Pan-Americanism: its beginnings

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I Meaning of Pan- Americanism 1

II Formation op New States 36

CHAPTER I MEANING OF PAN-AMEtRICANISM

It is obviously desirable to know what Pan-Americanism means, before an attempt is made to discover its beginnings. The term itself is new. It is one of an increasing number of similar compounds which have come to be widely used since the middle of the last century. Modem tongues are indebted to the ancient Greek for the prefix and for models of its use with national names. Pan-Hellenes, for example, signified the united Greeks; Pan-Ionian was used to describe whatever pertained to all the lonians ; and the Panathenaea was the national festival of Athens, held to celebrate the union of Attica under Theseus. Of the modem combinations Pan-Slavism and Pan- Slavist were the first to gain currency. The movement for the union of all the Slavonic peoples in one political organization originated in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, and somewhat later began to be described as Panslavism. Jowett used Panslavismus in 1846 ; ^ and in 1850 Longfellow, in making an entry in his journal, defined the term as " the union of all the Slavonic tribes under one head, and that head Eussia." ^ About 1860 the movement for the political union of all the Greeks began to be called Pan-Hellenism. Then followed Pan-Germanism, Pan-Islamism, Pan-Celticism, and so on, with an ever increasing number of movements designated by similar compounds.

1 Life and Letters, 1, 156.

2 S. W. Longfellow, Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, II, 176.

2 PAJ^-AlIEEICAi^ISM: ITS BEGINNINGS

The term Pan-Americanism was first used in newspaper discussions relating to the International American Conference held at Washington in 1889-90. The New York Evening Post appears to have been the first to employ it.^ To the Post is also to be credited the first use of the adjective, Pan-American. This term was introduced into the columns of the Post in 1882,* during the agitation of Mr. Blaine's first proposal for a conference of American states at Washington. But it was little used until the conference convened in 1889, when, having been adopted by other leading dailies, it soon won universal acceptance.^ The substantive, Pan-Americanism, did not so quickly become current. Indeed, not until the last decade or two has it been widely employed. To-day it is encountered with ever increasing frequency. It is constantly recurring in newspapers and periodicals; and gradually it is also finding a place in works on international law and diplomacy.

The adjective, Pan-American, and the substantive, Pan-Americanism, were soon taken up and defined by the dictionaries; but the definitions are not satisfactory. The adjective is usually defined as including or pertaining to the whole of America, both North and South; which is inaccurate, as it pertains, by common usage, to the independent part of the continent only. The definitions of the substantive, though not subject to this criticism, are none the less inaccurate. Not only so, but they are widely divergent among themselves.

To become convinced of this requires but a glance at the definitions of some of the standard dictionaries. The New In-

4 June 27. Murray erroneously attributes its first appearance to the issue of the Evening Post of September 27, 1889.

5 The New York Sun used the term September 12, 1889; the London Times, September 30, 1889; the London Spectator January 29, 1890; Paul Leroy-Beaulieu in an article published in the Journal des Dehats on October 15, 1889, discussed the conference at length, but did not describe it as Pan-American. On December 28, 1889, however, L'Economiste Frangais, a weekly of which Leroy-Beaulieu was editor, admitted the word into its columns. The term Pan-American appears to have been introduced into the other American republics from the United States.

MEAN^IN^G OF PAll^-AMEKICANISM 3

ternational defines it as : " The principle or advocacy of a political alliance or union of all the states of America " ; The New Standard, as " The advocacy of a political union of the various states of the Western Hemisphere; also the life of the American people as represented in republican forms of government and tending toward such a union " ; Murray as " The idea or sentiment of a political alliance or union of all the states of North and South America " ; La Orande Encyclopedie as a " Political doctrine tending to group all the American states in a sort of federation under the hegemony of the United States " ; Nouveau Larousse as a " Doctrine according to which the people of European origin who have founded states in the New World aim to exclude other states from the exercise of sovereignty over them " ; and finally, the second supplement of the Diccionario Enciclopedico Hispano- Americano as the " Aspiration or tendency of the peoples of the New World to establish among themselves ties of union; to promote good understanding and fraternal harmony between all the states of the continent; and to act always in accord vdth a view to preventing the dominance or the influence of European powers in American territory."

The bringing of these set definitions into juxtaposition suggests some important questions. Is Pan- Americanism an advocacy, an idea, a sentiment, an aspiration, a tendency, a principle, or a doctrine ? Is it one, or all, or any number of these combined? Is it the life of the American people as represented in the republican form of government ? Does it aim to federate the American republics under the hegemony of the United States? If so, exactly vrhat is meant by hegemony? Is its only aim the exclusion of European powers from the further acquisition, of territory or from the exercise of sovereignty in the New World ? To raise these questions is to disclose the necessity of further inquiry.

