The Albert Shaw Lectures on Diplomatic History, 1953 THEODORE ROOSEVELT and the Rise >~ :<. ~.-.: " ' ; t'~ ~~·· ofAmerica · .'' ., .·r~.·:~::T ~'~. to World Power by HOWARD K. BEALE BALTIMORE, The Johns Hopkins Press, 195 6 · © 1956, The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore IS, Md. Second printing 1957 Distributed in Great Britain by Oxford University Press, London Printed in U.S. A. by J. H. Furst Company, Baltimore Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 56-10255. fH 551 Preface These lectures are the result of a good deal of questioning over a long period of years. For three decades the United States and other great powers have been pur suing policies that have not led to the better world for which men and nations have hoped. Obviously, no nation has wished to proceed to the present desperate state of inter national relations that threatens to destroy civilization itself; equally obviously, no one nation alone has brought the world to this state of things. Too little is known about historical causation to say what has led to this denouement. It cannot be said with any certainty that the trend in international affairs has been inevitable or that the course of international events has been determined by forces over which man has no control. Nor yet can it be asserted, in the present state of historiography, that man by taking thought and making decisions has been. fully responsible for what has happened. Yet there has been a certain inexorability about the sequence of events from 'World War I to the present. Decisions made by statesmen in each successive situation have been governed to a considerable extent by values already accepted and by decisions already made by predecessors under whom the direction foreign policy was to take had been established. vii PREFACE Vlll Often it has seemed that what was really needed was to change the direction, to abandon the road that led to the 1950's and start out in an entirely different direction. :My first question therefore was: How did America get started down this road and was there a time, perhaps before 'Vorld 'Var I, when decisions were made that account for the direction national policy has taken? What decisions so affected the nation's course? Closely related was a second baffling question to which historians seldom offer an answer, namely, whether indivi dual men or only blind forces influence history. Leaders occupy important roles in history as it is usually recounted, but historians often seem to assume that it is forces and not men who determine what happens. A thorough study a few years ago of what historians had written about the causes of the Civil ·war revealed that all the writers had told the story in terms of leaders of the day and many of them also in terms of forces, but that most of them had kept men and forces in separate compartments as if there were no inter action between them. Not one had come to grips with the problem as to which was more important or whether the leaders had any effect upon history at all. So, too, in recent history. Consequently, the question is still to be faced whether there was a time at which a route different from the one taken in recent foreign policy could have been chosen by the people or their leaders. A third question that has never been satisfactorily an swered is why America shifted from the assumption in 1914 that war in Europe could not have serious meaning for America to her conviction three years later that she must enter that war. If events between 1914 and 1917 do not provide an entirely satisfying answer, what effect, if. any, had the history of the years before 1914 upon this change of heart and America's ultimate support of France and England against Germany? And what accounted for Theodore Roose- PREFACE velt's insistence earlier and more vigorously than most that we enter the war? In view of later criticisms of imperialist powers in general and American imperialism in particular and in view, too, of the strength of opposition to expansion and imperialism among Americans at the tum of the century, an answer has long been needed to a fourth question: \Vhy did America decide in favor of rather than against expansionism and imperialism? Or did her leaders not make the decision but merely find themselves pushed into policies by forces too big for them? In so far as Roosevelt and other expansionists and imperial ists did determine our policy, what were their motives? \Vas it national pride, a sense of the white man's burden, con viction about democracy, a sense of mission in the world, desire for economic gain, sheer love of power, or what, that propelled the men of 1900 into further extension of America's concern and influence to far parts of the world? This was a fifth question to which the answer could be found in part in Roosevelt. A sixth question concerned Theodore directly. While he was alive and during the years following his death, literature on Roosevelt tended to reflect the popular admiration of his contemporaries for his handling of international problems. Then the tide turned and a series of studies appeared that questioned both his wisdom and his ability as an inter national statesman. His importance in events in which he unquestionably participated was denied. His veracity in telling