The Big Stick

The Imperial Cruise by James Bradley is probably one of the top three history books I have ever read (the other two being Salt by Mark Kurlansky and Genghis Kahn and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford.) The Imperial Cruise covers one of the most important moments in the ascension of America in the early 20th Century. Fresh from the victory over Spain in the Spanish-American War of 1898, after ascending to the presidency in 1901 with the assassination of William McKinley, President Theodore Roosevelt sent his Secretary of War William Howard Taft as well as his indomitable daughter Alice Roosevelt off West on a steamship. This was not only to take stock of the new protectorates including Guam and the Philipines that had been garnered from Spain but also to help facilitate the end of the imperialistic feud of the Russo-Japanese War. This act would get Roosevelt a Nobel peace prize. 

Roosevelt knew the importance of naval supremacy. After studying the works of the American military historian Alfred Thayer Mahan, he was determined to make sure that the United States was ready to take a leadership role in the world; walking softly and carrying a big stick of military might and readiness. Due to this idea, he wanted a very quick way to command the seas of the world. The problem was that, at the time, the fastest way to get from the Atlantic to the Pacific was to go around the bottom tip of South America. He was determined to find a better way.

It was here that the hero of San Juan Hill, the military battle in the Spanish American War in Cuba saw an opportunity. With the recent Spanish independence of a lot of their colonies in Central and South America, Roosevelt reached out to the government of Nicaragua to see if he could build a canal. There were too many problems. However, Panama already had the beginnings of a canal and he offered to complete the job in 1903. Eleven years later, it was done. 

This created a great dichotomy. Since Washington’s Farewell Address, America had had a policy of staying out of the affairs of other countries, unless it directly impinged on America’s national and vital interests. That is the reason why there are such foreign places as the Halls of Montezuma and the Shores of Tripoli in the United States Marine Corps Hymn. It was reiterated by President James Monroe with the Monroe Doctrine saying that the United States would not tolerate any more European colonization in the Western Hemisphere. 

However, Roosevelt saw things very differently. His Roosevelt Cooraley to the Monroe Doctrine said they would not tolerate European interference as America would provide protection to the hemisphere by doing an end-round on the European concerns for security. This is when he formally stated the United States would provide protection for Panama and the newly constructed canal.

Now, I understand full well the anachronisms of putting history through the lens of present-day mores. However, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is probably a duck. If a foreign power offers to “protect” a sovereign nation, moving troops to be billeted on foreign soil to provide said security without the actual threat of coming war, then this duck quacks in American-accented imperialism.  

Whether this was a force for good or for bad, people have and will debate this from the safety of over a century’s distance. The likes of Howard Zinn would say that the United States was an Impearlisitc leviathan; lacking the prestige and grandeur but with all the blood lust of ancient Rome. While someone like Victor Davis Hanson would say that Panama was offered a pretty good deal and would leave them without the need for a standing army; one less possible domino to fall in the Western Hemisphere. Given the tumultuous 20th Century and the grand stage upon which the United States would sit, it is a worthy topic for discussion.