In 1902 Germany induced Great Britain and Italy to join her in an attempt to collect the amount of some of these claims from Venezuela.A joint squadron undertook a "pacific blockade" of the coast.Secretary Hay denied that a "pacific blockade" existed in international law and urged that the matter be submitted to arbitration.Great Britain and Italy were willing to come to an understanding and withdrew; but Germany, probably intent on ulterior objects, was unwilling and preferred to take temporary possession of certain ports.President Roosevelt then summoned the German Ambassador, Dr.Holleben, and told him that, unless Germany consented to arbitrate, Admiral Dewey would be ordered at noon ten days later to proceed to Venezuela and protect its coast.A week passed with no message.Holleben called on the President but rose to go without mentioning Venezuela.President Roosevelt thereupon informed the Ambassador that he had changed his mind and had decided to send Admiral Dewey one day earlier than originally planned; he further explained that in the event the Kaiser should decide to arbitrate, as not a word had been put on paper, there would be nothing to indicate coercion.Within thirty-six hours Holleben reported that Germany would arbitrate.
Only once before, when Seward was dealing with Napoleon IIIconcerning Mexico, had forcible persuasion been used to maintain the Monroe Doctrine.
It was perfectly clear that if the United States sat idly by and allowed European powers to do what they would to collect their Latin American debts, the Monroe Doctrine would soon become a dead letter.It was not, however, so plain how American interference could be justified.The problem was obviously a difficult one and did not concern the United States alone.Latin America was even more vitally concerned with it, and her statesmen, always lucid exponents of international law, were active in devising remedies.Carlos Calvo of Argentina advanced the doctrine that "the collection of pecuniary claims made by the citizens of one country against the government of another country should never be made by force." Senior Drago, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the same country in 1902, urged upon the United States a modification of the same view by asserting that "the public debt cannot occasion armed intervention."President Roosevelt handled the matter in his messages of 1903and 1904."That our rights and interests are deeply concerned in the maintenance of the [Monroe] Doctrine is so clear as hardly to need argument.This is especially true in view of the construction of the Panama Canal.As a mere matter of self defense we must exercise a close watch over the approaches to this canal, and this means we must be thoroughly alive to our interests in the Caribbean Sea." "When we announce a policy...
we thereby commit ourselves to the consequences of the policy.""Chronic wrongdoing or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power."To prevent European intervention for the purpose of securing just claims in America, then, the United States would undertake to handle the case, and would wield the "Big Stick" against any American state which should refuse to meet its obligations.This was a repetition, in a different tone, of Blaine's "Elder Sister"program.As developed, it had elements also of Cleveland's Venezuela policy.In 1907 the United States submitted to the Hague Conference a modified form of the Drago doctrine, which stated that the use of force to collect contract debts claimed from one government by another as being due to its citizens should be regarded as illegal, unless the creditor nation first offered to submit its claims to arbitration and this offer were refused by the nation against which the claim was directed.The interference of the United States, therefore, would be practically to hale the debtor into court.
Around the Caribbean, however, were several nations not only unwilling but unable to pay their debts.This inability was not due to the fact that national resources were lacking, but that constant revolution scared away conservative capital from seeking constructive investment or from developing their natural riches, while speculators loaned money at ruinous rates of discount to tottering presidents, gambling on the possibility of some turn in fortune that would return them tenfold.The worst example of an insolvent and recalcitrant state was the Dominican Republic, whose superb harbors were a constant temptation to ambitious powers willing to assume its debts in return for naval stations, and whose unscrupulous rulers could nearly always be bribed to sell their country as readily as anything else.In the case of this country President Roosevelt made a still further extension of the Monroe Doctrine when, in 1905, he concluded a treaty whereby the United States agreed to undertake the adjustment of the republic's obligations and the administration of its custom houses, and at the same time guarantee the territorial integrity of the republic.This arrangement was hotly attacked in the United States as an indication of growing imperialism, and, though it was defended as necessary to prevent the entrance of new foreign influences into the Caribbean, the opposition was so strong that the treaty was not accepted by the Senate until 1907, and then only in a modified form with the omission of the territorial guarantee.
