ebts and loose
financial administration. It was absurd for us to stand quietly by and
witness the utterly irresponsible creation of financial obligations
that would inevitably lead to European intervention and then undertake
to fix the bounds and limits of that intervention. It is interesting
to note that President Wilson did not hesitate to carry the new policy
to its logical conclusion, and that he went so far as to warn
Latin-American countries against granting to foreign corporations
concessions which, on account of their extended character, would be
certain to give rise to foreign claims which would, in turn, give an
excuse for European intervention. In discussing our Latin-American
policy shortly after the beginning of his administration, President
Wilson said: "You hear of 'concessions' to foreign capitalists in Latin
America. You do not hear of concessions to foreign capitalists in the
United States. They are not granted concessions. They are invited to
make investments. The work is ours, though they are welcome to invest
in it. We do not ask them to supply the capital and do the work. It
is an invitation, not a privilege; and states that are obliged, because
their territory does not lie within the main field of modern enterprise
and action, to grant concessions are in this condition, that foreign
interests are apt to dominate their domestic affairs--a condition of
affairs always dangerous and apt to become intolerable. . . . What
these states are going to seek, therefore, is an emancipation from the
subordination, which has been inevitable, to foreign enterprise and an
assertion of the splendid character which, in spite of these
difficulties, they have again and again been able to demonstrate."

These remarks probably had reference to the oil concession which
Pearson and Son of London had arranged with the president of Colombia.
This concession is said to have covered practically all of the oil
interests in Colombia, and carried with it the right to improve harbors
and dig canals in the country. However, before the meeting of the
Colombian congress in November, 1913, which was expected to confirm the
concession, Lord Cowdray, the president of Pearson and Son, withdrew
the contract, alleging as his reason the opposition of the United
States.

Unfortunately President Roosevelt's assertion of the Big Stick policy
and of the duty of the United States to play policeman in the western
hemisphere was acco