
...Most continental problems are of little immediate interest to Americans generally, and few of them can be permanently settled until the sums owing to the debacle of 1914 have been paid off...
...But a citizen of the United States who surveys the continent of which his country forms a part cannot help being impressed by the uniquenesss of existing conditions...
...The disadvantages now impending because of an awkwardly managed tariff law will soon be evident enough...
...What the first has to gain is clearly revealed by the aftermath of prohibition legislation—a flourishing hotel and beverage trade which has enriched whole provinces beyond their wildest dreams of twenty years ago...
...But there is little doubt that we shall gradually come to see American affairs as distinct from others and suggesting unusual political opportunities...
...and that the United States has often been able to effect a satisfactory and lasting compromise...
...It is true that so many agreements cannot all be absorbed by workaday public opinion...
...Canada and the United States, for example, are badly in need of cooperation...
...Yet citizens generally are interested in knowing just what the treaty program is effecting in at least two important respects: the conservation of trade opportunities and financial stability...
...and the fostering of pacific intent on the part of governments...
...It may be that endeavors to promote this by a closer international affiliation of American peoples are not to our liking, or can be construed as premature...
...Canadian psychology, too, has always been affected by this distrust of Washington...
...The international history of the Americas rolls on with scarce an interruption from the earliest times...
...In so far as the first are concerned, the present status quo hinges almost entirely upon the one great eventuality of the war...
...In other words, the attitude of other American peoples toward the United States is not based on considerations of size or wealth but upon political tradition and an estimate of motives...
...This changed the economic balance, shifting preponderance to Wall Street and its environs and inaugurating constant discussion of war debts, tariffs, loans and similar matters...
...Thirteen original colonies, expanding by purchase and conquest until one country looked at both oceans, might justifiably be proud of themselves...
...And while it has often been said that Latin America constitutes one of the greatest prospective markets for wares made in the United States, the way in which the southern republics lean upon Washington is truly remarkable...
...Nevertheless this growth, which was accompanied by forays into neighboring territory, injected fear of imperialism into the new world...
Vol. 12 • August 1930 • No. 17
