The United States and the Caribbean Republics, 1921-1933
406
The United States and the Caribbean Republics, 1921-1933
406Paperback
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Overview
Professor Munro concentrates on several important issues that changed the tone of the relations of the United States with Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and the five Central American Republics: the failure to compel political reforms in Cuba from 1921 to 1923; the withdrawal of the occupations from the Dominican Republic and Haiti; the intervention in Nicaragua; the response to the Machado and Trujillo dictatorships; and the refusal to recognize revolutionary governments in Central America. The author's analysis sheds new light on the much-discussed Clark memorandum, on the degree to which policy furthered the interests of bankers and businessmen, and on the attitude of the American government toward dictatorial regimes.
Originally published in 1974.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780691618401 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Publication date: | 03/08/2015 |
| Series: | Princeton Legacy Library , #1396 |
| Pages: | 406 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 1.00(d) |
Read an Excerpt
The United States and the Caribbean Republics 1921-1933
By Dana G. Munro
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1974 Princeton University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-04623-5
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
President Harding and Secretary of State Hughes faced several troublesome problems in the Caribbean when they took office in March 1921. The most urgent was in Cuba, where General Crowder, as personal representative of the president of the United States, was trying to cope with a political and economic crisis which threatened to compel the American government to intervene under the Platt amendment. In the Dominican Republic, things were obviously going badly under a military government headed by an American admiral. In Haiti, also occupied by American forces, the treaty of 1915, which gave American officials control of most of the government's important functions, was not working well. There had been much friction with the Haitian officials, and American marines had had to suppress a peasant revolt, with a shocking amount of bloodshed. In Nicaragua, where American intervention had put down a revolution in 1912, the continued presence of a small legation guard of American marines had enabled one party to control elections and remain in power since that time. The American government had not dared to withdraw the guard because its departure would probably have precipitated a civil war, but the situation was obviously one which could not continue.
Most of these problems had developed from efforts to discourage revolutions and promote economic progress in the Caribbean states. After it acquired Puerto Rico and assumed responsibility for the future of Cuba, and more particularly after it decided to build the Panama Canal, the American government began to take more interest in a region which had suddenly taken on a new strategic importance. It was especially concerned about the internal disorder which made it impossible for some of the Central American and West Indian states to protect foreigners or pay their foreign debts. In the first years of the century, European governments seemed increasingly disposed to attempt to take control of countries where such conditions invited intervention, and the United States did not want to see any potentially hostile power get a foothold in a region that lay between its own territory and the canal.
In 1903 the United States made treaties with Cuba and Panama in which it guaranteed the independence of the two states and reserved the right to intervene if necessary to maintain orderly government. Soon afterward President Theodore Roosevelt enunciated his corollary to the Monroe Doctrine: that the United States, if it wished to prevent foreign interference in the Caribbean, must help the Caribbean states to correct the conditions that threatened to bring on foreign intervention. Acting on this idea, he set up a customs receivership in the Dominican Republic in 1905 and used his good offices to persuade the Central American republics to adopt the 1907 treaties, which were intended to prevent international and internal wars in that area.
Roosevelt acted in these cases because serious crises seemed to justify diplomatic intervention. His successors attempted to forestall such crises by insisting on reforms that would make them less likely to arise. The Taft administration attempted to set up customs receiverships in Honduras and Nicaragua, but its plans were defeated by opposition in the United States Senate. It was more successful in a vigorous diplomatic intervention to stop a civil war in the Dominican Republic in 1912 and in its armed intervention to stop one in Nicaragua in the same year. The Wilson administration went still farther. President Wilson thought that the United States had a duty to promote democratic government among its neighbors, by compulsion if necessary. To discourage the use of force to settle political disputes, he opposed revolutions against constituted governments. When conditions in Haiti and the Dominican Republic seemed to become intolerable and his offers of help were rejected, he sent military forces to occupy each country.
During the presidential campaign of 1920, Senator Harding criticized these actions, and some observers thought that his election would mean a change in American policy. As usually happens when a new administration takes office, however, no sudden change occurred. General Crowder was making good progress in his efforts to avert a political and economic collapse in Cuba, and it was clearly advisable to let him continue. The State Department had already started to do something about the problems in the other countries. It had persuaded President Wilson in December 1920 to take the first steps toward the withdrawal of the military government at Santo Domingo, and it was trying to bring about a better coordination of the treaty services in Haiti. It had made the Nicaraguan government promise to employ an expert to draft an electoral law as a first step toward the creation of a situation which would allow the American marines to be safely withdrawn.
There was nothing to suggest any sharp break with past policy in the new administration's appointments to the higher positions in the State Department. Henry Fletcher, who became undersecretary, was a career diplomat who had been ambassador to Chile and to Mexico and had worked on Latin American problems in the Department under Wilson. The assistant secretary, Fred Dearing, and the third assistant secretary, Robert Woods Bliss, were also veterans of the career service. Alvee A. Adee, who had been second assistant secretary of state since 1886, continued in his position, as did Sumner Welles, the chief of the Latin American division.