That the formulation of a precise definition of Pan-Americanism would be attended with great difficulty is evident ; and little would be gained by attempting it. Our aim, therefore, will be rather to describe than to define. With this end in view, we shall endeavor to discover in the expressions of American statesmen and publicists the material for such a brief and exact description as will afford the reader an adequate conception of the meaning of the term. The views of James G. Blaine, the dominant figure in the Washington Conference which furnished the occasion for the adoption of the new name, may be considered first.

In an article on the foreign policy of the Garfield administration, which he published in the Chicago Weehly Magazine for September 16, 1882, Blaine set forth the ideas which he held at that time on the subject of the international relations of the American states. The foreign policy of the Garfield administration, he said, had two principal objects in view: " First to bring about peace and prevent future wars in North and South America; second, to cultivate such friendly commercial relations with all American countries as would lead to a large increase in the export trade of the United States by supplying those fabrics in which we are abundantly able to compete with the manufacturing nations of Europe." In order to attain the second object it was necessary, Blaine declared, to accomplish the first. " Instead of friendly intervention here and there — patching up a treaty between two countries to-day, securing a truce between two others to-morrow — it was apparent . . . that a more comprehensive plan should be adopted, if wars were to cease in the Western Hemisphere." In short, Pan-Americanism, as Blaine conceived it in 1882, was expressed in two words, peace and commerce, attained by means of the friendly counsel and cooperation of all the American states and redounding equally to the benefit of all.

Seven years later, in his address of welcome to the delegates to the International American Conference, he set forth his views with greater fullness. He said :

" The delegates I am addressing can do much to establish permanent relations of confidence, respect, and friendship between the nations which they represent. They can show to the world an honorable, peaceful conference of eighteen independent American powers, in which all shall meet together on tenns of absolute equality; a conference in Which there can be no attempt to coerce a single delegate against his own conception of the interests of his nation ; a conference which will permit no secret understanding on any subject, but will frankly publish to the world all its conclusions; a conference which will tolerate no spirit of conquest but will aim to cultivate an American sympathy as broad as both continents, a conference which will form no selfish alliance against the older nations from which we are proud to claim inheritance — a conference, in fine, which will seek nothing, propose nothing, endure nothing that is not, in the general sense of the delegates, timely and wise and peaceful.

" And yet we cannot be expected to forget that our common fate has made us inhabitants of the two continents which, at the close of four centuries, are still regarded beyond the seas as the New World. Like situations beget like sympathies and impose like duties. We meet in firm belief that the nations of America ought to be and can be more helpful, each to the other, than they now are, and that each will find advantage and profit from an enlarged intercourse with the others.

" We believe that we should be drawn together more closely by the highways of the sea, and that at no distant day the railway systems of the North and South will meet upon the Isthmus and connect by land routes the political and commercial capitals of all America.

" We believe that hearty cooperation, based on hearty confidence, will save all American states from the burdens and evils which have long and cruelly afilicted the older nations of the world.

" We believe that a spirit of justice, of common and equal interest between the American states, will leave no room for an

6 PAi^-AMERICANISM: ITS BEGIl^NINGS

artificial balance of power like unto that wliicli lias led to wars abroad and drenched Europe in blood.

" We believe that friendship, avowed with candor and maintained with good faith, will remove from American states the necessity of guarding boundary lines between themselves with fortifications and military force.

" We believe that standing armies, beyond those which are needful for public order and the safety of internal administration, should be unknown on both American continents.

" We believe that friendship and not force, the spirit of just law and not violence of the mob, should be the recognized rule of administration between American nations and in American nations." ^ ,

Permanent relations of confidence, respect, and friendship; equality; no coercion; no secret understandings; no conquest; no selfish alliance against the older nations from which we are sprung; no balance of power; no threatening armies; mutual helpfulness; commerce; the spirit of just law as the rule of administration between American nations and in American nations — this was Blaine's later conception of the guiding principles of Pan-Americanism. And with this conception the statesmen and publicists of all the American republics have been subsequently in substantial agreement.

President Eoosevelt, in his instructions to the United States delegates to the second International American Conference, which met at Mexico City in October, 1901, declared among other things, that " The chief interest of the United States in relation to the other republics upon the American continent is the safety and permanence of the political system which underlies their and our existence as nations — the system of self-government by the people. It is, therefore, to be desired that all the American republics should enjoy in full measure the blessings of perfect freedom under just laws, each sovereign

International American Conference (1889-90), I, 40-42,

MEANING OF PAN-AMEKICANISM 7

community pursuing its own course of orderly development without external restraint or interference.

