The ordinary resources of diplomacy and international arbitration are absolutely impotent to deal wisely and effectively with the situation in the Dominican Republic, which can only be met by organizing its finances on a sound basis and by placing the custom-houses beyond the temptation of insurgent chieftains. Either we must abandon our duty under our traditional policy toward the Dominican people, who aspire to a republican form of government while they are actually drifting into a condition of permanent anarchy, in which case we must permit some other Government to adopt its own measures in order to safeguard its own interests,or else we must ourselves take seasonable and appropriate action.
Again and again has the Dominican Government invoked on its own behalf the aid of the United States. It has repeatedly done so of recent years. In 1899 it sought to enter into treaty relations by which it would be placed under the protection of the United States Government. The request was refused. Again in January, 1904, its minister of foreign affairs visited Washington and besought the help of the United States Government to enable it to escape from its financial and social disorders. Compliance with this request was again declined, for this Government has been most reluctant to interfere in any way, and has finally concluded to take action only because it has become evident that failure to do so may result in a situation fraught with grave danger to the cause of international peace.
In 1903 a representative of a foreign Government proposed to the United States the joint fiscal control of the Dominican Republic by certain creditor nations, and that the latter should take charge of the custom-houses and revenues and give to the Dominican Government a certain percentage and apply the residue to the payment ratably of claims of foreign creditors. The United States Government declined to approve or to enter into such an arrangement. But it has now become evident that decided action of some kind can not be much longer delayed. In view of our past experience and ourknowledge of the actual situation of the Dominican Republic, a definite refusal of the United States Government to take any effective action looking to the relief of the Dominican Republic and to the discharge of its own duty under the Monroe Doctrine can only be considered as an acquiescence in some such action by another Government.
That most wise measure of international statesmanship, the Platt amendment, has provided a method for preventing such difficulties from arising in the new Republic of Cuba. In accordance with the terms of this amendment the Republic of Cuba can not issue any bonds which can be collected from Cuba save as a matter of grace, unless with the consent of the United States, which is at liberty at all times to take measures to prevent the violation of the letter and spirit of the Platt amendment. If a similar plan could now be entered upon by the Dominican Republic, it would undoubtedly be of great advantage to them and to all other peoples, for under such an arrangement no larger debt would be incurred than could be honestly paid, and those who took debts not thus authorized would, by the mere fact of taking them, put themselves in the category of speculators or gamblers, who deserved no consideration and who would be permitted to receive none; so that the honest creditor would on the one hand be safe, while on the other hand the Republic would be safeguarded against molestation in the interest of mere speculators.
But no such plan at present exists; and underexisting circumstances, when the condition of affairs becomes such as it has become in Santo Domingo, either we must submit to the likelihood of infringement of the Monroe Doctrine or we must ourselves agree to some such arrangement as that herewith submitted to the Senate. In this case, fortunately, the prudent and far-seeing statesmanship of the Dominican Government has relieved us of all trouble. At their request we have entered into the agreement herewith submitted. Under it the custom-houses will be administered peacefully, honestly, and economically, 45 per cent of the proceeds being turned over to the Dominican Government and the remainder being used by the United States to pay what proportion of the debts it is possible to pay on an equitable basis. The Republic will be secured against over-seas aggression. This in reality entails no new obligation upon us, for the Monroe Doctrine means precisely such a guarantee on our part.
It is perhaps unnecessary to state that no step of any kind has been taken by the Administration under the terms of the protocol which is herewith submitted.
The Republic of Santo Domingo has by this protocol wisely and patriotically accepted the responsibilities as well as the privileges of liberty, and is showing with evident good faith its purpose to pay all that its resources will permit of its obligations. More than this it can not do, and when it has done this we should not permit it to be molested.We on our part are simply performing in peaceful manner, not only with the cordial acquiescence, but in accordance with the earnest request of the Government concerned, part of that international duty which is necessarily involved in the assertion of the Monroe Doctrine. We are bound to show that we perform this duty in good faith and without any intention of aggrandizing ourselves at the expense of our weaker neighbors or of conducting ourselves otherwise than so as to benefit both these weaker neighbors and those European Powers which may be brought into contact with them. It is in the highest degree necessary that we should prove by our action that the world may trust in our good faith and may understand that this international duty will be performed by us within our own sphere, in the interest not merely of ourselves, but of all other nations, and with strict justice toward all. If this is done a general acceptance of the Monroe Doctrine will in the end surely follow; and this will mean an increase of the sphere in which peaceful measures for the settlement of international difficulties gradually displace those of a warlike character.
