Essay On American Contribution and the Democratic Idea | Page 2

way,
diametrically different from that of Germany. In regard to our
protectorate in the island of San Domingo, our "semi-protectorate" in
Nicaragua, the same argument of intention may fairly be urged.
Germany, who desired them, would have exploited them. To a certain
extent, no doubt, as a result of the momentum of commercial
imperialism, we are still exploiting them. But the attitude of the
majority of Americans toward more backward peoples is not cynical;
hence there is hope that a democratic solution of the Caribbean and
Central American problem may be found. And we are not ready, as yet,
to accept without further experiment the dogma that tropical and
sub-tropical people will not ultimately be able to govern themselves. If
this eventually, prove to be the case at least some such experiment as
the new British Labour Party has proposed for the Empire may be tried.

Our general theory that the exploitation of foreign peoples reacts
unfavourably on the exploiters is undoubtedly sound.
Nor are the ethics of the manner of our acquisition of a part of Panama
and the Canal wholly defensible from the point of view of international
democracy. Yet it must be remembered that President Roosevelt was
dealing with a corrupt, irresponsible, and hostile government, and that
the Canal had become a necessity not only for our own development,
but for that of the civilization of the world.
The Spanish War, as has been said, marked a transition, a development
of the American Idea. In obedience to a growing perception that
dominion and exploitation are incompatible with and detrimental to our
system of government, we fought in good faith to gain
self-determination for an alien people. The only real peril confronting
democracy is the arrest of growth. Its true conquests are in the realms
of ideas, and hence it calls for a statesmanship which, while not
breaking with the past, while taking into account the inherent nature of
a people, is able to deal creatively with new situations--always under
the guidance of current social science.
Woodrow Wilson's Mexican policy, being a projection of the American
Idea to foreign affairs, a step toward international democracy, marks
the beginning of a new era. Though not wholly understood, though
opposed by a powerful minority of our citizens, it stirred the
consciousness of a national mission to which our people are invariably
ready to respond. Since it was essentially experimental, and therefore
not lacking in mistakes, there was ample opportunity for a criticism that
seemed at times extremely plausible. The old and tried method of
dealing with such anarchy as existed across our southern border was
made to seem the safe one; while the new, because it was untried, was
presented as disastrous. In reality, the reverse was the case.
Mr. Wilson's opponents were, generally speaking, the commercial
classes in the community, whose environment and training led them to
demand a foreign policy similar to that of other great powers, a
financial imperialism which is the logical counterpart in foreign affairs
of the commercial exploitation of domestic national resources and
domestic labour. These were the classes which combated the growth of
democracy at home, in national and state politics. From their point of
view--not that of the larger vision--they were consistent. On the other

hand, the nation grasped the fact that to have one brand of democracy
at home and another for dealing with foreign nations was not only
illogical but, in the long run, would be suicidal to the Republic. And the
people at large were committed to democratic progress at home. They
were struggling for it.
One of the most important issues of the American liberal movement
early in this century had been that for the conservation of what remains
of our natural resources of coal and metals and oil and timber and
waterpower for the benefit of all the people, on the theory that these are
the property of the people. But if the natural resources of this country
belong to the people of the United States, those of Mexico belong to the
people of Mexico. It makes no difference how "lazy," ignorant, and
indifferent to their own interests the Mexicans at present may be. And
even more important in these liberal campaigns was the issue of the
conservation of human resources--men and women and children who
are forced by necessity to labour. These must be protected in health,
given economic freedom and a just reward for their toil. The American
democracy, committed to the principle of the conservation of domestic
natural and human resources, could not without detriment to itself
persist in a foreign policy that ignored them. For many years our own
government had permitted the squandering of these resources by
adventurous capitalists; and gradually, as we became a rich industrial
nation, these capitalists sought profitable investments for