The Monroe Doctrine and World War II

Only a decade or two ago, the Monroe Doctrine was in disfavor. The vitriolic pens of its critics denounced it as an “indisputable evidence of our overweening national conceit.” They condemned it as an “obsolete shibboleth,” “hoary with age”—a doctrine which the twentieth century would surely relegate to the dusty archives of diplomatic history. As late as 1937, no less a person than the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations remarked in the course of an interview that the Monroe Doctrine was dead.Time and circumstance, however, often bring remarkable changes. Since the beginning of World War II, the red blood corpuscles of Pan-American unity have instilled new life and vitality into the Doctrine. Curiously enough, after 120 years, the very threats which confronted President Monroe in 1823 have risen again to becloud the security of the Western Hemisphere. Historians may have argued (before the fall of France) that the Holy Alliance, with its determination “to put an end to the system of representative government,” constituted a greater danger to the New World than the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis. It is clear, however, that the fascist concepts of the master race and of world domination are far more menacing to democracy than the avowed aims of the Holy Alliance ever were. The tremendous striking power which the Axis has so amply demonstrated in a world shrivelled by technology, coupled with the demoralizing effects of up-to-date fifth column techniques, makes the case even clearer.