The United States as a world power

Preface

No one can be more conscious than the author of this volume how far it is from carrying out the too ambitious promise of its title. Its subject — the United States as a World Power — could well be treated in many different ways. One writer might recount the growth of the country from its earliest infancy to its present stature ; to another its economic position in the world to-day might r> be of surpassing interest ; a third might care only for the 2 spiritual influence of the United States, the spread of ^ American ideals of liberty, government and civilization, vd and the changes those same ideals are now undergoing. T. The scope of the present work is more modest. It is a I study of the part which the United States plays in the great drama of world politics — a part which cannot help being important and which, although impossible to t prophesy about in detail, yet is affected by circumstances of geography and of national character, of history and of tradition, of economic and of social conditions susceptible of investigation. *•""

This book was originally prepared in the form of lectures which were delivered at the So^bonne in the winter of 1906-07 as the Harvard lectures on the Hyde foundation. Since then it has been entirely recast, but it doubtless still retains traces of having been first addressed to a foreign audience, the more so as I have striven to preserve a neutral rather then a specifically American attitude. I have not felt called upon to offer a solution to all the vi PREFACE

problems to which I have referred or to volunteer my opinion on every disputed question. For my last chapter I wish to make special acknowledgment to my friend Louis Aubert of Paris, whose interesting recent work, Americams et Japonais, I have found most helpful, besides being reminded by it of many pleasant discussions we have had together.

A volume covering so broad a field and one so full of controversial matter as the United States as a World Power, is exposed at every point to charges of superficiality and partisanship. No book of the kind could satisfy every one or perhaps any one in all its details. I can only ask that mine may be judged as a whole rather than praised or blamed on the strength of detached passages. As most of the facts cited are well known or easy to look up, copious reference to authorities has seemed

needless.

A. C. C.

Harvard University, May, 1908.

Contents

PASS

CHAPTER

I. Formation and Growth 16

Introduction

TWENTY years ago the expression "world power" was unknown in most languages; to-day it is a political commonplace, bandied about in wide discussion. But the term is lacking in exactness. Men differ as to its meaning, as to the countries to which it can properly be applied, and as to the moment when it first becomes applicable to them. Sometimes it seems to be appropriately used of a country in one connection, but not in another; and in a certain sense it may be applied to nearly all independent states, for all may be called upon to maintain their particular rights and interests in any quarter of the globe, and all may take part in framing regulations for the general welfare of mankind. And yet, uncertain as the limits of the phrase may be, it conveys a pretty definite conception, — a conception that is of recent origin, although there is nothing new in the political sentiments to which it owes its birth.

The idea that one people should control the known world is ancient enough, its most salient expression being found in imperial Rome and equally imperial China ; and it is not extinct even now. We may to-day condemn all mere lust of domination, and hope that, as civilization progresses, the stronger peoples will more and more regard the weaker ones as having rights as sacred as their own; but complete equality has never existed, and can never exist, between

B 1 states of greatly unequal strength. In practice the larger must tend to arrange many matters without consulting every wish of their numerous smaller brethren. The community of nations cannot content itself with anarchy like that of the Polish republic, and submit to the liberum veto of its most insignificant member. As there have been in the past, so there will always be, certain leading states which, when they are agreed, will find some way of imposing their decisions upon the rest, and by their mutual jealousies will tend to establish a balance of power among themselves.

Without stopping to trace the working of these principles in earlier days, we note that, by the close of the fifteenth century, certain states had assumed a position which entitles them to the modern designation of " great European powers." The Holy Roman Empire, still first in dignity; France, after she had recovered from the Hundred Years' War and had broken the might of her great feudal nobles ; England, in the firm hand of Henry VII ; the newly formed kingdom of Spain, which had finally ended Moorish rule in the peninsula, — all these held a position unlike that of their neighbors. The difference between them and such powers as Denmark, the Swiss Confederation, and Venice was one of rank as well as of strength. Politically they were on another plane : they were not merely the leaders, they were the spokesmen, the directors, of the whole community.

As time went on, changes took place in their membership. In the course of the sixteenth century, when the Empire became so dislocated that it was hardly a power at all, its place was taken by Austria, a strangely conglomerate formation, which protected the eastern frontier of Christendom against the Turks. Spain was for a while a real world power, overshadowing all the others, dominant in Europe, supreme in America, and dreaded even in remote Japan.

