the German policy of
submarine warfare, but it was on the latter issue, in which the
interests and rights of the United States were directly involved, that
we finally entered the war.

V

THE OPEN-DOOR POLICY

In the Orient American diplomacy has had a somewhat freer hand than in
Europe. Commodore Perry's expedition to Japan in 1852-1854 was quite a
radical departure from the general policy of attending strictly to our
own business. It would hardly have been undertaken against a country
lying within the European sphere of influence. There were, it is true,
certain definite grievances to redress, but the main reason for the
expedition was that Japan refused to recognize her obligations as a
member of the family of nations and closed her ports to all intercourse
with the outside world. American sailors who had been shipwrecked on
the coast of Japan had failed to receive the treatment usually accorded
by civilized nations. Finally the United States decided to send a
naval force to Japan and to force that country to abandon her policy of
exclusion and to open her ports to intercourse with other countries.
Japan yielded only under the threat of superior force. The conduct of
the expedition, as well as our subsequent diplomatic negotiations with
Japan, was highly creditable to the United States, and the Japanese
people later erected a monument to the memory of Perry on the spot
where he first landed.

The acquisition of the Philippine Islands tended to bring us more fully
into the current of world politics, but it did not necessarily disturb
the balancing of European and American spheres as set up by President
Monroe. Various explanations have been given of President McKinley's
decision to retain the Philippine group, but the whole truth has in all
probability not yet been fully revealed. The partition of China
through the establishment of European spheres of influence was well
under way when the Philippine Islands came within our grasp. American
commerce with China was at this time second to that of England alone,
and the concessions which were being wrung from China by the European
powers in such rapid succession presented a bad outlook for us. The
United States could not follow the example of the powers of Europe, for
the seizure of a sphere of influence in China would not have been
supported by the Senate or upheld by public opinion. It is probable
that President McKinley thought that the Philippine