Secretary Hughes' basic ideas about Caribbean policy were not very different from his predecessors'. After he took office, he became much interested in inter-American relations and discussed them in a series of addresses which he wrote himself in longhand and often tried out on his subordinates before delivery. He thought that considerations of national security, and especially the need to defend the approaches to the Panama canal, required the United States to take a special interest in the West Indies and Central America. The Monroe Doctrine, as he saw it, had lost none of its importance from the fact that there seemed for the moment to be no danger of non-American intervention in the hemisphere, for "the future holds infinite possibilities and the Doctrine remains as an essential policy to be applied whenever any exigency may arise requiring its application." On the other hand, he insisted that "the declaration of our purpose to oppose what is inimical to our safety does not imply an attempt to establish a protectorate." He thought that the United States should not forego its right to intervention if its security were endangered or if a breakdown of local government imperiled the lives and property of its citizens, but he knew that any intervention was resented by the other American countries and thought that it should be avoided wherever possible.
Hughes had more control over the foreign policy of the United States than most of his predecessors had had. In the first months of the new administration he had some difficulty with colleagues who tried to interfere in matters affecting relations with other countries, but he was soon able to obtain recognition of the State Department's predominant interest in the field. He consulted the president on important questions of policy, but his recommendations were almost always approved. In the State Department itself he exercised a close control over what went on. The astonishing rapidity with which he could read and understand long documents dealing with complicated questions enabled him to cope with a great volume of work. He made the State Department a more efficient organization than it had been because he demanded a high standard of performance and had no patience with carelessness or complacency.
Even Hughes, however, could not follow closely the multifarious problems with which the department had to deal. Deciding what to do about a political problem in a Central American country, for example, often required a knowledge of the background and of the personalities involved, and a consideration of the implications of any step that might be taken, for which only a person who dealt with the problems of one relatively small region could possibly have time. In dealing with matters of this sort, the secretary had to rely on the advice of his staff.
The organization of the department was less complex in 1921 than it became later. Under the secretary and the undersecretary, only one assistant secretary, the assistant secretary, dealt chiefly with questions of policy. The second assistant secretary, the venerable Alvee A. Adee, had once been a power in the department, but was now very deaf and unable to speak intelligibly. He no longer wrote the witty policy memoranda which had once instructed and delighted his colleagues, but nearly all outgoing instructions and letters still had to pass through his office before being presented to other officials for signature. His two very efficient secretaries, Miss Margaret Hanna and Mrs. Ruth Shipley, exercised an autocratic authority in matters relating to the form and style of the department's correspondence and compelled several generations of young officers to learn to write State Department English. Not infrequently they influenced decisions on policy, especially where precedents were involved. The third assistant secretary dealt chiefly with administrative problems in the diplomatic service. In 1924 all of the assistant secretaries were made equal in rank, and a fourth assistant secretaryship was created for Wilbur J. Carr, the director of the consular service.
Most incoming correspondence went first to the geographical divisions. These handled economic as well as political matters, for the staff of the economic intelligence section of the trade adviser's office, which was beginning to take over economic policy at the end of the Wilson administration, was broken up and distributed among the geographical divisions in 1921. The trade adviser, later called the economic adviser, continued to be consulted on financial problems and to deal with economic matters which involved more than one part of the world. The office had much influence, as did that of the solicitor, with his large staff of lawyers, who handled claims and passed on the legal aspects of policy questions. Usually, however, it was the geographical divisions which formulated policy and drafted instructions. Questions of interest to more than one division were discussed informally by the officers concerned and there were few committees. There was also much informal contact with other departments of the government. The relatively small number of persons involved made the transaction of business easier than it is today.
Relations with all of the Latin American republics, except Mexico, which was the province of a separate division, were handled by the division of Latin American affairs, of which I was a member from 1921 to 1925 and again in 1929-1930. This had a chief and from six to eight other officers, most of them in charge of groups of countries. Except for one or two permanent "drafting officers," the staff were members of the diplomatic or consular services, detailed to Washington for periods of not more than four years. The chief of the division usually saw the secretary, or talked with him over the intercom, several times each week. In 1921, though the volume of correspondence was rapidly increasing, he was expected to see every dispatch and letter that came to the division and to satisfy himself of the accuracy and advisability of every instruction and letter that went out. Particularly in dealing with Caribbean problems, which were usually the most important ones that it handled, the division had to follow troubled political situations from day to day. It drafted instructions or memoranda for the secretary's consideration and in most cases made the decision as to what the American government should do, within the outlines of general policy which the secretary laid down.