The seventeenth century witnessed the decline of Spain, the primacy of France, and the temporary rise of Sweden and the Netherlands ; but the greatness of these last rested on too small a material foundation to support it after the countries themselves had outlived their heroic period. The eighteenth century saw them subside into relative insignificance, and in their stead two newcomers step to the forefront of European affairs. The huge semi-Asiatic empire of Russia was now, by the genius of Peter the Great, transformed into the outward semblance of a European state; and the little military kingdom of Prussia, the representative of Northern Germany, won for itself a position which its resources hardly warranted, but which, thanks to the extraordinary ability of its rulers and the sense of discipline of its people, it succeeded in maintaining.

After the violent episode of the French Revolution and the .Napoleonic wars, the European continent settled down to what seemed to be a stable organization with five great powers, — Russia, England, Austria, Prussia, and France, for the skill of Talleyrand at Vienna prevented France from being even temporarily excluded after her disasters. The Ottoman Empire was still, in spite of Metternich, held to be not quite European ; and the weaker countries were consulted but little on general questions. It was not the formal meetings of all the representatives of the nations assembled that decided the affairs of Europe at the Congress of Vienna in 1814: it was a small committee of the leading states. What they, after much wrangling, agreed upon among themselves, the others had to accept.

This arrangement lasted for two generations, although the relative positions of the several states changed not a little. In the seventies, the German Empire, with a mighty development, inherited the international place formerly held by the Prussian kingdom, and a new member was added to the oligarchy by the formation of United Italy.

Since then there have been six great European powers instead of five. This does not mean that they are equal in size and strength : there is, for instance, less difference between Italy, which is recognized as a great power, and Spain or the Ottoman Empire, which technically is not, than between Italy and Germany or Russia ; but the line, however artificial, has been clearly drawn by political usage.

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century a new situation, with a far wider horizon, gradually attracted the attention of writers and statesmen. Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, and Holland had long owned extensive territories in many climes ; but the last three countries had ceased to be of the first rank. Although their distant holdings undoubtedly added to their importance in the world, they could not make up for their weakness at home. As for France, she had formerly had the beginnings of a magnificent empire ; but she had sacrificed it in the pursuit of purely European aims, now recognized as of less consequence than what she gave up for them. Even England, who during the eighteenth century so successfully subordinated her continental interests to her colonial ones, had a moment of uncertainty after the loss of most of her American possessions, and for a time the theory prevailed in the mother country that her colonies must eventually fall away from her as ripe fruit falls from a tree (this was the simile usually employed). Nevertheless, the gigantic British Empire continued to grow steadily, but as a result of natural causes rather than of fixed purpose.

Suddenly, almost without warning, the nations entered upon a wild scramble for land wherever it was not strongly held or protected by competing interests. The conquests of Alexander the Great or of the caliphs did not equal in territorial magnitude the changes which the last twenty years have witnessed. The circumstances, the pretexts, the excuses, have differed in the case of each state which has taken part in the movement of expansion; but the fundamental reasons have been the same. Each country has honestly felt a certain reluctance, and has been convinced with truth that its hand has been forced by others; but each has also realized that, unless it were content to let itself be forestalled by its rivals, there was need cf haste. Hence the frantic hurry with which many of the annexations have been made. Hence, too, the indiscriminate seizure of regions which were of no immediate value, but which might be of profit some day, — a practice that Lord Rosebery has aptly called "pegging out claims for the future."

In England, the imperial idea of Greater Britain, of which Beaconsfield was one of the first practical exponents, displaced the laissez-faire theories of the school of Cobden, and the empire was extended almost from year to year. France, who had with timid steps begun again in Algeria and* Cochin China the building up of a new colonial dominion, now, in spite of popular indifference, not to say opposition, rapidly added to her store in Indo-China and in various parts of Africa until, thanks to the energy of Jules Ferry and a few others, her colonies surpassed in extent those which she had lost in earlier days. Germany, becoming aware that, despite her military power and her industrial development, she held but a small spot on the surface of the globe, eagerly began to clutch at new lands wherever there seemed to be a chance of seizing them, although Bismarck, representing the ideas of an older generation, was never more than lukewarm in the cause. Italy decided that she also had need of colonies, and made a beginning on the African coast. The King of the Belgians acquired for his subjects a lien on the Congo Free State. Portugal, baulked in part by the rival ambition of England, tried, too late, to turn many vague claims into real possessions.

