How the Monroe Doctrine has Sprung from the Isolation of the New World.—The Monroe Doctrine, like the whole problem of bound aries, depends on a number of geographical conditions. According to this doctrine no nation outside of America is allowed to obtain new territory in the Western Hemisphere or to establish a new govern ment over any part of it. The United States took the lead in this movement of America for the Americans partly because this country is located in the most stimulating climate of the New World. We were able to maintain it partly because the wide Atlantic separates the Americas from Europe. The Monroe Doctrine was first declared in 1823 when the South American countries had revolted from Spain and were establishing republics. At that time there was danger that European countries would take possession of South America as they later took possession of Africa. The United States did not wish this, for the people here believed in self-government and wanted those of South America to have an opportunity to try it for themselves.
If South America had been as close to Europe as is Africa, this country could not have prevented England, Germany, France, and other European powers from taking parts of Latin America. So much time, expense, and danger, however, are involved in trans porting an army across the sea that no European power thought it worth while to go to war with us in order to obtain colonies. Thus South America was left to try its own experiments in self-govern ment.
Through the Monroe Doctrine we have as it were, pledged our selves to see that the experiment of self-government has a thorough trial. This, however, places on us a heavy responsibility. Judging by India, Egypt, South Africa, and other British colonies as well as by French Tripoli and the Dutch Islands of Java and Sumatra, the more tropical portions of South America would to-day be better governed, more prosperous, and more peaceful than at present if they were held by such an enlightened colonial power as Britain. Therefore be cause the sea has enabled us to say "Hands off" to Europe we are bound to see that no part of Latin America is the loser on this ac count. We do not want to govern the Latin Americans or take their territory. To do so would be a burden to us and would prevent them from learning through experience. We should be equally careful not to exploit their wealth selfishly, although it is inevitable that the development of their resources should come largely through foreigners.
Without governing or exploiting the backward parts of the Western Hemisphere we can help them in a thousand ways. We owe
it to them and to the rest of the world to see that they have stable, just governments, such as we are trying to support in Cuba. We can serve them greatly by teaching them to observe the difficult laws of health and sanitation, as at Panama; we can do much by means of schools and education to arouse them from the inertia which is so common in tropical climates, as many missionaries• are doing in Mexico; we can assist in improving their homes, their business methods, and all the other factors which make up a healthful, vigorous civilization, as a great American fruit company is doing in Guate mala, Costa Rica, and elsewhere. We need not expect thanks for all this, yet we must do it not merely because in the long run it will be best for us as well as for them, but because the presence of the sea has caused us to establish the Monroe Doctrine and thus to take upon ourselves the protection of the weak and the oppressed on this side of the Atlantic.
The Relation of Geography to Political Boundaries: The Value of Mountains as Political Boundaries.—Many political effects spring from a great variety of geographical caases. Boundaries, for example, depend on land forms, water bodies, soil, minerals, climate, vegetation, and even on the distribution of animals. Mountains determine polit ical boundaries more often than does any other geographical feature except the seacoast. This is because they possess a number of dis tinct advantages: (1) They form barriers which naturally separate the people on the two sides; (2) a mountain boundary usually lies in unoccupied lands which have no great value; (3) the crest of a moun tain range is usually well defined, so that there is little question as to where the boundary lies; (4) such a boundary is not subject to changes like those of rivers.
Spain furnishes one of the best examples of the political value of mountain boundaries. The Pyrenees, which cut it off from the rest of Europe, are so hard to cross that throughout much of its history Spain has been quite separate from central Europe. The moun tains were one of the chief reasons why Spain played so little part in the Great War. Italy, also, is cut off from the rest of Europe by the Alps. Accordingly no armies except those of two of the world's most daring generals, Hannibal and Napoleon, have ever crossed the main chain of the Alps. Only at either end where the Alps descend to mere foothills can they be crossed with comparative ease and even there the railroads need tunnels. Yet in the past armies from France and especially Austria have sometimes gone this way to Italy.