" Nothing/' he added, " is of greater importance from a political point of view than that the United States should be understood to be the friend of all the Latin-American republics and the enemy of none. To this end it will be prudent to propose nothing radical, to favor a free expression of views among the delegates of the other powers, and to favor and support only such measures as have the weight of general acceptance and clearly tend to promote the common good." '^

When the third International Conference met at Rio de Janeiro m 1906, Roosevelt still being President, the United States delegates were provided with a copy of the instructions of 1901, by which they were to be guided, as a review of those instructions indicated no occasion for changing them except in some minor details. The delegates, however, were reminded by Mr. Root, who was then Secretary of State, that " The true function of such a conference is to deal with matters of common interest which are not really subjects of controversy, but upon which comparison of views and friendly discussions may smooth away differences of detail, develop substantial agreement, and lead to cooperation along common lines for the attainment of objects which all really desire." And he added that the least of the benefits anticipated from the conference would be " the establishment of agreeable personal relations, the removal of misconceptions and prejudices, and the habit of temperate and kindly discussion among the representatives of so many republics." ^

It was during the summer of 1906 that Mr. Root made his celebrated visit to South America. Though not a delegate to the conference at Rio, he was present for a few days during its progress. On July 31 he made a speech at an extraordinary

Tint. Am. Oonf. (1902), report of the U. S. delegates, 31, 32. sint. Am. Conf. (1906), report of the U. S. delegates, 39, 40.

8 PAK-AMERICANISM: ITS BEGHsTNINGS

session of the conference, in which he made the following declaration which has often been quoted :

" 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 deem the observance of that respect the chief guaranty 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. We wish to increase our prosperity, to expand our trade, to grow in wealth, in wisdom, and in spirit, but our conception of the true way to accomplish this is not to pull down others and profit by their ruin, but to help all friends to a common prosperity and a common growth, that we may all become greater and stronger together." ^

In his message of December Y, 1915, President Wilson, declaring that we had been put to the test in the case of Mexico, and that we had stood the test, characterized Pan-Americanis as follows:

" The moral is, that the states of America are not hostile rivals but cooperating friends, and that their growing sense of community of interest, alike in matters political and in matters economic, is likely to give them a new significance as factors in international affairs and in the political history of the world. It presents them as in a very deep and true sense a unit in !| world affairs, spiritual partners, standing together because thinking together, quick with common sympathies and common ideals. Separated, they are subject to all the cross-currents of the confused politics of a world of hostile rivalries ; united in spirit and purpose, they cannot be disappointed of their peaceful destiny. This is Pan-Americanism. It has none of the spirit of empire in it. It is the embodiment, the effectual em-

9 Root, Latin America and the United States, Addresses, 10.

bodiment, of the spirit of law and independence and liberty and mutual service." ^"

Before the second Pan-American Scientific Congress, which met at Washington in the latter part of 1915, Mr. Lansing, Secretary of State, made an address in which he expressed at some length his views on the subject of Pan- Americanism. According to him, " there has grown up a feeling that the republics of this hemisphere constitute a group separate and apart from the other nations of the world." . . . This feeling, he said, we term " the Pan-American spirit," and from it springs the " international policy of Pan- Americanism." Continuing, he declared : " If I have correctly interpreted Pan- Americanism from the standpoint of the relations of our governments withj those beyond the seas, it is in entire harmony with the Monroe j Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine is a national policy of the; United States; Pan-Americanism is an international policy of, the Americas. The motives are to an extent different ; the ends sought are the same. Both can exist and, I trust, will ever exist in all their vigor. . . . Pan- Americanism is an expression of the idea of internationalism. America has become the guardian of that idea, which will in the end rule the world. Pan-Americanism is the most advanced as well as the most practical form of that idea. It has been made possible because of our geographical isolation, of our similar political institutions, and of our common conception of human rights." ^^

In a speech delivered before the Pan-American Financial Conference, which also met at Washington in 1915, Mr. John Bassett Moore declared that the idea of America's being not simply a geographical term, but a term representing a community of interests, has existed so long that there is a fair presumption that it is not a term that misleads us, but a term that is thoroughly and persistently leading us in the right direction. Continuing, he said : " The word ' America,' be-