Though this fever of rapid expansion affected nearly all the states of Western Europe, it was not confined to them. During the greater part of the nineteenth century, Russia had been pushing southward into the regions of the Caucasus and Central Asia ; now, while preparing for further progress in the same directions, she turned her chief attention to the extreme east. Long before, she had reached the Pacific, and had even crossed it far to the north ; but she had never had more than a slight hold on these distant and desolate shores. After the middle of the nineteenth century, however, although she disposed of her American possessions, she so added to her domain in eastern Asia as to establish her power there on a new foundation; and a generation later, by the building up of her fleet, the gradual increase of immigration to Siberia, and the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway, she had revolutionized her position in the Far East. She who, at the time of the Crimean War, could muster but a few hundred soldiers in this whole part of the world, now became a menacing power in the Pacific, one that was for a while feared more than any other.

At the same time, to the astonishment of all, including herself, America suddenly accepted the role of a power holding distant colonies. Already her extraordinary economic progress was bringing her more and more to the front ; but, though the annexation of Hawaii could be foreseen, no one was prepared for that of Porto Rico and the Philippines, or for the real, if unexpressed, protectorate over Cuba and Panama. Still greater surprise was excited by Japan, who in her war with China in 1894 first gave evidence of her new ambitions, as well as of her ability to realize them, and in her conflict with Russia ten years later furnished even more decisive proof of their remarkable increase. What will be their limits is indeed one of the most important questions of international politics at the present day.

It was in course of the discussions provoked by this succession of startling events that political writers, in formulating the principles of the new state of affairs, began to employ an expression which has now passed into common use, — " world powers"; that is to say, powers which are directly interested in all parts of the world and whose voices must be listened to everywhere. The term is, as we have said, not scientifically exact; for each of the so-called world powers has spheres in which its interests are vitally important, and others in which they are comparatively small, if not inferior to those of less powerful states. Thus Russia can hardly claim to be consulted much about South American questions; and the United States takes no part as yet in a matter so strictly European as the settlement of the affairs of the Ottoman Empire. Nevertheless, both Russia and the United States are certainly world powers in the ordinary acceptance of the term. China, on the other hand, is not, although she is third in size among the states of the world, and has perhaps the largest, as well as the hardest-working, population. However great her potentialities may be, her actual military strength and political influence are not yet such as to entitle her to a place among the arbiters of mankind. This is truer still of Brazil and of the Argentine Republic, which, though they seem assured of more consideration some day, at present count for little in international affairs. Even Austria and Italy do not come under the new category : they are both great European powers in every sense of the term, and as such hold a proud position ; but in spite of their armies and their navies, their glories and their high civilization, they have little political influence outside of their own continent. In the case of Japan, the question may seem more doubtful; and if we should give a negative answer to-day, we might have to revise it to-morrow. Her prestige is very great. She has just emerged triumphant from a contest with an adversary of immense strength, during which she has astonished the world by her extraordinary progress and her wonderful display of national efficiency; she has allied herself with the British Empire under conditions which make it seem as if her aid had been sought for the protection of England's Indian frontier ; and she is regarded by many as threatening not only the colonial possessions of the United States in the Pacific, but even the whole western shores of the American continents. Be this as it may, since Japan takes no part in the affairs of Europe, western Asia, Africa, or most of America, she can hardly be called a world power, though she is without question one of the eight great powers of the world.

Turning now to those states whose claim to the title is beyond question, we find that they are five in number, and all ruled by peoples of European blood, but in two of them the dominant whites at home are outnumbered by the colored inhabitants of the colonies. Of the five, Russia is the only one which had already attained to something like its present dimensions by the beginning of the nineteenth century.

