Teddy Roosevelt, The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine & South America

Teddy Roosevelt became president at the end of 1901 after William McKinley was assassinated. Roosevelt could not be pigeonholed to a single party ideology. He supported American Entrepreneurship, but sought to strengthen consumer protection and destroy monopolies. He was a fan of American ingenuity and self-reliance. He was often considered one of the more macho presidents, leading a charge of men up San Juan Hill during the Spanish American War and hunting elephants in Africa in his spare time. He was an outdoorsman, going on safaris in Africa and hikes in Yosemite with John Muir (Roosevelt was one of the first champions of land conservation and passed the National Parks Act).

One thing Roosevelt hated was instability. He was a avid reader of Alfred T Mahan's "Importance of Seapower Upon History." In the book, Mahan stressed that all super-powers (my characterization) needed a strong Navy in order to protect its overseas capital interests. McKinley set the expansion of American power (some might call American Imperialism) with the acquisition of the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico and Cuba after the Spanish-American war, and Roosevelt wanted to keep that influence stable.

In order to understand Roosevelt's hatred of instability, you would have to understand the domestic and international Progressive movement that grew out of the ideas of the Populist movement of the late 19th century. Domestic Progressivism was lead by white, middle class Catholics who wanted to create stability in social, physical and political arenas. The movement was fueled by the idea that if one beautifies and creates order in a chaotic space, like the five-points in NY city or the Bowery in San Francisco, then the people would naturally be reformed. Programs like the Settlement movement led by Jane Addams and the City Beautiful design used by Fredrick Law Olmstead all embodied the idea that stability breeds self reliance and instability creates dangerous dependence.

International Progressivism worked on the same premise, but with a more substantial foundation. During his first elected term, Roosevelt released his Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine was an edict by President James Monroe, released in 1823, which declared that the landmass that is currently the United States is a sovereign nation and no meddling by European power is allowed. When it was released, the doctrine was mostly symbolic, with no method of enforcement. It was a product of the Era of Good Feeling that followed the perception that the U.S. had defeated the British Empire a second time after the war of 1812.

The Roosevelt Corollary took advantage of the United States' presence on the world stage to declare that the entire Western Hemisphere was a U.S. "Sphere of Influence." He believed that instability and dependence worked hand-in-hand to create a prime environment for European interventionism. Once either force occurred in a region of the hemisphere (north or south), Europeans could establish a foothold and violate American sovereignty. He used this as a way to showcase the influence that America had during the new century (some would later dub the American Century) and justify interventionism in South America.

Roosevelt, like later president Woodrow Wilson, saw European colonialism and imperialism as a movement of the past and a driver of instability. While Wilson could point to the anachronistic and entangling alliances as the cause of the bloodbath of World War I, Roosevelt looked at German and British actions in Venezuela in 1902. After a bloody civil war in Venezuela, German and British nationals sustained heavy property losses and their respective governments sent a joint force to South America. Once Venezuela reneged on their debt obligations, Germany and Britain sent warships to shell the coast. Roosevelt forced the warships to withdraw and moderated a debt repayment between Venezuela and the two European nations.

Roosevelt also saw European and colonial interventionism as stymieing American commercial growth overseas. There were key goals that had to be fulfilled in order to expand American goods to overseas markets (especially with the opening up of Japan). These were: Trading bases overseas, a strong navy and a canal that would allow ships access to markets without having go around the cape of South America. The acquisition of the land to build the Panama Canal showed that expanding US commercial interests often trumped Roosevelt's hatred of preventing instability. When the Senate of Colombia refused to ratify a treaty giving the US rights to land to build the canal through Panama, Roosevelt chose to support an independence revolution of Panamanians. He ordered US ships to blockade Panama and send envoys to Colombia to tell the president to surrender the territory. America soon recognized the sovereign nation of Panama, offered $40 million for the land and started construction of the canal. Whether Roosevelt let his commercial endeavors trump his ideologies on global security or if he justified the support of a very unstable revolution over the backing of a colonial power, the fact remains that the creation of the Panama Canal helped facilitate the growth of American goods and influence in the world market.