VOL. V SELF CULTURE A MAGAZINE OF KNOWLEDGE APRIL, 1897 No. I AMERICAN INFLUENCE ON EUROPE M ANY Americans and most Europeans regard the United States as an isolated country, having little to do with international affairs. The bubbling cauldron of diplomacy seems especially a boiling pot of the Eastern hemisphere. The great powers of Europe think themselves concerned alone with the China trade, Armenian massacres, the partition of Africa, protectorates in Madagascar and the Samoan islands, reprisals on South American republics, interoceanic canals, and the general management of human affairs outside the United States. They think international law an invention of their own and a system they have imposed on America to control her relations to them where she has any. Few dream that some of the most characteristic features of diplomacy had their origin in this country. Hence the attitude of foreign governments is contemptuous towards us, as a power that may be neglected in their worldembracing schemes and aggressions. Proof of this statement may be found in the almost unanimous denunciation of Mr. Cleveland's message asking for a Venezuelan Commission to report on the boundary claim of British Guiana, and of the assumption of this administration to intervene in the pacification of Cuba. Until the American contention was admitted by the British and Spanish governments, there was scarcely a periodical in Europe that did not deride the pretension of the United States to have a voice in any matter of diplomacy not concerned with affairs arising in our own territory. Indeed, official Europe, while forever intermeddling with each I other's projects and forever appropriating jurisdiction over all uncivilized and halfcivilized people, conceives that it has done well in letting us alone, and usually refuses to recognize that we have any interest in international questions. There are several reasons for this European feeling of exclusion. Among them are these. Washington's "Farewell Address," one of the political gospels of this country, advises us to make no "entangling alliances," and so potent have the maxims of that great and wise man been with his revering countrymen, that his injunction has been the policy hitherto of the United States. So long as Europe, with which the greater part of our foreign commerce is concerned, was distant six weeks' or even a month's journey, obedience to this maxim was almost a necessity. Yet even then, the country had foreign complications, chiefly through its proximity to the West Indies, where a century ago the fleets of Great Britain, France and Spain were in the habit of making reprisals upon each other and each other's colonies. There our trading ships were made the prizes of belligerent powers. It was here that the French spoliation claims arose, which were settled with France by treaty for $5,000,000 in 1801. At this time Napoleon was only First Consul of a Republic, which Europe was trying to engulph in floods of hostility as threatening the stability of thrones and publishing a new doctrine of politics. France then thought that America ought to share her quarrel, not only because she was trying to establish a government like our own, but because she had assisted the United States in gaining their independence and in 1777 had Copyright, 1897, by THE WERNER COMPANY. All rights reserved. I made an offensive and defensive league with them, which neither party could relinquish without the consent of the other. It is true, in a formal sense, that that league was terminated, not without difficulty, by the treaty of 1783, in which Great Britain, France and the United States joined. Into this treaty France was forced by the negotiations of the American Commissioners, Franklin, Adams and Jay, in the previous year, through which the British government was pledged to recognize the independence of her revolted colonies. The Shelburne ministry was not so desirous to let the colonies utterly go as to detach the United States from the French alliance; France had no wish to lose her American reinforcement and so prolonged negotiations; the States desired peace for the sake of carrying on an unmolested commerce. In France England was regarded as a natural and inveterate foe, as a hen might regard a hawk that only ceased predatory designs on her chicks when in pursuit of other quarry. Hence, France wished the American alliance to be perpetual and was disposed to assume that the States were breaking faith in withdrawing from it. This feeling had its avowal when the Jay treaty was published in 1794, and was followed by French depredations on. American commerce in the West Indies. That treaty contained a stipulation that the United States would not take any part with France in the war then raging between that power and Great Britain, a stipulation very dear to President Washington and the Federalists, whose patriotic solicitude was to secure for the infant States a chance for peaceful internal growth. But the French Convention, then in power, denounced this policy as hostile to their country. The views of the French Republicans were faithfully reflected in the States by Jefferson, who came back from Paris in 1789 full of French sympathy and ideas to take a seat in Washington's cabinet. He was supported by the Irish refugees in this country, who, then as now, were ever eager to inflict an injury on Great Britain. Indeed, the chief political issues of Washington's administration turned on the attitude of America towards France and England. In those days the Jeffersonians wore the French cockades on their hats in the streets and in the tavern tap-rooms. Tammany hung the colors of the French Republic on the walls of its assembly-room. British flags were pulled down in Philadelphia. Citizen Genet went from Charleston to Philadelphia haranguing the people on their duty to France, and Washington was obliged to dismiss him from the national capital, minister though he was, because of his truculent criticisms and interference with American politics. Things were hot in those days; vituperation served for argument; slander profaned the foremost dignitaries. While Washington And, held the helm of state the American bark sailed safely over stormy waters. It was out of his own bitter experience and anxieties that the wisest of patriots implored his countrymen to take, as a maxim of solid government, his injunction to beware of "entangling alliances." with the exception of the recognition of the Spanish republics, the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, the withdrawal of French troops from Mexico, the Venezuelan boundary question, and Samoa and Hawaii, all matters pertaining to the Western Hemisphere, we have obeyed that injunction so dutifully that the "Father of his Country" could not but approve. Again, the Monroe Doctrine, although in itself somewhat "entangling" in relation to foreign matters, has been universally taken as a declaration that, if Europe will keep out of the Americas the United States will look with indifference on the broils of the East. That Monroe message was in itself a sort of "entangling alliance," for it was written at the instigation of England and intended as an assurance to her that the United States would stand by her in opposing the Holy Alliance, should the powers, engaged in that Metternichian conspiracy against the freedom of the world, attempt to make themselves felt in the Spanish main. The story is thus told by the late Alexander Johnston, of Princeton. "It had become pretty evident that the Holy Alliance, in addition to its interventions in Europe to suppress popular risings, meant to aid Spain in bringing her revolted South American colonies to obedience. Great Britain had been drifting steadily away from the Alliance, and Canning, the new secretary, determined to call in the weight of the trans-Atlantic power to check it. A hint to the American |