ericas as
"dangerous to our peace and safety."

"The United States will keep her hands off Europe; she will expect
Europe to keep her hands off America," was the essence of the doctrine,
which has been popularly expressed in the phrase "America for the
Americans." The Doctrine was thus a statement of international
aloofness,--a declaration of American independence of the remainder of
the world.

The Monroe Doctrine soon lost its political character. The southern
statesmen who were then guiding the destinies of the United States were
looking with longing eyes into Texas, Mexico, Cuba and other potential
slave-holding territory. Later, the economic necessities of the northern
capitalists led them in the same direction. Professor Roland G. Usher,
in his "Pan-Americanism" (New York, The Century Company, 1915, pp.
391-392) insists that the Monroe Doctrine stands "First, for our
incontrovertible right of self-defense. In the second place the Monroe
Doctrine has stood for the equally undoubted right of the United States
to champion and protect its primary economic interest against Europe or
America."

Through the course of a century this statement of defensive policy has
been converted into a doctrine of economic pseudo-sovereignty. It is no
longer a case of keeping Europe out of Latin America but of getting the
United States into Latin America.

The United States does not fear political aggression by Europe against
the Western Hemisphere. On the contrary, the aggression to-day is
largely economic, and the struggle for the markets and the investment
opportunities of Latin America is being waged by the capitalists of
every great industrial nation, including the United States.

2. _Latin America_

Four of the Latin American countries, viewed from the standpoint of
population and of immediately available assets, rank far ahead of the
remainder of Latin America. Mexico, with a population in 1914-1915 of
15,502,000, had an annual government revenue of $72,687,000. The
population of Brazil is 27,474,000. The annual revenue (1919) is
$183,615,000. Argentine, with a population of 8,284,000, reported annual
revenues of $159,000,000 (1918); and Chile, with a population of
3,870,000, had an annual revenue of $77,964,000 (1917). These four
states rank in political and economic importance close to Canada.

Great Britain holds a number of strategic positions in the West Indies.
Other nations have minor possessions in Latin Americ