CHAPTER XXVIII

NORMALCY ONCE MORE

'N various ways the period since Wilson retired to private life has resembled the aftermath of the Civil War.

I

The Harding Administration was a time of reconstruction. Its closest parallel is found in that of Grant or JohnThe political morale of both the reconstruction eras has been much alike, and in them American democracy endured perhaps a sterner test than war itself imposed. The President was chosen with a view toward pouring oil on troubled waters, and indeed his genial spirit fostered a more comfortable atmosphere than Wilson had permitted. His philosophy of government reverted to an earlier day when the ideal of the fathers respecting an equilibrium in judicial, legislative, and executive power was more completely realized than later. Recent Presidents had endeavored to coerce the Congress. In so doing they had roused antagonisms. It was Harding's concept of his office that the task assigned him by the Constitution was to execute the laws and will of Congress, and in no sense to be a driver for a body which possessed an equal standing in the Constitution with his own.

Certainly the overwhelming vote of 1920 left no doubt of popular reaction against Wilson's foreign policies. No matter what the formula describing it, the people viewed the League of Nations as nothing short of an entangling alliance, popular disapproval of which was an important factor in defeating by more than seven million votes the party that upheld it. After such a demonstration of the people's will, any move which Harding made toward international coöperation was certain to be cautious. And the "Association of Nations" which Harding mentioned in his platform as a proper alternative to Wilson's League was quietly pigeon-holed.

The idealism which Root, and Lowell, and Ex-President Taft stood sponsor for, found outlet in another manner. For notwithstanding the slump that followed war, the new administration was not indifferent to world responsibilities. But profiting by Wilson's misadventures it acted on a motto of festina lente, or make haste slowly.

LIBERAL TENDENCIES

In obedience to a pre-election promise to seek counsel of the "best minds," the President invited to his cabinet some members of the first ability. For the State Department, he secured a lawyer of scarcely rivaled eminence. Charles Evans Hughes had played a leading rôle in politics. First brought to national attention by his exposure and correction of corrupt practices among insurance companies of New York, Mr. Hughes had added to his laurels as Governor of his State. A subsequent position on the Supreme Court bench might supposedly have terminated his political career. But he resigned from this to wage the campaign of 1916. In personal ability and party service, he excelled his chief. It was one of Harding's virtues, though, to be able to make use of others' talents with no thought of petty jealousy. Indeed this fearless magnanimity of Harding won for his administration its enduring claim to memory. For in the field of foreign policy its laurels are untarnished, whereas upon domestic issues, scandal has obscured its credit.

The appointment of George Harvey, editor of the North American Review, to be ambassador at the Court of St. James, was almost as striking in its way as that of Hughes. No clearer signal could have been devised to assure the world that Wilson and his policies no longer reigned. There can be little doubt that the appointment fulfilled a preelection pledge. The new ambassador would need to live down some anti-British editorial effusions of his literary past. But his ability was unquestionable, and barring an occasional indiscretion, the most glaring of which was the assertion at a banquet that the United States entered the

World War for purely selfish aims, Harvey held his office creditably.

The new ambassador inherited from the régime of Wilson a strained relation with Great Britain on the subject of Mesopotamian oil. The President had favored free access for all nations to the former Turkish oil fields. Great Britain contended for the prior rights of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, in which the British government had itself a major interest. Secretary Colby had addressed severe representations on the subject to the Marquess Curzon, British Foreign Secretary. These were met by statements of the transfer of the oil rights from the Sultan's private civil list to various private corporations, and finally the AngloPersian Oil Company, a government monopoly. So complicated were the issues of this "oleaginous diplomacy," as an American political scientist has aptly termed it, that one cannot easily determine whether the interest of Wilson and his Secretary Bainbridge Colby was due so much to eagerness for open doors to the world's trade, or whether after all the business interests of the United States were not employing the government as agent for their claims.1 Under the Harding Administration the negotiations commenced by Wilson were continued. They resulted in a disposition on Great Britain's part to offer to American capitalists a share in the Mesopotamian oil monopoly. This situation is now in process of unfoldment. If present indications point

toward the outcome, it must mean an abandonment of the open door, and an avowal that diplomacy is after all what Secretary Knox interpreted it to be, an adjunct for Big Business in the control of foreign markets.

