THE TWO AMERICAS..
IT was a happy thought on the part of the editors of this book,' at this moment when the Republics of South America are ranging them- selves beside their big sister of the North in defence of the world's freedom, to collect and republish the addresses of Mr. Elihu Root, one of the greatest and farthest-sighted of American statesmen. In 1906 Mr. Root, in his official capacity as Secretary of State in President Roosevelt's Administration, visited Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Panama, Colombia, and Mexico. He was received everywhere with the greatest hospitality and goodwill, aroused partly by his own high character and gracious personality, and partly by the novel spectacle of a Secretary of State of the Northern Republic coming as the guest and colleague of the Latin- American statesmen of the South. Everywhere he proclaimed a new doctrine—which his editors call the Root Doctrine—of kindly consideration and of honourable obligation, and everywhere he made clear what was the COMMOR destiny of the peoples of the Western World. The Third Congress of the American Republics gave Mr. Root his opportunity. He took full advantage of it, and did much to remove the unhappy impression that the United States regarded herself as the overlord of the less powerful States in the South. Yet though ho preached Pan-Americanism as essentially a peace movement, all his eloquence and all the com- pelling honesty of his character could not effect what has been done by three years of war. One may say that Pan-Germanism has done more to make Pan-Americanism a living force for peace than all the efforts of statesmen during the previous ten years. Latin America sees now that the two Americas, the Anglo-Saxon and the Latin, must stand side by side if the freedom of the new world is to be won. The Americas may no longer remain aloof from the family of European democracies.
Mr. Root's main purpose, which he emphasized wherever lie went, was to restate the Monroe Doctrine in terms which would make it clear that the United States was no intrusive stepmother, but the big and friendly sister of the independent State% in the South. He reminded the rather jealous Latin statesmen, his hosts, that the famous Doctrine was put forward at the moment when the United States recognized the independence of Argentina. It was the formal guarantee of that independence and of all the Latin Republics. The doctrine of " America for the Americans " was, said he, a formula which meant the final consecration of the American nations :- " It was the voice of the moat powerful of them all, proclaiming to the world that conquest in the domain of this America was at an end ; it was a notification to the conquering Powers of Europe that they should not extend themaelves to these continents because • (1) Latin America sad the United Stale. I: Addresses by Elides Rea. Collected M Edited by Hobert Bacon and John Brown Scott. London: Itomplirey Milford. rd. art-1-12) A IVariel in Fermat. By lilcholee Murray Butler. flow
York : Seritmer's Sons. this extensive territory was all occupied by free nations, outside of whose sovereignty not an inch was vacant. . The Monroe Doctrine exists to-day with all the force of a law of nations, and no country of Europe has dared to dispute it."
This declaration was made before the Chamber of Deputies in Buenos Aires on the most appropriate date of July 4th, 1906, the anniversary of the United States' own Declaration of Independence. A little later, on July 31st, he delivered at Rio de Janeiro the Root Doctrine of the relations between the United States and her sister-Republics :— " We wish for no victories but those of peace ; for no territory except our own ; for no sovereignty except the sovereignty over ourselves. We deem the independence and equal rights of the smallest and weakest member of the family of nations entitled to as much respect as those of the greatest Empire, and we deem the observance of that respect the chief guarantee of the weak against the oppression of the strong. We neither claim-nor desire any rights or privileges or powers that we do not freely concede to every American Republic."
These words, spoken eleven years ago, might have been spoken yester- day,so fresh is their spirit, and so exactly do they express the cause for which the United States, side by side with the free nations of Europe, is fighting to-day. They define precisely the cause for which Britain sprang to arms on August 4th, 1014, and for which she and her sister-nations of the British Empire will fight to the end. " We deem the independence and equal rights of the smallest and weakest member of the family of nations entitled to as much respect as those of the greatest Empire "—even of Germany.
