Shaping the 19th Century

Shaping the 20th Century

In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt proposed the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. Though the Monroe Doctrine was aimed at stopping European influence in the United States, the Roosevelt Corollary marked the United States' first officially aggressive stance as policeman of the western hemisphere. The effects of this Corollary were far-reaching, revealing an official change in U.S. attitude about the world and our place in it, and marking not only the 20th Century but also the 21st Century.

A defining moment marking the start of 20th Century United States of America was the 1904 Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.[footnoteRef:1] Reflecting President Theodore Roosevelt's aggressive approach to foreign policy, the Corollary states in part, "…in the western hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrong-doing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power."[footnoteRef:2] Roosevelt deemed this a logical result of the Monroe Doctrine, which was aimed at protecting the United States from European aggression and influence.[footnoteRef:3] This seemingly benevolent statement is believed by some historians to be the "high-water mark of American imperialism."[footnoteRef:4] Though supported by some, the corollary was denounced by other Roosevelt contemporaries as "patronizing" and even "jingoism gone mad,"[footnoteRef:5] for it opened the door to U.S. aggression in the affairs of foreign countries. [1: John Milton Cooper, Jr. Pivotal Decades: The United States, 1900-1920. New York, NY W.W. Norton & Company, 1990, p. 50.] [2: Ibid.] [3: Candice Millard. The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey (Paperback). New York, NY: Broadway Books, 2005, p. 39.] [4: Cooper, Jr., p. 50.] [5: Edmund Morris. Theodore Rex (Paperback). New York, NY: Random House Publishing Group, 2002, p. 326.]

Certainly, the United States intervened in foreign matters prior to Roosevelt's enunciation of his corollary; for example, Roosevelt himself participated in the Spanish American War of the late 19th Century to protect threatened U.S. interests.[footnoteRef:6] Nevertheless, the corollary marks the United States' official change of attitude about foreign affairs and the U.S.'s role in the world. Here, the United States appointed itself the policeman of the western hemisphere, claiming the responsibility and the right to intervene in the management of a foreign country based on its own assessment of "wrong-doing" or "impotence." This is a powerful and disturbing development for at least two reasons: first, the U.S. appointed itself judge, reserving the right to unilaterally determine what constitutes "wrong-doing" or "impotence"[footnoteRef:7], which could certainly be used in bad faith and primarily to further U.S. interests; secondly, the U.S. appointed itself policeman and this aggressive claim of the right to intervene in a western hemisphere country's affairs is the first in a series of steps that eventually led to the United States' intervention in the affairs of many countries across the globe.[footnoteRef:8] The combination of acting as police officer and acting as judge marked not only the 20th Century but also the 21st Century. Consequently, the Roosevelt Corollary proved to be a defining moment for the United States' foreign policy in the 20th Century and beyond. [6: Ibid., p. 79.] [7: Millard, p. 39.] [8: Cooper, Jr., p. 51.]