December 6, 1904: The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

"Speak softly and carry a big stick."

December 6, 1904: President Theodore Roosevelt issues a re-interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine, a re-interpretation which becomes known as the Roosevelt Corollary.

NOTE: My cutoff date for this project is 1869, the year of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, the 1st openly professional baseball team, and the 1st American football game. I had managed to work in references to most pre-1869 Presidents. This was the only way I could think of to do it for Monroe.

The Monroe Doctrine -- the name wouldn't be used until 1850, after the deaths of those involved -- was included in the annual message to Congress by President James Monroe on December 2, 1823. Such messages were written and delivered by hand in lieu of what would later be called the State of the Union Address. Over the last few years, following the American Revolution, France selling the Louisiana Territory to America, France losing Haiti in a revolution, and Spain's empire collapsing, especially with Mexico finally winning its struggle to break away in 1821, "the Old World" was losing its grip on "the New World."

It was written with Monroe's approval by his Secretary of State -- and, as it turned out, his successor, John Quincy Adams:

The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.

We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power, we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.

In other words, America was saying, "Europe, those colonies that you have in our Hemisphere now, we will leave them alone. But don't try to establish any new ones. And we won't try to establish any on your side of the world."

At the time, America didn't have the Navy to back that up. And, with some irony, its next war was with one of those new nations in the Western Hemisphere, Mexico, in 1846 and 1847. In 1861, France began a takeover of Mexico, which took 2 years, and then failed 4 years later. America couldn't do anything about it, because of its own Civil War.

Other than that, though, America didn't have to do much about it. While tensions with Britain had been near-continuous, even after the War of 1812, it was in Britain's best interest to have its Royal Navy enforce a Pax Britannica on the world. And they still had territory in the New World, including Canada, though it granted Canada a form of independence in 1867. So, essentially, by doing their own job, they were doing America's job, too.

Things changed in 1895, when the South American nation of Venezuela claimed Essequibo and Guyana Esequiba as part of their country, while Britain claimed them as part of their colony of British Guyana. President Grover Cleveland intervened, and offered to have America mediate the dispute. Both countries accepted. In the end, the agreed-upon Paris tribunal awarded most of the territory to Britain. But Venezuela and the other countries in Latin America saw that the United States was willing to stand up for them to a European power, and relations between them and the U.S. improved.

In 1898, America won the Spanish-American War, taking Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines from Spain -- the Philippines suggesting that the promise of American non-expansion was gone.

Then came another crisis in Venezuela. In 1902, Britain, Germany and Italy imposed a naval blockade on Venezuela, after their President Cipriano Castro (no relation to later Cuban dictator Fidel) refused to pay his country's foreign debts. He was counting on America to invoke the Monroe Doctrine, and bail his country out diplomatically, as it had 7 years earlier. If not, then to defend his nation militarily.

Theodore Roosevelt was President now. He had commanded American troops in the Battle of San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War, and rode that fame to the Presidency. But he refused to intervene: He saw the Monroe Doctrine as applying only to European seizure of territory, rather than intervention per se. With prior promises that no such seizure would occur, the U.S. was officially neutral, and allowed the action to go ahead without objection. The blockade saw Venezuela's small navy quickly disabled, but Castro refused to give in, and instead agreed in principle to submit some of the claims to international arbitration, which he had previously rejected.

Roosevelt wanted to avoid any future crises like the 2 recent ones in Venezuela. So he instituted what became known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: It asserted the right of the U.S. to intervene in Latin America in cases of "flagrant and chronic wrongdoing by a Latin American Nation" to preempt intervention by European creditors.

This re-interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine went on to be a useful tool to take economic benefits by force when Latin American nations failed to pay their debts to European and U.S. banks and business interests. It provoked outrage across Latin America.

This was one of the actions of TR's that backed up what he called an old African proverb, which he liked to quote: "Speak softly, and carry a big stick: You will go far."

The Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary were used to invoke U.S. intervention in Latin America in Guatemala in 1954, in Cuba in 1962, in the Dominican Republic in 1965, in Chile in 1973, in El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980s, in Panama in 1989, in Haiti in 1994, and, lo and behold, in Venezuela again in the 2010s.

Monroe had quite a career before he was President. Along with Alexander Hamilton, he was with George Washington when he crossed the Delaware River on Christmas Night 1776, to surprise the Hessians at Trenton. He served Virginia as U.S. Senator and Governor. A protégé of both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, he served as U.S. Minister to France, then to Britain. 

During the War of 1812, he served as Secretary of State and Secretary of War (the post now called Secretary of Defense) at the same time. He was elected President in a landslide in 1816, and almost unanimously in 1820. He was the last President to dress in what we now consider the Revolutionary style: Tricornered hat, powdered wig, ruffled shirt, long coat and knee breeches. He was the last President not to have a photograph taken of him.

The capital of the Africa nation of Liberia is named Monrovia in his honor. Also named for him were the now-closed Fort Monroe army base in Portsmouth, Virginia; 17 Counties, and towns in 28 States, including 23 in Ohio, 18 in Indiana, 12 in Iowa, 9 in Pennsylvania, 8 in Missouri, 5 in Michigan, 3 each in North Carolina and Wisconsin; and 2 each in New York, New Jersey, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska and South Dakota.

There are high schools named for him in New York City, in the Borough of The Bronx; Rochester, in Monroe County, New York; Fredericksburg, Virginia, which is also where his law office was converted into an unofficial Presidential Library; Lindside, Monroe County, West Virginia; and in the North Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. A submarine, the USS James Monroe, served the U.S. Navy from 1963 to 1990.

James Monroe statue, College of William & Mary,

Williamsburg, Virginia

He has been played by Morgan Wallace in the 1931 film Alexander Hamilton, John Elliott in the 1936 film Hearts Divided, Charles Waldron in the 1939 film The Monroe Doctrine, Henry Butler in the 1976 TV-movie The Adams Chronicles, and Robert Kelly in the 1986 TV-movie George Washington II: The Forging of a Nation.

The last surviving member of Monroe's Cabinet was Richard Rush, who served as Secretary of State, and lived until 1859. He also turned out to be the last surviving member of James Madison's Cabinet.

*

December 6, 1904 was a Tuesday. Ève Curie, daughter of scientists Pierre and Marie "Madame" Curie, was born. She became a journalist and writer, and lived until 2007, nearly 103 years old.

Baseball was out of season. The football season had ended 2 days earlier. Hockey had not yet turned professional, and basketball barely had. So there were no scores on this historic day.