In order to show how these states compare with one another in certain fundamental respects, such as area and population, it may be well to give here a few round numbers, and, without going into an analysis of these figures or a study of their values, to distinguish between the white population and the colored. Unscientific and misleading as this process may be, it is in many ways indispensable for our purpose ; for without venturing into the vexed questions of the relative superiority or inferiority of different races and their capabilities of development, we must recognize that at the present day, at least, all races are not of equal political value. A single Annamite or Sudanese may be worth more to France in every respect than a particular Parisian or Marseillais; but ten million Frenchmen in France mean something very different from ten million French subjects in Asia or Africa. Again, we should also bear in mind the difference between tropical and non-tropical territories. The white races have not succeeded in getting acclimatized in the tropics, and, except in a few favored spots, there is no immediate prospect of their doing so. Though white men in the prime of life can dwell almost anywhere as officials, soldiers, merchants, or employers of labor, white colonization on a large scale is, in general, possible in the temperate zone only. Finally, we must not forget that all the great empires of to-day contain large tracts of bad land, either wilderness or desert. Northern Canada and northern Siberia, central Australia and central Asia, the arid West in the United States and southwest Africa, are not without value, — they have their comparatively fertile districts, and are in places rich in minerals, — but all contain vast stretches which add little, except on the map, to the importance of their owners. With these considerations in view, let us look at the statistics.

Of the five world powers, the British Empire stands easily first in area, and still more so in population, for in numbers it exceeds any two of its rivals. It extends over nearly eleven and a half million square miles, situated in every part of the globe, and has some four hundred million inhabitants. 1 Of these, however, less than sixty million are whites, of whom some forty-three and a half million live in the home country, most of the rest in Canada, Australia, and South Africa. The ruling white race is thus to the subject colored race in the dangerous ratio of hardly more than one to six ; but the whites are in the main homogeneous, although the Irish, the French in Canada, and the Dutch in South Africa form somewhat discordant

1 Not including Egypt and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, together about eleven hundred and fifty thousand square miles, with twelve million inhabitants.

elements. The colored population, on the other hand, is made up of an endless variety of races and nationalities, — ■ black, yellow, and all shades of brown, — far apart from one another in almost every respect. The great majority of them live in the tropics. As the mother country is by no means self-supporting in the matter of food, it is easy to understand why Englishmen feel that, although they do not need a large army, the possession of the most powerful navy in the world, one that will assure the safety of their communications, is for them a matter of life and death.

Russia comes next in size, with a territory of a little less than eight and a half million square miles. 1 In contrast to the widely scattered British empire, the Russian is absolutely compact, with no outlying possessions, almost no islands of importance, and much general sameness in climate and conditions. Of its one hundred and fifty million inhabitants, about one hundred and twenty-five million are of Aryan or Semitic stock, — a larger white population than that of any other country; but although the whites are five times as numerous as the Asiatics, one race here melts into the other to an extent unknown elsewhere. The European element, besides being backward as a whole, contains several discontented nationalities, which, resisting absorption into the general mass, are in many ways a source of weakness rather than of strength. Even the purely Russian element is divided into three distinct branches. Russia's natural increase by the surplus of births over deaths is more than two million a year. Her undeveloped resources at home are indeed immense ; but she is still poor, and by recent events she has lost temporarily in political influence. She has no territory in the tropics.

Third among world powers comes Greater France, with

1 Including Khiva and Bokhara, but not northern Manchuria.

an area of perhaps four and a half million square miles, and some ninety-five million inhabitants. Her territory, like that of Great Britain, is dispersed over the world ; but more than half of it is in a solid, if irregularly shaped, block in northern Africa, and her share of the Sahara alone accounts for about two million square miles. The white population of France is not quite forty million, of which three-quarters of a million are in North Africa; the rest are in Europe, and barely increasing in numbers. The colored element, which is to the white as almost six to four, comprises over twenty million each of blacks and Mongolians, living in the tropics ; the rest are Berbers, Arabs, Malagasy, Hindus, South Sea Islanders, etc. Most of the colonial possessions of France are recent acquisitions, as yet little developed, but offering a wide field to the capital and enterprise of the mother country. Of them all, only North Africa and New Caledonia are suited to European settlement. The population of France herself, however varied in other ways, is more nationally homogeneous than that of any of her world rivals.

The United States * is slightly below France in territory and population, with an area of three million, seven hundred thousand square miles, and ninety-three million inhabitants. On the other hand, it has a considerably larger white element than France, — about seventy-five million. The birthrate is not, as a rule, very high ; but the annual immigration has now risen to over a million and a quarter. The colored population, of some eighteen and a half million, is made up of ten million negroes and mulattoes, nearly eight million Filipinos, and the rest Indians, Japanese, Chinese, Hawaiians, etc. Like Russia, the United States forms a compact mass; but it now has outlying dependencies, — Alaska far to the north, and a number of tropical islands. How much most of these possessions add

1 Not including Cuba and Panama.

to the real strength of the country is, however, a question about which there has been much dispute.