Oil played its part in disposing of the long established difficulty with Colombia. The rape of Panama left a festering grievance in the Colombian mind which time did little to assuage. A heart-balm of $25,000,000 fitted admirably, therefore, with Wilson's fixed determination to improve our South American relations. To pay this sum

1 Earl, Edward Mead, "The Turkish Petroleum Company-A Study in Oleaginous Diplomacy." Political Science Quarterly, XXXIX, 265

was to confess a former crime or error, and Roosevelt with all his might opposed it. The greatest act of his administration as he himself regarded it must not so basely be repudiated. Here in Colombia was a combination, then, of idealism and the personal antagonism of the foremost two Americans of their generation. A third ingredient entered when vast oil deposits were discovered in Colombia, for in the prospective exhaustion of our own supplies it became imperative to obtain for Americans a share in exploiting the Colombian fields. And this could only be assured by mollifying the anger of Colombian authorities. Economic need swung the balance between the two antagonists, and for once, at any rate, Big Business and idealism met on common ground. Both favored payment to Colombia, and under a Republican President, the United States Congress insulted the memory of Roosevelt by paying to Colombia what he constantly asserted was nothing better than international black-mail.2

Under Harding the Caribbean policy of Wilson was somewhat liberalized. The liberal protestations of Wilson's Mobile speech of October, 1913, if not violated technically, were, at any rate, but partially upheld in spirit. For notwithstanding pledges to the contrary, the United States did acquire more territory, if not by conquest, at least by purchase the Virgin Islands now so-called, obtained from Denmark at a price of $25,000,000. These islands are of immense importance to Caribbean strategy. And more alarming still to Latin sensibilities, the economic protectorate continued over Nicaragua, and military intervention kept United States marines in Haiti.

The opposition to President Wilson took great delight in exposing the tyranny of his policy in Haiti. Yet in the circumstances that policy was inevitable. After a century of native misrule the Black Republic was sinking into utter anarchy when in 1915 an American warship arrived at Port

2 Cf. A brief article on "The Truth about the Colombian Affair" in The World's Work, vol. XXXVIII, pp. 347-348, also "Colombia Treaty Ratified," Independent, vol. CV, pp. 484-485, also "The Colombian Treaty Ratified," Current History, XIV, pp. 541-543.

au-Prince just as the community was celebrating the murder of its President and his mutilation and dismemberment. Intervention could not be avoided, and it did wonders for the material betterment of Haiti. Order was restored; roads were constructed; a pathless wilderness was transformed. But this ambitious program imposed a road tax or corvée. For two years the natives accepted it without complaint, but in 1919 it was unwisely extended into the interior, so that many Haitians were forced to labor far from their homes.

The discontent which this aroused in many quarters enabled the Cacos or bandits of the hill country of central Haiti to start one of their periodical insurrections. To suppress this the native gendarmerie was officered by American marines, many of whom were privates specially commissioned. In small detachments or patrols, they carried on a form of guerilla warfare which lent itself to some abuses. It appears that certainly two and very probably ten Haitians were executed without warrant. These incidents were magnified beyond all reason by the radical press of the United States. They led to a Senate investigation of which the chairman was Medill McCormick, not by any means a friend of the Wilson Administration. His report, though regretting various errors in the conduct of the occupation, demonstrates the importance of the service rendered Haiti by the United States. President Harding nevertheless withdrew the marines from an occupation which was never intended to be permanent. And as Mr. Harding's term expired it was reported that all American control was withdrawn from both Haiti and Santo Domingo.

Another tactful move was made by President Harding when he offered Washington as a meeting ground for representatives of Chile and Peru to iron out the Tacna-Arica dispute. This "Alsace-Lorraine question" for the southern continent grew out of Chile's victory over Bolivia and Peru in the War of the Pacific. The Treaty of Ancon which

3 U. S. Congress, Senate, 67th Congress, 2nd Session, Report No. 794. "Inquiry into Occupation and Administration of Haiti and the Dominican Republic," July 26, 1922.