We can point with just pride to what we have done in Cuba as a guaranty of our good faith. We stayed in Cuba only so long as to start her aright on the road to self-government, which she has since trod with such marked and distinguished success; and upon leaving the island we exacted no conditions save such as would prevent her fromever becoming the prey of the stranger. Our purpose in Santo Domingo is as beneficent. The good that this country got from its action in Cuba was indirect rather than direct. So it is as regards Santo Domingo. The chief material advantage that will come from the action proposed to be taken will be to Santo Domingo itself and to Santo Domingo’s creditors. The advantages that will come to the United States will be indirect, but nevertheless great, for it is supremely to our interest that all the communities immediately south of us should be or become prosperous and stable, and therefore not merely in name but in fact independent and self-governing.
I call attention to the urgent need of prompt action on this matter. We now have a great opportunity to secure peace and stability in the island, without friction or bloodshed, by acting in accordance with the cordial invitation of the governmental authorities themselves. It will be unfortunate from every standpoint if we fail to grasp this opportunity; for such failure will probably mean increasing revolutionary violence in Santo Domingo, and very possibly embarrassing foreign complications in addition. This protocol affords a practical test of the efficiency of the United States Government in maintaining the Monroe Doctrine.
Theodore Roosevelt.
White House,February 15, 1905.
Mr. Provost, Members of the University, and my Fellow-Citizens:
As a Nation we have had our full share of great men, but the two men of pre-eminent greatness who, as the centuries go on, will surely loom above all others are Washington and Lincoln; and it is peculiarly fitting that their birthdays should be celebrated every year and the meaning of their lives brought home close to us.
No other city in the country is so closely identified with Washington’s career as Philadelphia. He served here in 1775 in the Continental Congress. He was here as commander of the Army at the time of the battles of Brandywine and Germantown; and it was near here that with that army he faced the desolate winter at Valley Forge, the winter which marked the turning point of the Revolutionary War. Here he came again as President of the Convention which framed the Constitution, and then as President of the United States, and finally as Lieutenant-General of the Army after he had retired from the Presidency.
One hundred and eight years ago, just before he left the Presidency, he issued his farewell address, and in it he laid down certain principles which he believed should guide the citizens of this Republic for all time to come, his own words being “whichappear to me all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people.”
Washington, though in some ways an even greater man than Lincoln, did not have Lincoln’s wonderful gift of expression—that gift which makes certain speeches of the rail-splitter from Illinois read like the inspired utterances of the great Hebrew seers and prophets. But he had all of Lincoln’s sound common-sense, farsightedness, and devotion to a lofty ideal. Like Lincoln he sought after the noblest objects, and like Lincoln he sought after them by thoroughly practical methods. These two greatest Americans can fairly be called the best among the great men of the world, and greatest among the good men of the world. Each showed in actual practice his capacity to secure under our system the priceless union of individual liberty with governmental strength. Each was as free from the vices of the tyrant as from the vices of the demagogue. To each the empty futility of the mere doctrinaire was as alien as the baseness of the merely self-seeking politician. Each was incapable alike of the wickedness which seeks by force of arms to wrong others and of the no less criminal weakness which fails to provide effectively against being wronged by others.
Among Washington’s maxims which he bequeathed to his countrymen were the two following: “Observe good faith and justice toward all nations,” and “To be prepared for war is the most effective means to promote peace.” These two principlestaken together should form the basis of our whole foreign policy. Neither is sufficient taken by itself. It is not merely an idle dream, but a most mischievous dream, to believe that mere refraining from wrongdoing will ensure us against being wronged. Yet, on the other hand, a nation prepared for war is a menace to mankind unless the national purpose is to treat other nations with good faith and justice. In any community it is neither the conscientious man who is a craven at heart, nor yet the bold and strong man without the moral sense, who is of real use to the community; it is the man who to strength and courage adds a realizing sense of the moral obligation resting upon him, the man who has not only the desire but the power to do his full duty by his neighbor and by the State. So, in the world at large, the nation which is of use in the progress of mankind is that nation which combines strength of character, force of character, and insistence upon its own rights, with a full acknowledgment of its own duties toward others. Just at present the best way in which we can show that our loyalty to the teachings of Washington is a loyalty of the heart and not of the lips only is to see to it that the work of building up our Navy goes steadily on, and that at the same time our stand for international righteousness is clear and emphatic.
