can policy
in the Far East has made it abundantly evident that the United States
does not regard the self-imposed limitations upon its activity as
extending to Asia. In her case there is lacking the quid pro quo by
which the United States has justified its demand that European powers
refrain from interfering in America. By no means, however, has the
Government admitted the right of Asia to impinge on the American
continents.

In 1912 Washington heard that Japan was negotiating with Mexico for
a concession on Magdalena Bay. Senator Lodge promptly introduced a
resolution in the Senate, declaring that "when any harbor or other place
in the American continents is so situated that the occupation thereof
for naval or military purposes might threaten the communication or the
safety of the United States, the Government of the United States could
not see, without grave concern, the possession of such harbor or other
place by any corporation or association which has such relation to
another government, not American, as to give that government practical
power of control for naval or military purposes--" This resolution,
which passed the Senate by a vote of 51 to 4, undoubtedly represented
American sentiment, at least with regard to the foreign occupation
of any territory bordering on the Caribbean or on the Pacific between
Panama and California.

A more subtle danger lay in the financial claims of European powers
against the various states in Central America, and the possibility of
these claims being used as levers to establish permanent control. Most
of these foreign demands had a basis in justice but had been exaggerated
in amount. They were of two kinds: first, for damage to persons
or property resulting from the numerous revolutions and perpetual
brigandage which have scourged these semitropic territories; second, for
debts contracted in the name of the several countries for the most part
to conduct revolutions or to gild the after-career of defeated rulers in
Paris,--debts with a face value far in excess of the amount received by
the debtor and with accumulated interest in many cases far beyond
the capacity of the several countries to pay. The disputes as to the
validity of such claims have been without end, and they have furnished
a constant temptation to the cupidity of individuals and the ambition of
the powers.

In 1902 Germany induced Great Britain and Italy to join her in an
attempt to collect the amount of some of