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."Monroe continues by pointing out that the United States must view any act which aims to establish Europeanauthority in the Americas as "dangerous to our peace and safety.""The United States will keep her hands off Europe; she will expect Europe to keep her hands off America,"was the essence of the doctrine, which has been popularly expressed in the phrase "America for theAmericans." The Doctrine was thus a statement of international aloofness,--a declaration of Americanindependence of the remainder of the world.The Monroe Doctrine soon lost its political character.The southern statesmen who were then guiding thedestinies of the United States were looking with longing eyes into Texas, Mexico, Cuba and other potentialslave-holding territory.Later, the economic necessities of the northern capitalists led them in the samedirection.Professor Roland G.Usher, in his "Pan-Americanism" (New York, The Century Company, 1915,pp.391-392) insists that the Monroe Doctrine stands "First, for our incontrovertible right of self-defense.Inthe second place the Monroe Doctrine has stood for the equally undoubted right of the United States tochampion and protect its primary economic interest against Europe or America."Through the course of a century this statement of defensive policy has been converted into a doctrine ofeconomic pseudo-sovereignty.It is no longer a case of keeping Europe out of Latin America but of getting theUnited States into Latin America.The United States does not fear political aggression by Europe against the Western Hemisphere.On thecontrary, the aggression to-day is largely economic, and the struggle for the markets and the investmentopportunities of Latin America is being waged by the capitalists of every great industrial nation, including theUnited States.2.Latin AmericaFour of the Latin American countries, viewed from the standpoint of population and of immediately availableassets, rank far ahead of the remainder of Latin America.Mexico, with a population in 1914-1915 of15,502,000, had an annual government revenue of $72,687,000.The population of Brazil is 27,474,000.Theannual revenue (1919) is $183,615,000.Argentine, with a population of 8,284,000, reported annual revenuesof $159,000,000 (1918); and Chile, with a population of 3,870,000, had an annual revenue of $77,964,000(1917).These four states rank in political and economic importance close to Canada.Great Britain holds a number of strategic positions in the West Indies.Other nations have minor possessionsin Latin America.None of these possessions, however, is of considerable economic or political importance.There remain Bolivia, Uruguay, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela, and the Central Americanstates.The most populous of these countries is Peru (5,800,000 persons).All of the Central American statescombined have a population of less than 6,000,000.The annual revenues of Uruguay (population 1,407,000)are $30,453,000 (1918-19).The combined government revenues of all Central America are less thantwenty-five millions.(Statistical Abstract of the U.S., 1919, p.826ff.) The American Empire, by Scott Nearing 96Compared with the hundred million population of the United States; its estimated wealth (1918) of 250billions; and its federal revenues of a billion and a half in 1916, the Latin American republics cut a very smallfigure indeed.The United States, bristling with economic surplus and armed with the Monroe Doctrine, asaccepted and interpreted in the League Covenant, is free to turn her attention to the rich opportunities offeredby the undeveloped territory stretching from the Rio Grande to Cape Horn.What is there to hinder hermovements in this direction? Nothing but the limitation on her own needs and the adherence to her ownpublic policies.This vast area, containing approximately nine million square miles (three times the area ofcontinental United States), has a population of only a little over seventy millions.The entire governmentrevenues of the territory are in the neighborhood of six hundred million, but so widely scattered are thepeople, so sharp are their nationalistic differences, and so completely have they failed to build up anythinglike an effective league to protect their common interests, that skillful maneuvering on the part of Americaneconomic and political interests should meet with no effectual or thoroughgoing opposition.The "hands off America" doctrine which the United States has enunciated, and which Europe has accepted,means first that none of the Latin American Republics is permitted to enter into any entangling allianceswithout the approval of the United States.In the second place it means that the United States is free to treat allLatin American countries in the same way that she has treated Cuba, Hayti and Nicaragua during the pasttwenty years.3.Economic "Latin America"The United States is the chief producer--in the Western Hemisphere--of the manufactured supplies needed bythe relatively undeveloped countries of Latin America.At the same time, the undeveloped countries of LatinAmerica contain great supplies of ores, minerals, timber and other raw materials that are needed by theexpanding manufacturing interests of the United States.The United States is a country with an investiblesurplus.Latin America offers ample opportunity for the investment of that surplus.Surrounding the entireterritory is a Chinese wall in the form of the Monroe Doctrine--intangible but none the less effective.Before the outbreak of the Great War, European capitalists dominated the Latin American investment market.The five years of struggle did much to eliminate European influence in Latin America.The situation was reviewed at length in a publication of the United States Department of Commerce"Investments in Latin America and the British West Indies," by Frederick M.Halsey (WashingtonGovernment Printing Office, 1918):"Concerning the undeveloped wealth of various South American countries," writes Mr.Halsey, "it may besaid that minerals exist in all the Republics, that the forest resources of all (except possibly Uruguay) are veryextensive, that oil deposits have been found in almost every country and are worked commercially inArgentine, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, and that there are lands available for the raising oflive stock and for agricultural purposes" (p.20).As to the pre-war investments, Mr.Halsey points out that "Great Britain has long been the largest investor inLatin America" (p.20).The total of British investments he places at 5,250 millions of dollars.A third of thiswas invested in Argentine, a fifth in Brazil and nearly a sixth in Mexico.French investments are placed atabout one and a half billions of dollars.The German investments were extensive, particularly in financial andtrading institutions.United States investments in Latin America before the war "were negligible" (p.19)outside of the investments in the mining industry and in the packing business.Just how much of a shift the war has occasioned in the ownership of Latin American railways, public utilities,mines, etc., it is impossible to say.Some such change has occurred, however, and it is wholly in the interest ofthe United States. The American Empire, by Scott Nearing 97Generalizations which apply to Latin America have no force in respect to Canada
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