Foreign Policy

Seven weeks ago, Secretary of State Kellogg was pleased to hear that Senor Adolfo Diaz had been elected President of Nicaragua by that republic's congress in joint session. With startling speed he sent U. S. recognition to President Diaz, a Conservative, an oldtime friend of the U. S. Department of State, who was recently employed by a U. S. mining company for a few dollars per week. Headline readers in the U. S. said: "Isn't it nice that those Nicaraguans are fixed up at last?" But shrewder observers in Washington and all of Central America knew that President Diaz's soup was not without sediment. The chief trouble was and still is that Nicaragua has another "legal" President--Dr. Juan Sacasa, Liberal, the Vice President who came into power when President Solorzano resigned a year ago.

It was inevitable that these two "legal" Presidents and their backers should do battle. Nicaraguan squabbles are no great cataclysms, since the peacetime strength of their army is 2,500 men. Mexico complicated matters by selling arms to President Sacasa's Liberals, who were doing well in a military way until Rear Admiral Julian L. Latimer landed U. S. Marines from his flagship, the U. S. S. Rochester, on the Mosquito (eastern) Coast of Nicaragua a fortnight ago. Acting on instructions from the Department of State, Rear Admiral Latimer set about to maintain the Bluefields neutral zone, ordered armed forces of both factions not to enter therein, reported that he had the situation well in hand. Presumably, he was on the Mosquito Coast to protect the lives and properties of U. S. citizens.*

A more pertinent reason for Rear Admiral Latimer's presence was the fact that President Diaz's forces had been defeated by the Liberals. After all, if the U. S. is going to have a protege in Nicaragua, it might as well protect him by armed intervention.

Such reasoning caused a flare of protest in Mexico, in South America, in Europe. Last week alarm was sounded in Washington. President Coolidge's Official Spokesman said that he was deeply concerned. He called for Secretaries Kellogg and Wilbur; they conferred for two hours. Nothing was announced. Rear Admiral Latimer remained on duty in Nicaragua. Senators and outsiders kept the question heated.

Senator Borah, of Idaho, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, likes to be a severe critic as well as a maker of U. S. foreign policy. On most afternoons at 3 p.m., he holds an informal chat with the gentlemen of the press. Interjecting a little profanity and rustling the disordered documents on his desk, he discusses anything from murder trials to Nicaragua. Fortnight ago, he was vituperative concerning U. S. intervention in Nicaragua. Early last week, he was secretively dramatic, said: "I think it is well recognized that the Nicaraguan revolution is being instigated by certain persons in Washington who are not Nicaraguans, and this is for business and other reasons. It is well known that there are eight or ten men in Washington who make a living off of these rows in Latin-American countries and put out a lot of propaganda. . . ."

Two days later, after a conference with Secretary Kellogg, Senator Borah was calm and satisfied that the U. S. had sent Marines to Nicaragua only to protect its citizens. Cautiously, he added: "We should be vigilant against being tricked into intervention." What will be the next state of mind of the man from Idaho, no one knows.

Senator Wheeler of Montana, fire-eating Democrat, had much to say. Herewith some of it:

"I am wondering whether Secretary Kellogg has become so infected with the Gilbert and Sullivan fever that is now sweeping the country that he is going to stage an American version of the Pirates of Penzance on the little State of Nicaragua. . . .

"Unless the American Marines are withdrawn from Nicaragua I shall introduce a resolution in the Senate immediately upon its convening, calling upon the Administration to cease its intervention there. . . .

"Some one has said they were there to protect the American Continent from the spread of Bolshevism. Only those simple-minded souls who still believe in a Santa Glaus can be fooled by such hypocrisy."

Senator Ransdell of Louisiana, who is the cartoonist's picture of a retired farmer, bristled at the chin whiskers when he lauded U. S. intervention, thereby pleasing many of his constituents who would like to have the U. S. go in and "clean up" Central America and Mexico, who well know the yell of the Yankee "gringo" to the Mexican "greaser." Said he: "The Communists in Mexico are trying to implant their vagaries in Nicaragua, hoping that they may spread throughout Central America and result in a communistic union of Mexico with the other Central American States, of which Calles aspires to be the ruling spirit."

