Nor are the ethics of the manner of our acquisition of a part of Panama
and the Canal wholly defensible from the point of view of international
democracy. Yet it must be remembered that President Roosevelt was
dealing with a corrupt, irresponsible, and hostile government, and that
the Canal had become a necessity not only for our own development, but
for that of the civilization of the world.
The Spanish War, as has been said, marked a transition, a development of
the American Idea. In obedience to a growing perception that dominion
and exploitation are incompatible with and detrimental to our system of
government, we fought in good faith to gain self-determination for an
alien people. The only real peril confronting democracy is the arrest
of growth. Its true conquests are in the realms of ideas, and hence it
calls for a statesmanship which, while not breaking with the past, while
taking into account the inherent nature of a people, is able to deal
creatively with new situations--always under the guidance of current
social science.
Woodrow Wilson's Mexican policy, being a projection of the American Idea
to foreign affairs, a step toward international democracy, marks the
beginning of a new era. Though not wholly understood, though opposed by
a powerful minority of our citizens, it stirred the consciousness of a
national mission to which our people are invariably ready to respond.
Since it was essentially experimental, and therefore not lacking in
mistakes, there was ample opportunity for a criticism that seemed at
times extremely plausible.
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