The conflict between the desire to avoid foreign entanglements and the desire to advance American economic interests is well-illustrated by events in Latin America. In dealing with this part of the world, Harding and Coolidge performed neither better nor worse than Wilson had.
In the face of continued radicalism and instability in Mexico, which caused Americans with interests in land and oil rights to suffer heavy losses, President Coolidge acted with forbearance. The Mexicans were able to complete their social and economic revolution in the 1920s without significant interference by the United States.
Under Coolidge’s successor,
Herbert Hoover, the United States began at last to treat Latin American nations as equals. Hoover reversed Wilson’s policy of trying to teach them “to elect good men.” The Clark Memorandum (1930), written by Undersecretary of State J. Reuben Clark, disassociated the right of intervention in Latin America from the Roosevelt Corollary. The corollary had been an improper extension of the Monroe Doctrine, Clark declared. The right of the United States to intervene depended rather on “the doctrine of self-preservation.”
The distinction seemed slight to Latin Americans, but since it seemed unlikely that the existence of the United States could be threatened in the area, it was important. By 1934 the marines who had been occupying Nicaragua, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic had all been withdrawn and the United States had renounced the right to intervene in Cuban affairs. Instead of functioning as the policeman for the region, the United States would be its “good neighbor.” Unfortunately, the United States did little to try to improve social and economic conditions in the Caribbean region, so the underlying envy and resentment of “rich Uncle Sam” did not disappear.
World History