Nelson O'Shaughnessy, jolly Manhattanite, who once played tennis with the German Crown Prince, who was a popular charge d'affaires in Mexico during the vexations of President Wilson's first administration, who speaks five languages, who is now negotiating loans with the Jugoslav Government for Blair & Co. of Manhattan, is something of an imperialist. Last week he paused on a holiday in Vienna to say: "It is only a question of time when we will have to invade Mexico to call a definite halt on its trouble making-propensities. We might as well face the facts--our sentimental hypocrisy is our worst enemy. We are reaping now the results of Wilson's half-hearted policy in Mexico. . . .

"It is our manifest destiny to incorporate Panama in American territory."

New York World said with finality: "The whole history of American dealing with Nicaragua since the days of Secretary Knox goes to show that Nicaragua is not an independent republic, that its Government is the creature of the State Department, that the management of its finances and the direction of its domestic and foreign affairs are determined not in Managua but in Washington and in Wall Street. For about 15 years Nicaragua has been an American protectorate and as much a part of an American empire as ever Egypt was of the British Empire or Syria of the French. . . . We continue to think of ourselves as a kind of great, peaceable Switzerland, whereas we are in fact a great, expanding world power. . . . The average American is so unaware of the American empire that he is startled to learn that there is one."

Mexico City Excelsior howled:

"The Colossus of the North, enriched by the World War, swollen with imperialistic pride, continues shamefully to trample down the rights of little nations. Unfortunately, honor does not characterize Yankee diplomacy, and, be it Wilson or Coolidge, always perfidy, bad faith, hypocrisy, improper interests are the best counselors of the Washington Government."

London Daily News said curtly:

"Admiral Latimer and his marines have, no doubt, put the fear of God into the small State of Nicaragua. They have destroyed the Government and sent Dr. Sacasa about his business. But what legal or moral right had they to do either?"

La Liberte of Paris: "The Monroe Doctrine, which forbids Europeans to stick their noses in American affairs is a very convenient fence behind which countries like Colombia and Haiti have been already strangled.

"There is a special brand of hypocrisy, dear to Quakers, Baptists and Presbyterians which has contributed much to the development of the United States and of which Coolidge is the direct descendant. These biblical folk permit themselves little or big sins which virtuously they condemn in others.

"We don't wish to mix in the affairs of Central America, but we cannot help saying that the relations of the United States with Mexico are simply scandalous."

U. S. Policy. In its dealings in the Caribbean, in Central America and Mexico, the U. S. has often acted on expediency, the "legal or moral right" afterward. President Roosevelt was the reputed master of this art--witness the Panama-Colombia war and Santo Domingo. President Taft had a sharper international conscience, preferred "dollar diplomacy." President Wilson made an attempt to find the "legal and moral right" before acting in Mexico and was much twitted for his troubles.

Intermittently since 1909, Nicaraguan affairs have been much as they are today. Marines were stationed in Nicaragua during most of the Taft and Wilson Administrations; they have landed three times within the last year. President Coolidge and Secretary Kellogg certainly cannot be accused of changing the tradition. But yet they denied last week that they were taking sides by sending Marines to the storm centre of the Diaz-Sacasa row. Whether or not there is a "Mexican-Bolshevist hegemony" in Nicaragua, previous U. S. policy argues that the Administration should back President Diaz, since he is, at present, its man.

If President Coolidge and Mr. Kellogg withdraw the Marines and let Nicaragua fight out .its difficulties, then they will be creating a new U. S. tradition.

*Most of whom are illiterate Indians and Negroes. There are some 25 U. S. companies (fruit, mahogany, gold mining) having properties in Nicaragua. None compare with the vast U. S. properties in Mexico.