10 Scott, President Wilson's Foreign Policy, 129.

11 World Peace Foundation, Pamphlet Series, VI, 99-101.

10 PAK-AMEEICANISM: ITS BEGHsTNmGS

ginning with the early part of the last century, during the struggles of our neighbors for independence, represented the idea of a community of political interests, in which, as Henry Clay said, we should be regarded as standing together for the establishment of a human freedom league; and this idea has gradually advanced until to-day we are undertaking to establish a community of interests with regard to all our activities. . . . Identity of political interests we have had for many years. We now proceed to make the circuit complete by establishing the identity of our material interests on the broad basis of justice, contentment, and good-fellowship." ^^

In the introduction to his " Principles of American Diplomacy," Mr. Moore makes the following important statement :

" The idea of Pan- Americanism is obviously derived from the conception that there is such a thing as an American system; that this system is based upon distinctive interests which the American countries have in common ; and that it is independent of and different from the European system. To the extent to which Europe should become implicated in American politics, or to which American countries should become implicated in European politics, this distinction would necessarily be broken down, and the foundations of the American system would be impaired; and to the extent to which the foundations of the American system were impaired, Pan-Americanism would lose its vitality and the Monroe Doctrine its accustomed and tangible meaning." ^^

The views of representative men of the other republics of the continent must now be considered ; for Pan- Americanism is not what only one of the American family of nations may conceive it to be. It is what the common opinion and the common action of all the states concerned make it.

The government of Peru, in replying to the invitation of the United States to take part in the first International American

12 Proceedings of the First Pan-American Financial Congress, 481.

13 Moore, John Bassett, Principles of American Diplomacy, X.

Conference at Washington, declared that the idea of increasing and strengthening the bonds which connect the American nations with each other, and in this way improving for the common good the opportunities afforded by their geographical position, and affording the union which nature itself created when it filled this continent with a galaxy of free, independent, vigorous, and youthful nations, was necessarily hailed by the government of Peru with feelings of sympathy and good will.^* In the addresses made by the Hispanic- American delegates in the conference there also occur many expressions of a similar nature. It was not until some time later, however, that anything approximating a definition of Pan- Americanism was set forth by leading men of the Latin republics.

In a report which the Argentine delegation made to the second International American Conference, it was declared:

" In order that Pan- Americanism be not ... a mere thesis under discussion, and that the recommendations and the professions of principles may not remain idle words, it is necessary to descend from abstract heights, to conform ourself to the spirit of modern times, and to map out the great lines of a positive policy, inspired in justice, in equality, in territorial integrity, and in commercial relations, founded upon a competition open to all." ^^

A few months before the meeting of the third International American Conference at Eio de Janeiro, in 1906, a special session of the American Academy of Political and Social Science was held at Philadelphia in honor of Senor don Joaquin D. Casasus, Mexican ambassador at Washington. The subject for discussion was the Pan-American conferences and their significance. Speaking of the tendency of nations, as time elapses, to meet more frequently in conferences and congresses for the purpose of avoiding conflicts, dissipating prejudices, reestablishing

1)5 Informe que la Delegacidn Argentina Presenta a la Segunda Conferencia Pan-Americana, 3.

peace, and for other similar purposes, Senor Casasus declared that the labors of the Pan- American Conferences were for concord and peace; that they did not seek, like the Congress of Laibach or that of Vienna, to restore a form of government and authorize a nation to reconquer her colonies; that they were not inspired, as was the Congress of Panama, with the necessity of uniting the persecuted to resist the attacks of a common aggressor; but that they sought rather the union of all in common effort, and the establishment of a basis of peace by means of the amicable solution of international conflicts.^®

In an address which he made upon his election as permanent president of the third International American Conference, Senhor Nabuco, for many years Brazilian ambassador to the United States, declared that the aim of the conferences was intended to be the creation of an American opinion and of an American public spirit. He believed that they should never aim at forcing the opinion of a single one of the nations taking part in them ; that in no case should they intervene collectively in the affairs or interests that the various nations might wish to reserve for their own exclusive deliberation. " To us," he said, " it seems that the great object of these conferences should be to express collectively what is already understood to be unanimous, to unite, in the interval, between one and another what may already have completely ripened in the opinion of the continent, and to impart to it the power resulting from an accord amongst all American nations." ^'^

Two years later Senhor Nabuco declared on the occasion of the laying of the corner stone of the building of the Pan- American Union at Washington, that there had never been a parallel for the sight which that ceremony presented — " that of twenty-one nations, of different languages, building together a house for their common deliberations." Continuing, he said :

i« " Proceedings of Special Session of the Am. Acad, of Pol. and Soc. Science, February 24, 1906, 7.

17 /»^ Am. Conf. (1906), report of the delegates of the U. S., 57.