Never since the beginning of our country’s history has the Navy been used in an unjust war. Never has it failed to render great and sometimes vital service to the Republic. It has not been toostrong for our good, though often not strong enough to do all the good it should have done. Our possession of the Philippines, our interest in the trade of the Orient, our building the Isthmian Canal, our insistence upon the Monroe Doctrine, all demand that our Navy shall be of adequate size and for its size of unsurpassed efficiency. If it is strong enough I believe it will minimize the chance of our being drawn into foreign war. If we let it run down it is as certain as the day that sooner or later we shall have to choose between a probably disastrous foreign war or a peace kept on terms that imply national humiliation. Our Navy is the surest guaranty of peace and the cheapest insurance against war, and those who, in whatever capacity, have helped to build it up during the past twenty years have been in good faith observing and living up to one of the most important of the principles which Washington laid down for the guidance of his countrymen. Nor was Washington the only one of our great Presidents who showed farsighted patriotism by support of the Navy. When Andrew Jackson was in Congress he voted for the first warships we ever built as part of our regular Navy; and he voted against the grant of money to pay our humiliating tribute to the pirates of the Barbary States. Old Hickory was a patriot through and through, and there was not an ounce of timidity in his nature, and of course he felt only indignant contempt for a policy which purchased an ignoble peace by cowardice instead of exacting a just peace by showing we were as littlewilling to submit to as to inflict aggression. Had a majority of Jackson’s colleagues and successors felt as he did about the Navy, had it been built up instead of being brought to a standstill, it would probably never have been necessary to fight the War of 1812.
Again Washington said: “Give to mankind the example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.” This feeling can be shown alike by our dealings within and without our own borders. Taft and Wright in the Philippines and Wood in Cuba have shown us exactly how to practice this justice and benevolence in dealing with other peoples—a justice and benevolence which can be shown, not by shirking our duty and abandoning to self-destruction those unfit to govern themselves, but by doing our duty by staying with them and teaching them how to govern themselves, by uplifting them spiritually and materially. Here at home we are obeying this maxim of Washington’s just so far as we help in every movement, whether undertaken by the Government, or as is, and should be, more often the case, by voluntary action among private citizens, for the betterment of our own people. Observe that Washington speaks both of justice and benevolence, and that he puts justice first. We must be generous, we must help our poorer brother, but above all, we must remember to be just; and the first step toward securing justice is to treat every man on his worth as a man, showing him no special favor, but so far as may be holding open for him the door of opportunityso that reward may wait upon honest and intelligent endeavor.
Again Washington said: “Cherish public credit.” Just at the moment there is no attack on public credit, but if ever the temptation arises again let our people at the outset remember that the worst because the most insidious form of the appeal that would make a man a dishonest debtor is that which would persuade him that it is anything but dishonest for him to repudiate his debts.
Finally, it is peculiarly appropriate, when I have come to this city as the guest of the University of Pennsylvania, to quote another of Washington’s maxims: “Promote, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.” Education may not make a man a good citizen, but most certainly ignorance tends to prevent his being a good citizen. Washington was far too much of a patriot, had far too much love for his fellow-citizens, to try to teach them that they could govern themselves unless they could develop a sound and enlightened public opinion. No nation can permanently retain free government unless it can retain a high average of citizenship; and there can be no such high average of citizenship without a high average of education, using the word in its broadest and truest sense to include the things of the soul as well as the things of the mind. School educationcan never supplant or take the place of self-education, still less can it in any way take the place of those rugged and manly qualities which we group together under the name of character; but it can be of enormous use in supplementing both. It is a source of just pride to every American that our people have so consistently acted in accordance with Washington’s principle of promoting institutions for the diffusion of knowledge. There is nothing dearer to our hearts than our public school system, by which free primary education is provided for every one within our borders. The higher education, such as is provided by the University of Pennsylvania and kindred bodies, not only confers great benefits to those able to take advantage of it, but entails upon them corresponding duties.
