bout the Caribbean. United in a group, known
from their initials as the "A.B.C." powers, they sought to assume the
leadership of Latin America, basing their action, indeed, upon the
fundamentals of the Monroe Doctrine--the exclusion of foreign influence
and the independence of peoples--but with themselves instead of the
United States as chief, guardians.

Many of the publicists of these three powers, however, doubted their
capacity to walk entirely alone. On the one hand they noted the growing
influence of the Germans in Brazil and the indications of Japanese
interest in many places, and on the other they divined the fundamental
sincerity of the professions of the United States and were anxious to
cooperate with this nation. Not strong enough to control the policy of
the various countries, these men at least countered those chauvinists
who urged that hostility to the United States was a first duty compared
with which the danger of non-American interference might be neglected.

Confronted by this divided attitude, the United States sought to win
over but not to compel. Nothing more completely met American views than
that each power should maintain for itself the principles of the Monroe
Doctrine by excluding foreign influences. Beyond that the United States
sought only friendship, and, if it were agreeable, such unity as should
be mutually advantageous. In 1906 Elihu Root, the Secretary of State,
made a tour of South America with a view of expressing these sentiments;
and in 1913-1914 ex-President Roosevelt took occasion, on the way to his
Brazilian hunting trip, to assure the people of the great South American
powers that the "Big Stick" was not intended to intimidate them.
Pan-American unity was still, when President Taft went out of office
in 1913, an aspiration rather than a realized fact, though the tangible
evidences of unity had vastly multiplied since 1898, and the recurring
congresses provided a basis of organization upon which some substantial
structure might be built.

The United States had sincerely hoped that Mexico, like the "A.B.C."
powers, was another Latin American power which had found itself. Of all
it was certainly the most friendly and the most intimate. The closeness
of its relations with the United States is indicated by the fact that in
the forty years between 1868 and 1908, forty agreements, treaties,
and conventions had been concluded between the two countries. Nor was
intimacy confined to the