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278 The Western continents are divided from each other by race, religion, language, real political institutions, manners and customs, and above all, by tastes and habits. They entertain a strong dislike of each other. The United States could never establish a hegemony over the Western world until after long years of conquest. In their quarrels with European states it suits the South American states very well that the United States should act the cat's-paw for them, but it cannot be that their statesmen will be so short-sighted as to accept a protection which would turn into domination without a moment's warning; neither can it be possible that our statesmen will ever seriously commit us to a responsibility for the proceedings of South American states.

We may probe the ideas and projects which are grouped under this attempt at a dual organization of the world as we will, in no direction do we come upon anything but crude notions and inflated rhetoric. Such notions have hitherto proved very costly to the human race. President Cleveland, in his Venezuela message, sought a parallel for the Monroe doctrine in the balance-of-power doctrine. The parallel was unfortunate, if it had been true. The balance-of-power doctrine cost frightful expenditures of life and capital, and what was won by them? Where is the balance of power as it was understood in the eighteenth century or in Napoleon's time? A real parallel to the Monroe doctrine is furnished by the colonial system. The latter, as above shown, was the doctrine of the unity of the world under the headship of Europe. The former is the doctrine of the dualism of the world, with Europe at the head of one part and the United States at the head of the other. One of these conceptions of the new organization of the human race, which is to grow out of the colonization and settlement of the outlying countries, is