Greater Germany, with only a little over a million and a quarter square miles (scarcely more than a tenth of the number in the British Empire), stands far below her rivals in area; but her white population of more than sixty millions, out of a total of seventy-five, is superior to that of Great Britain or France. These sixty million, which include several unwilling elements, are concentrated on a small tract of not very fertile territory; for the German colonial possessions, nearly five times the size of the home country, are for the most part situated in the tropics, and hence, with the doubtful exception of Southwest Africa, can never support a large number of white settlers. In Germany the annual surplus of births over deaths is more than eight hundred thousand ; and the emigration, which was large a few years ago, is now, with the increasing industrial prosperity, under fifty thousand. It is not, then, to be wondered at, if the Germans are not satisfied with their present limits. 1

Figures like the above are, of course, nothing but a slight framework for any serious comparison. In order to get a more precise idea of the relative resources of the five world powers, we should have to examine many other facts about each, — such as the extent of soil capable of cultivation and its fertility, the wealth in forest and minerals, the climate, the water power, the means of communication, the acquired wealth, the industrial development, and many similar things. Nor would this be all ; for we cannot leave

1 For purposes of comparison, we may note that the present Japanese Empire, not including southern Manchuria, extends over two hundred and fifty thousand square miles (of which only a few thousand are situated in the tropics), with sixty-three million inhabitants. Of these, fortyeight million are Japanese, three million are Chinese in Formosa and the Liaotung district, and ten to twelve million are discontented dependents in Korea.

out of account the moral side, — the degree of civilization of the people of different nations, their industry, their habits of thrift, their skill, intelligence, etc. Any attempt at such a comparison would lead us a long way, and it is not necessary for a study of American international relations. On the other hand, it may not be amiss to note in passing the obvious truth that, although in the modern world certain great states tend more and more to have a dominant position as compared with that of their smaller brethren, they are not necessarily superior to them in civilization or more admirable in any way. From an ethical as well as from an aesthetic point of view, there is still much to be said in favor of small communities.

One effect of the present international evolution has been to modify certain long-accepted formulas. Among these is the idea of a continent as a group of states, each of which has, besides historical traditions of its own, particular ties and interests common to them all, but nbt shared by the rest of mankind. This has in the past been more or less true of Europe, and as a sentimental bond it deserves respect. In actual politics, however, it is becoming a mere figure of speech. Are we to regard Im perial Britain as a European power, when the greater part of her external interests and difficulties are connected with her situation on other continents? Are not the vast majority of Englishmen more in touch in every way with Australians, Canadians, Americans, than they are with Portuguese, Italians, or Austrians of one sort or another ? What strictly European interests does England represent, she who is now joined in close alliance with the Asiatic empire of Japan? Or is Russia European? Although the majority of her inhabitants live on the western side of the open range of hills we call the Urals, much the larger portion of her territory is on the other, and in Europe itself she has many Asiatic elements. In character and population, there is indeed hardly more real separation between European Russia and Siberia than there is between the eastern and western parts of the United States. Of late Russia's foreign policy has been chiefly concerned with Asiatic questions, and it is likely so to continue. As for France, although her national life is, and will remain, centred in the European continent, her many colonies are scattered over the globe. Already some of them are represented in her chambers, and as time goes on they will become, more and more, parts of one organic dominion. A Frenchman born in Algeria regards himself as a European, and with good right ; but he is no more so than is the white Australian or the Canadian, or, except in the matter of allegiance, than the American. Under these circumstances, when people abroad talk about a union of the European powers against "the Asiatic peril" or "the American commercial invasion," they are appealing to a community of interests which does not exist.

Between states of small territory and limited horizon a union especially for commercial purposes may be natural. It is quite conceivable, too, that one of the world powers may, from political as well as from economic motives, strive to group about itself a number of satellites, after the famous historical example of Prussia in the Zollverein. Many people in Germany would be glad to bring about a league of this sort in Central Europe, and the United States is accused of a corresponding design in its policy of Pan- Americanism. Such combinations are fair enough, and may be profitable to all concerned in them, but they are not likely to include more than one power of the first rank ; for the great powers, with their enormous fields for independent development, are in a position to work out their own destinies, and to take care of themselves without fettering their liberty of action.