of other events and his part in them was questioned. It seemed now time to ask whether the early admiration or. the later depreciation or perhaps a third more balanced view was the soundest. Finally, in several years of preparation· of a biography of Theodore Roosevelt I have increasingly been preoccupied with the question as to what impac;t he did have upon world PREFACE X affairs. An answer to this seemed important, too, for all Americans interested in recent history. The invitation to deliver a series of lectures at The Johns Hopkins University on some phase of the foreign policy of Theodore Roosevelt offered a chance to pursue answers to some of these questions. This volume is an expansion of the Albert Shaw lectures there given. The lectures are Roose velt-centered. No attempt has been made to narrate the history of foreign relations during his time except where he was vitally concerned. The topics dealt with have been chosen for investigation because Roosevelt was involved in them. Important international happenings have been dis cussed, or little-known episodes described, or long-known stories retold in these lectures as part of an effort to view them as Roosevelt viewed them and to determine and evalu ate his role. The hope has been that new light would be thrown on the foreign relations of the period by thus viewing them through the eyes of one of the leading participants. Obviously, satisfactory answers have not been found to all the questions to which answers were sought. Some of the conclusions have had perforce to be tentative. Some of the questions may never be answered, but it is hoped that these lectures may make it possible to come nearer to finding answers, and that, in any case, they may bring new under standing of one of the most colorful and important actors in international affairs in recent times. Through him men may perhaps learn better to comprehend what determines history. Furthermore, new questions have arisen in the course of the study, some of them of fundamental importance to an under standing of American foreign policy in the later twentieth century; and it is hoped that the lectures may illuminate these new problems and may provoke others to pursue the problems further. I am under obligation to many for courtesies or assistance while these lectures were being prepared. I wish to thank for PREFACE XI permission to quote from the books here listed a number of holders of copyrights: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., New York, for Thomas A. Bailey, A Diplomatic History of the American People (1940), l\1. A. De,Volfe Howe, James Ford Rhodes (1929), and Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1899); George Allen and Un win, Ltd., London, for John A. Hobson, Imperialism: A Study (1938); The Atlantic l\ionthly Press, Boston, for John D. Long, America of Yesterday as Reflected in the Journal of John Davis Long ... (1923), Lawrence S. Mayo, ed.; The Bobbs-l\ierrill Co., Indianapolis, for Albert J. Beveridge, The ~Meaning of the Times (1908, 1936), used by special permis sion of the publishers; Brandt and Brandt, New York, for Oscar K. Davis, Released for Publication (1925, 1953) ; Cas sell and Co., Ltd., London, for Bernhard H. von Billow, Im perial Germany (1914), Marie A. Lewenz, tr., and George P. Gooch, History of ~Modern Europe, 1898-1919 (1923); The University of Chicago Press, for Howard C. Hill, Theodore Roosevelt and the Caribbean (1927); The Columbia Uni versity Press, New York, for John ·w. Burgess, Recent Changes in American Constitutional Theory (1923); Con stable and Co., Ltd., London, for Robert B. 1\tfowat, Life of Lord Pauncefote (1929); Dodd, l\fead, and Co., New York, for Tyler Dennett, John Hay (1933), ·william H. Edwards, The Tragedy of Edward VII (1928), l\:fark A. DeWolfe Howe, George von Lengerke. lr!eyer: His Life and Public Services (1919), and Philip C. Jessup, Elihu Root (1938); Doubleday and Co., Inc., New York, for Archie Butt, The Letters of Archie Butt (1924), Lawrence F. Abbott, ed., Archie Butt, Taft and Roosevelt: The Intimate Letters of Archie Butt (1930), Rudyard Kipling, Something of lrfyself: For lrfy Friends Known and Unknown (copyright 1937 by Caroline Kipling and reprinted by permission of Mrs. George Bambridge), and Serge "Witte, ~Memoirs (1920, 1921); Gerald Duckworth and Co., Ltd., London, for the foreign rights to xii PREFACE ·w. George Smalley, Anglo-American :Memories (1911, 1912); E. P. Dutton and Co., Inc., New York, for Alfred L. P. Dennis, Adventures in American Diplomacy (1928), and John L. Heaton, Cobb of" The World" (1924); the trustees of the estate of Frederick H. Gillett for Frederick H. Gillett, George Frisbie Hoar (1934); Lloyd C. Griscom for Diplo matically Speaking (1940), published by Little, Brown and Co., Boston; Sir Cecil Graves, London, for Viscount Edward Grey, Twenty-five Years, 1892-1916 (1925);Harcourt,Brace, and Co., Inc., New York, for A. 'Whitney Griswold, The Far Eastern Policy of the United States (1938), Henry F. Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt (1931), and The Letters of Lincoln Steffens (1938) , Ella 'Vinter and Granville Hicks, eds.; Harper and Brothers, New York, for David J. Hill, Impressions of the Kaiser (1918), The Kaiser's :Memoirs (1922), Thomas R. Ybarra, tr., Allan Nevins, Henry White: Thirty Years of American Diplomacy (1930) , Henry L. Stoddard, It Costs To Be President (1938), :Mark Twain's Autobiography (1924), and :Mark Twain in Eruption (1940), Bernard DeVoto, ed.; The Harvard University Press, Cam bridge, for The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt (copyright 1951, 1952, 1954 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College), Elting E. :Morison, ed., Ralph Barton Perry, The Thought and Character of William James (1935), and Elihu Root, Addresses on International Subjects (1916); Dr. Ives Hendrick, executor of the estate of Burton J. Hendrick, for Burton J. Hendrick, The Life of Andrew Carnegie (1932); Henry Holt and Co., Inc., New York, for Samuel F. Bemis, A Diplomatic History of the United States (1936), and l\Iary Coolidge, Chinese Immigration (1909); Hodder and Stough ton, Ltd., London, for Maurice F. Egan, Ten Years near the German Frontier (1919); The Houghton l\1iffiin Co., Boston, for The Letters of Henry Adams, 1892-1918 (1938), Worthington C. Ford, ed., Stephen Gwynn, The Letters and Friendships of Sir Cecil Spring Rice (1929), Mark A. De- PHEFACE xiii \Volfe Howe, Portmit of an Independent: Moorfield Storey, 1845-1929 (1932), John J. Leary, Tallcs with T. R. (1920), The Letters of Grover Cleveland, 1850-1908 {1933), Allan Nevins, ed., The Letters of Charles Eliot Norton (1913), Sara Norton and l\1. A. De\Volie Howe, eds., Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas II. Benton (1899), The Intimate Papers of Colonel Ilouse (1926-1928), Charles Seymour, ed., Wil liam R. Thayer, Life and Letters of John Hay (1908), and George Macauley Trevelyan, Grey of Fallodon (1937); The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, for Dexter Perkins, The };fonroe Doctrine, 1867-1907 (1937); Bruce Humphries, Inc., Boston, for Francis l\1. Huntington Wilson, J.lf emoirs of an Ex-Diplom:at (1945) ; Hutchinson and Co., Ltd., London, for The Letters of Prince von Bulow (1930), Frederic Whyte, tr.; The University of lllinois Press, Urbana, for Paul Varg, Open Door Diplomat: The Life of W. W. Rockhill (1952); Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, for Herman Bernstein, The Willy-Nicky Correspondence (1918), 'Villiam H. Lan ger, The Diplomacy of ImperialiWt, 1890-1902 (1935, 1951), Baron Roman Romanovitch Rosen, Forty Years in Di plomacy (1922), and Oswald G. Villard, Prophets True and False {1928); J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, for John 0. P. Bland, Recent Events and Current Politics in China (1912); Paul List Verlag, Leipzig, for Hermann von Eckard stein, Die Isolierung Deutschlands (vol. III of Lebenserrin nerungen und politische Denkwiirdigkeiten) (1919-1921); Little, Brown, and Co., Boston, for Alfred T. J\ilahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793-1812 (1898), The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783 (1898), The Interest of America in Sea Power, Past and F-uture (1898) , and The Problem of Asia (1905), and Dexter Perkins, Hands Off: A History of the Monroe Doctrine (1941); Longmans, Green, and Co., Inc., New York, for George P. Gooch, Before the lVar: Studies in Diplomacy (1936); The l\1acmillan Co., New York, for xiv PREFACE Owen Wister, The Pentacost of Calamity and a Straight Deal (1915) ; 1\:facmillan and Co., Ltd., London, for the foreign rights in Brooks Adams, America's Economic Su premacy (1900), Lord Newton, Lord Lansdowne (19~9), and Sidney Lee, King Edward VII (19~7); 1\Ir. Lyle Evans Mahan, New York, for Alfred T. 1\Iahan, Lessons of the War with Spain and Other Articles (1899); John Murray, Ltd., London, for Charles C. Taylor, The Life of Admiral ~Mahan: Naval Philosopher (1920); Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., Edinburgh, and The Right Hon. Susan Lady Tweedsmuir, for John Buchan, Lord 1llinto: A j}femoir (19~4); :Mr. Allan Nevins, for his rights in his Henry White (1930); The Odys sey Press, Inc., New York, for John H. Latane and David ·w. Wainhouse, A History of American Foreign Policy (1940); Putnam and Co., Ltd., London, for Prince von Bulow: j}femoirs (1931-193~); G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, for Blanche E. C. Dugdale, Arthur James Balfour (1936), for Theodore Roosevelt, African and European Addresses (1910), Lawrence F. Abbott, ed., T. Roosevelt, Essays on Practical Politics (1888), and T. Roosevelt, American Ideals and Other Essays, Social and Political (190~), for Speeches, Corre spondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz (1913) , Fred erick Bancroft, ed., and for the American rights to George '\V. Smalley, Anglo-American :Memories (1911, 191~); St. :Martin's Press, New York, for the American rights to Brooks Adams, America's Economic Supremacy (1900); Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, for Joseph B. Bishop, Theodore Roosevelt and His Time (19~0), Nicholas 1\Iurray Butler, Across the Busy Years (1939-1940), Royal Cortissoz, The Life of Whitelaw Reid (19~1), Letters from Theodore Roose velt to Anna Roosevelt Cowles, 1870-1918. (19~4), Anna R. Cowles, ed., George Dewey, Autobiography of George Dewey: Admiral of the Navy (1916), Finley Peter Dunne, j}fr. Dooley at His Best (1938), Selections from the Correspond ence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1881,.-