with Colombia.

As the foreign pressure on Castro steadily increased, Luis Maria Drago,
the Argentine Minister of Foreign Affairs, formulated in 1902 the
doctrine with which his name has been associated. It stated in substance
that force should never be employed between nations for the collection
of contractual debts. Encouraged by this apparent token of support from
a sister republic, Castro defied his array of foreign adversaries more
vigorously than ever, declaring that he might find it needful to invade
the United States, by way of New Orleans, to teach it the lesson it
deserved! But when he attempted, in the following year, to close the
ports of Venezuela as a means of bringing his native antagonists to
terms, Great Britain, Germany, and Italy seized his warships, blockaded
the coast, and bombarded some of his forts. Thereupon the United States
interposed with a suggestion that the dispute be laid before the Hague
Tribunal. Although Castro yielded, he did not fail to have a clause
inserted in a new "constitution" requiring foreigners who might wish
to enter the republic to show certificates of good character from the
Governments of their respective countries.

These incidents gave much food for thought to Castro as well as to
his soberer compatriots. The European powers had displayed an apparent
willingness to have the United States, if it chose to do so, assume the
role of a New World policeman and financial guarantor. Were it to assume
these duties, backward republics in the Caribbean and its vicinity were
likely to have their affairs, internal as well as external, supervised
by the big nation in order to ward off European intervention. At
this moment, indeed, the United States was intervening in Panama. The
prospect aroused in many Hispanic countries the fear of a "Yankee peril"
greater even than that emanating from Europe. Instead of being a kindly
and disinterested protector of small neighbors, the "Colossus of the
North" appeared rather to resemble a political and commercial ogre bent
upon swallowing them to satisfy "manifest destiny."

Having succeeded in putting around his head an aureole of local
popularity, Castro in 1905 picked a new set of partially justified
quarrels with the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, Colombia,
and even with the Netherlands, arising out of the depredations of
revolutionists; but an armed menace from the United States induced him
to desist from his plans. He content