The Early 1900s

 Drago Doctrine  Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine  Debt and the Dominican Republic  Dollar Diplomacy and Nicaragua  Cuba

Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (1904)

“Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters,

if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States.

Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require

intervention

by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.”

Woodrow Wilson and the Gospel of Democracy

 Manifest Destiny: the providential place of the US in the order of things and a right to expand, and with a mission  "We have it in our power to begin the world all over again" (Thomas Paine, as quoted on 40 of 2 nd edition).

Woodrow Wilson and the Gospel of Democracy

Innate assumed superiority (see quote on 43, 2 nd edition) Plus: racial dimension (51) A focus in the Caribbean Wilson: "I am going to teach the South American Republics to elect good men!" (as quotes in Smith, 51)



An interlude between the Imperial Era and the Cold War Era No longer playing the “European Game” in terms of overt intervention US hegemony still the target.

 Era  No longer playing the “European Game” in terms of overt intervention  US hegemony still the target.

 Context: The Great Depression

The “Good Neighbor” Policy

 “I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the Good Neighbor--the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors” (FDR, 1933 inaugural address, Smith 2000:68).

 “Now there are no little nations” (common Latin American response)

The “Good Neighbor” Policy

 Military withdrawal  The US refrained from invention (“No state has the right to

Basics: The Good Neighbor Policy

statement agreed upon at the inter-American meeting in 1933 in Montevideo, Uruguay).

 SecState Cordell Hull: “the United States government is as much opposed as any other government to interference with the freedom, the sovereignty, or other internal affairs or processes of the governments of other nations…no government need fear any intervention on the part of the United States under the Roosevelt administration” (Smith 2000:69).

 Initiation of process of cooperation and consultation

Quotes to Ponder

 In the campaign, Roosevelt accused the Republican administration of placing “money leadership ahead of moral leadership” and noted “Single-handed intervention by us in the internal affairs of other nations must end; with the cooperation of others we shall have more order in this hemisphere and less dislike” (reference to interventions in Haiti and Dominican Republic) (source: Smith 2000:68).

 “That is a new approach that I am talking to these South American things. Give them a share. They think they are just as good as we are and many of them are” (FDR, 1940 as quoted in Smith 2000:63).

 “He’s a son of a bitch, but at least he’s our son of a bitch” (FDR on Somoza)