Mr. Roosevelt, who was then President, accepted these words of Mr. Root as a definition of his own policy. In his Message to Congress of December 3rd, 1906, he quoted them and said : They have my hearty approval, as I am sure they will have yours, and I cannot be wrong in the conviction that they correctly represent the sentiments of the whole of the American people." The most formidable barrier to good relations between the United States and Latin America was the suspicion that the Northern Republic claimed some kind of protectorate over the Republica of the South. This impression was so widespread, and operated so adversely against the introduction of American capital and American trade in the South, that Mr. Elihu Root went himself when Secretary of State to dispel it: Ho did much to place the relations of North and South on the basis of mutual support and common interests, and paved the way for what is now beconiing a defensive alliance against the German enemy. The German system of "peaceful penetration," of a network of spies, of ruthless selfishness, of every mean intrigue against Latin America, has brought within sight a definite Pan-American Entente. But though Germany has, as usual, been her own worst enemy, we must not forget that the invaluable spadework of Mr. Root more than ton years ago was, to no small extent, the cause of the present harvest of goodwill and friendship between the two Americas. This book is one to be read and to be kept for reference. It contains in the speeches of Mr. Root and in those of his South American hosts the distilled essence of that Pan-American sentiment which will be one of the greatest of peace-compelling forces in the future.
The President of Columbia University,' Dr. Murray Butler, has issued a series of addresses delivered during the course of the war to American audiences. One realizes while reading them " how imperfectly," in the author's words, " even from the very beginning, neutrality reflected the actual relations of the war to the present and future of the people of the United States." One realises why President Wilson, himself of a type of mind similar to that of Dr. Butler, could not range America definitely on the side of the Allies until two and a half years had passed. He could not in a shorter time make a hundred millions of people see, as they now do ahnost as one man, that their tradition of detachment from world-politics must give place to a wider conception of world- citizenship. Dr. Butler's thesis, which he emphasized again and again as the war unfolded its horrors before the eyes of the American people, was that the conflict raging in Europe was no ordinary war. It was a conflict of ideas in which America was as vitally interested as was Europe. Although, as he says, no American during the first two years of the war was quite free to speak his mind in public—without constantly having regard to the official attitude of the United States Government—it is easy to read between the lines of his addresses that his feelings at the beginning were those which he felt at liberty to express on February 6th, 1917, before the General Assembly of Columbia University :-
" Let no one say that, if the President asks us for service, he is dragging us into a European war and into conflicts as to national ambition and national policy that are no concern of ours. Nothing could be further from the fact. There was no European war after the fateful hour on the morning of August 4th, 1914, when enemy troops crossed the lines of unoffending, innocent, peace- loving Belgium. At that moment this contest was lifted out of the area of a military struggle between dynasties and commercial systems and ideas of government, and became a great epoch-making world struggle as to whether public law and public right were or were not to be held superior to military neceneity and to military ambition. That event made this war an American war, a South American war, a Chinese war, a Spanish war. an African war, a war on every man and every woman who hopes to live in freedom, in liberty, and in peaceful progress."
There we have clearly set forth the issue for which America is now fighting, and for which splendid American youth is gladly leaving pleasant halls of learning such as Columbia University and is about to pour out its blood in Europe. Every American who is worthy of his country now knows that there can be no freedom for any man or woman in the world until this war has been fought out.
And of the issue ? Dr. Butler has no doubts :-
"Several times," he told the Commercial Club of Cincinnati on April 21st, " the history of this world has hung on the point of a spear. Each time the overruling Providence, which guides and makes history, has seen to it that the solution was toward the greater freedom, the greater progress, the greater liberty, the greater enfranchisement of man. . . . Time and time again, some- times on a narrow field, sometimes in a mountain pass, sometimes at a Gettysburg, men have been thrown against each other in larger or in smaller mass, and the stake of victory was the world's policy or the life of a nation."
Dr. Butler believes that the world's war will end in the world's peace, but he is careful to point out that peace needs more for its achievement than a military victory. " To regard peace as an end in itself, and as something to be achieved at all hazards, is in effect to labour for an indefinite continuance of war. The new world of which we are in search will insist upon justice, liberty, and righteousness as its foundation, and it will welcome durable peace as their accustomed companion and friend." This is a war of ideas—on the one side, the idea of justice, liberty, and the honour- able conduct of an orderly and humane society; on the other, the idea of world-domination regardless of individual or national justice, or liberty. There can be no peace until the idea of justice and liberty has won, not only upon the field of battle but in the hearts of mankind,
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