Though the department, even under Hughes, was not free from the overcautiousness and adherence to precedent and the propensity for double-talk which seems characteristic of foreign offices, and though the general level of competence in the career diplomatic service was perhaps not so high as it is today, the staff was for the most part capable and conscientious. Loyalty and integrity were taken for granted. Leaks of information to the press were very rare. Occasionally a higher official told the newspapers something which those closer to the problem would have preferred to keep from them, but we should all have been amazed and shocked if one of our colleagues had revealed information in an effort to sabotage the department's policies. I can remember only one or two cases where this occurred in connection with Latin American problems in the twelve years that I was in the foreign service.
The American government's representation abroad, and especially in the Caribbean, left more to be desired. Ministers and ambassadors were usually appointed as a reward for services to the party in power, and the posts in the Caribbean too often went to totally unqualified people. Hughes, when he first took office, seems to have made little effort to change this situation. There was no immediate occasion for the appointment of new chiefs of mission in Cuba, where General Crowder was acting as the president's personal representative, or in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where the military occupations created special problems; but in Central America political appointments were made in all five countries. One or two turned out well, but two of the ministers were removed for manifest incompetence, after they had been dealing with critical situations for more than two years.
It was especially bad to have a stupid or foolish American minister in a Caribbean state, because the State Department rarely provided the legations in the smaller Latin American capitals with competent staffs. For a time in 1922, when the embassy at Brussels had a counselor and three diplomatic secretaries, there was only one diplomatic secretary in all of Central America, though each of the five missions there had vastly more work to do. At most, a minister in Central America usually had one young inexperienced diplomatic secretary, and, with luck, one clerk. Those who handled diplomatic assignments considered the missions in Europe more important, and the wealthy and often spoiled young career diplomats were reluctant to go to posts where social life and living conditions were unattractive. As time went on, the general improvement in the Foreign Service, brought about chiefly by the Rogers Act of 1924, and the fact that many of the ablest officers in the service became interested in Latin America, ameliorated the situation.
The basic ideas of the officers who staffed the Latin American division, like those of the secretary himself, were not very different from the ideas which had shaped the Caribbean policy of the American government from the time when Elihu Root was secretary of state. We thought that the United States must try to promote orderly government in the Caribbean because disorder would invite interference by other powers. After the world war there was no immediate danger that any foreign power might challenge our position in the Caribbean, but we still felt that any extension of foreign influence would be unacceptable in a region so important to our own security. We certainly had no desire to see the United States take control permanently of any of the Caribbean states, but we saw nothing wrong in exercising a measure of control to stop disorder and bring about needed reforms.
We also saw nothing wrong in sending a warship from time to time to prevent injury to Americans and other foreigners when a breakdown of law and order endangered their lives. In 1921 most governments considered that they had a right and a duty to protect their citizens if local authorities were unable to do so. Our protection was also extended to other foreigners. Other governments expected this because we had asserted that we had a predominant interest in the Caribbean and had made it clear that we did not want anyone else to intervene there. The vessels of the Special Service Squadron, a group of small cruisers operating out of the Canal Zone, were frequently sent to Central American ports where disturbances had occurred or seemed likely. If conditions were sufficiently serious, an armed force was landed and a neutral zone set up in which no fighting was allowed. This arrangement usually served to protect the most important foreign properties in the area. The arrival of a warship also gave notice to troublemakers that the United States opposed their activities, and this was frequently the real purpose of the visit. As the policy of non-interference developed, the State Department became more reluctant to send warships except in cases where American lives were clearly in imminent danger. It was not easy, however, to decide not to send a warship when American citizens in a banana port were terrified and begging for protection.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The United States and the Caribbean Republics 1921-1933 by Dana G. Munro. Copyright © 1974 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents
- Frontmatter, pg. i
- CONTENTS, pg. vii
- PREFACE, pg. ix
- Chapter One INTRODUCTION, pg. 1
- Chapter Two. GENERAL CROWDER’S MISSION TO CUBA, pg. 16
- Chapter Three. GETTING OUT OF SANTO DOMINGO, pg. 44
- Chapter Five. CENTRAL AMERICAN PROBLEMS, pg. 116
- Chapter Six. GETTING THE MARINES OUT OF NICARAGUA, pg. 157
- Chapter Seven. THE SECOND INTERVENTION IN NICARAGUA, pg. 187
- Chapter Eight. THE HOOVER ADMINISTRATION, CENTRAL AMERICA, AND THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, 1929-1933, pg. 255
- Chapter Nine. WITHDRAWAL FROM HAITI, pg. 309
- Chapter Ten. NON-INTERVENTION IN CUBA5 1925-1933, pg. 342
- Chapter Eleven. THE TRANSITION FROM INTERVENTION TO THE GOOD NEIGHBOR POLICY, pg. 371
- INDEX, pg. 385