" The more impressive is the scene as these countries, with all possible differences between them in size and population, have established their union on the basis of the most absolute equality. Here the vote of the smallest balances the vote of the greatest. So many sovereign states would not have been drawn so spontaneously and so strongly together, as if by irresistible force, if there did not exist throughout them, at the bottom or at the top of each national conscience, the feeling of a destiny common to all America." ^^

At the opening session of the third International American Conference, the Brazilian statesman. Baron de Rio Branco, in adverting to the fact that the meeting of the conference might, perhaps, give rise to the suspicion that an international league against interests not represented was being formed, declared: "It is necessary therefore to affirm that, formally or implicitly, all interests will be respected by us ; that in the discussions of political and commercial subjects submitted for consideration to the conference it is not our intention to work against anybody, and that our sole aim is to bring about a closer union among American nations, to provide for their well-being and rapid progress ; and the accomplishment of these objects can only be of advantage to Europe and the rest of the world." ^^

At the special session of the third International American Conference held in honor of Mr. Root, to which reference has been made above, Senor Comejo, a delegate for Peru, made in the course of a short address the following remarks:

" These congresses, gentlemen, are the symbol of that solidarity which, notwithstanding the ephemeral passions of men, constitutes, by the invincible force of circumstances, the essence of our continental system. They were conceived by the organizing genius of the statesmen of Washington in order that the American sentiment of patriotism might be therein exalted,

18 Pan-American Union Bulletin, May, 1908.

19 /w*. Am. Con. (1906), report of the delegates of the U, S., 56,

14 PAI^-AMEEICA]^ISM: ITS BEGIlSrtTINGS

freeing it from that national egotism which may be justified in the difficult moments of the formation of states, but which would be to-day an impediment to the development of the American idea, destined to demonstrate that just as the democratic principle has been to combine liberty and order in the constitution of states, it will likewise combine the self-government of the nations and fraternity in the relations of the peoples." ^^

On the occasion of Mr. Root's visit to Uruguay, the president, Senor Battle y Ordonez, said in the course of an address that America will be the continent of a just peace, founded on the respect for the rights of all nations, a respect as great for the weakest nations as for the most vast and most powerful empires. A Pan-American public opinion would be created and made effective, he thought, by systematizing international conduct with a view to suppressing injustice, and to establishing amongst the nations ever more and more profoundly cordial relations. Continuing, he declared that the Pan-American conferences were destined to become a modem Amphictyon to whose decisions all the great American questions would be submitted.

Dr. Luis M. Drago, the well-known Argentine publicist, author of the Drago doctrine, speaking on the occasion of Mr. Root's visit to Buenos Aires, said:

" Enlightened patriotism has understood at last that in this I continent, with its immense riches and vast, unexplored exten- Isions, power and wealth are not to be looked for in conquest and displacement, but in collaboration and solidarity, which 'will people the wilderness and give the soil to the plow. It has understood, however, that America, by reason of the nationalities of which it is composed, of the nature of the representative institutions Which they have adopted, by the very character of their peoples, separated as they have been from the conflicts and complications of European governments, and even by the gravitation of peculiar circumstances and wants, 20 Root, Latin America and the U. 8., Addresses, 12.

has been constituted a separate political factor, a new and vast theater for the development of the human race, which will serve as a counterpoise to the great civilizations of the other hemisphere, and so maintain the equilibrium of the world." ^^

In 1910, at the opening session of the fourth International American Conference, the Argentine Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. V. de la Plaza, said :

" It had come to be the inveterate custom of the powers to deliberate among themselves on the destinies of incipient and weai: nations, as if dealing with states or sovereignties possessing neither voice nor weight in the control and development of the rules, principles, and declarations inherent in human societies, recognized as independent and sovereign in their international relations. This condition of precarious autonomy and liberty of action, and the constant danger of being subjugated or of suffering the mutilation of their territory, would have continued among these weak states but for the wise and famous declaration of President Monroe, to which we ought to render due homage; and but for the constant action of other continental powers of somew'hat greater strength in the defense of their territory and sovereignties as well as their declared intention to cooperate for the protection of those states which were endowed with less strength and fewer means of selfdefense." ^^

The foregoing statements made by responsible men in public life in the Hispanic American republics may be fairly considered as representative of the best thought in that section of the continent. It is not to be inferred, however, that unanimity of opinion exists. On the contrary there is much diversity and not a few writers of more or less note, and occasionally men in public life advocate a closer union of the Hispanic states for the purpose of resisting the threatening (as they believe) encroachments of the United States. These views