The men who founded this Nation had to deal with theories of government and the fundamental principles of free institutions. We are now concerned with a different set of questions, for the Republic has been firmly established, its principles thoroughly tested and fully approved. To merely political issues have succeeded those of grave social and economic importance, the solution of which demands the best efforts of the best men. We have a right to expect that a wise and leading part in the effort to attain this solution will be taken by those who have been exceptionally blessed in the matter of obtaining an education. That college graduate is but a poor creature who does not feel when he has left college that he has received somethingfor which he owes a return. What he thus owes he can, as a rule, only pay by the way he bears himself throughout life. It is but occasionally that a college graduate can do much outright for his alma mater; he can best repay her by living a life that will reflect credit upon her, by so carrying himself as a citizen that men shall see that the years spent in training him have not been wasted. The educated man is entitled to no special privilege, save the inestimable privilege of trying to show that his education enables him to take the lead in striving to guide his fellows aright in the difficult task which is set to us of the twentieth century. The problems before us to-day are very complex, and are widely different from those which the men of Washington’s generation had to face; but we can overcome them surely, and we can overcome them only, if we approach them in the spirit which Washington and Washington’s great supporters brought to bear upon the problems of their day—the spirit of sanity and of courage, the spirit which combines hard common-sense with the loftiest idealism.
My Fellow-Citizens:
No people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness in our own strength, but with gratitude to the Giver of Good, who has blessed us with the conditions which have enabled us to achieve so large a measure of well-being and of happiness. To us as a people it has been granted to lay the foundations of our national life in a new continent. We are the heirs of the ages, and yet we have had to pay few of the penalties which in old countries are exacted by the dead hand of a bygone civilization. We have not been obliged to fight for our existence against any alien race; and yet our life has called for the vigor and effort without which the manlier and hardier virtues wither away. Under such conditions it would be our own fault if we failed; and the success which we have had in the past, the success which we confidently believe the future will bring, should cause in us no feeling of vainglory, but rather a deep and abiding realization of all which life has offered us; a full acknowledgment of the responsibility which is ours, and a fixed determination to show that under a free government a mighty people can thrive best, alike as regards the things of the body and the things of the soul.
Much has been given to us, and much will rightfullybe expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great Nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth; and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities. Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of cordial and sincere friendship. We must show not only in our words but in our deeds that we are earnestly desirous of securing their goodwill by acting toward them in a spirit of just and generous recognition of all their rights. But justice and generosity in a nation, as in an individual, count most when shown not by the weak but by the strong. While ever careful to refrain from wronging others, we must be no less insistent that we are not wronged ourselves. We wish peace; but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it is right and not because we are afraid. No weak nation that acts manfully and justly should ever have cause to fear us, and no strong power should ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent aggression.
Our relations with the other Powers of the world are important; but still more important are our relations among ourselves. Such growth in wealth, in population, and in power as this Nation has seen during the century and a quarter of its national life is inevitably accompanied by a like growth in the problems which are ever before every nation thatrises to greatness. Power invariably means both responsibility and danger. Our forefathers faced certain perils which we have outgrown. We now face other perils the very existence of which it was impossible that they should foresee. Modern life is both complex and intense, and the tremendous changes wrought by the extraordinary industrial development of the last half century are felt in every fibre of our social and political being. Never before have men tried so vast and formidable an experiment as that of administering the affairs of a continent under the forms of a democratic republic. The conditions which have told for our marvelous material well-being, which have developed to a very high degree our energy, self-reliance, and individual initiative, have also brought the care and anxiety inseparable from the accumulation of great wealth in industrial centres. Upon the success of our experiment much depends; not only as regards our own welfare, but as regards the welfare of mankind. If we fail, the cause of free self-government throughout the world will rock to its foundations; and therefore our responsibility is heavy, to ourselves, to the world as it is to-day, and to the generations yet unborn. There is no good reason why we should fear the future, but there is every reason why we should face it seriously, neither hiding from ourselves the gravity of the problems before us nor fearing to approach these problems with the unbending, unflinching purpose to solve them aright.
Yet, after all, though the problems are new, though the tasks set before us differ from the tasks set before our fathers who founded and preserved this Republic, the spirit in which these tasks must be undertaken and these problems faced, if our duty is to be well done, remains essentially unchanged. We know that self-government is difficult. We know that no people needs such high traits of character as that people which seeks to govern its affairs aright through the freely expressed will of the freemen who compose it. But we have faith that we shall not prove false to the memories of the men of the mighty past. They did their work, they left us the splendid heritage we now enjoy. We in our turn have an assured confidence that we shall be able to leave this heritage unwasted and enlarged to our children and our children’s children. To do so we must show, not merely in great crises, but in the everyday affairs of life, the qualities of practical intelligence, of courage, of hardihood and endurance, and above all the power of devotion to a lofty ideal, which made great the men who founded this Republic in the days of Washington, which made great the men who preserved this Republic in the days of Abraham Lincoln.