What did the Roosevelt Corollary?

What did the Roosevelt Corollary?
In 1904 Theodore Roosevelt crafted a substantial amendment to the Monroe Doctrine, asserting the right of the United States to interfere in the economic affairs of small states of Central America and the Caribbean if they were unable to pay their foreign debts. Designed to block European powers’ attempts to collect international debts through direct military intervention, the policy, which became known as “Dollar Diplomacy” under President William Howard Taft, led the U.S. government to intervene in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama.

From President Theodore Roosevelt’s State of the Union Address to Congress, 1904:

[…]

It is not true that the United States feels any land hunger or entertains any projects as regards the other nations of the Western Hemisphere save such as are for their welfare. All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and 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 wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power. If every country washed by the Caribbean Sea would show the progress in stable and just civilization which with the aid of the Platt Amendment Cuba has shown since our troops left the island, and which so many of the republics in both Americas are constantly and brilliantly showing, all question of interference by this Nation with their affairs would be at an end. Our interests and those of our southern neighbors are in reality identical. They have great natural riches, and if within their borders the reign of law and justice obtains, prosperity is sure to come to them. While they thus obey the primary laws of civilized society they may rest assured that they will be treated by us in a spirit of cordial and helpful sympathy. We would interfere with them only in the last resort, and then only if it became evident that their inability or unwillingness to do justice at home and abroad had violated the rights of the United States or had invited foreign aggression to the detriment of the entire body of American nations. It is a mere truism to say that every nation, whether in America or anywhere else, which desires to maintain its freedom, its independence, must ultimately realize that the right of such independence can not be separated from the responsibility of making good use of it.

In asserting the Monroe Doctrine, in taking such steps as we have taken in regard to Cuba, Venezuela, and Panama, and in endeavoring to circumscribe the theater of war in the Far East, and to secure the open door in China, we have acted in our own interest as well as in the interest of humanity at large. There are, however, cases in which, while our own interests are not greatly involved, strong appeal is made to our sympathies. Ordinarily it is very much wiser and more useful for us to concern ourselves with striving for our own moral and material betterment here at home than to concern ourselves with trying to better the condition of things in other nations. We have plenty of sins of our own to war against, and under ordinary circumstances we can do more for the general uplifting of humanity by striving with heart and soul to put a stop to civic corruption, to brutal lawlessness and violent race prejudices here at home than by passing resolutions and wrongdoing elsewhere. Nevertheless there are occasional crimes committed on so vast a scale and of such peculiar horror as to make us doubt whether it is not our manifest duty to endeavor at least to show our disapproval of the deed and our sympathy with those who have suffered by it. The cases must be extreme in which such a course is justifiable. There must be no effort made to remove the mote from our brother’s eye if we refuse to remove the beam from our own. But in extreme cases action may be justifiable and proper. What form the action shall take must depend upon the circumstances of the case; that is, upon the degree of the atrocity and upon our power to remedy it. The cases in which we could interfere by force of arms as we interfered to put a stop to intolerable conditions in Cuba are necessarily very few. Yet it is not to be expected that a people like ours, which in spite of certain very obvious shortcomings, nevertheless as a whole shows by its consistent practice its belief in the principles of civil and religious liberty and of orderly freedom, a people among whom even the worst crime, like the crime of lynching, is never more than sporadic, so that individuals and not classes are molested in their fundamental rights—it is inevitable that such a nation should desire eagerly to give expression to its horror on an occasion like that of the massacre of the Jews in Kishenef, or when it witnesses such systematic and long-extended cruelty and oppression as the cruelty and oppression of which the Armenians have been the victims, and which have won for them the indignant pity of the civilized world.

[…]

a corollary (1904) to the Monroe Doctrine, asserting that the U.S. might intervene in the affairs of an American republic threatened with seizure or intervention by a European country.

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Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2022

The Roosevelt Corollary was a United States foreign policy established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904. It stated that the U.S. would intervene in Latin American countries where European powers sought to collect debts or whose governments were thought to be unstable.

A corollary, in the general sense, is a natural consequence or result. In this context, it indicates that the Roosevelt Corollary was an extension of the Monroe Doctrine, a U.S. policy established in 1823 stating that the United States opposed any European interference in the Western Hemisphere.

The Roosevelt Corollary was conceived as a means to protect U.S. interests and preserve stability in Latin America by preventing European countries from interfering there. However, it came to be used as a justification for the U.S. to intervene in Latin American internal affairs and expand its influence in the region.

Back in 1823, President James Monroe articulated the landmark policy that would become known as the Monroe Doctrine, stating that European powers should not interfere with or further colonize countries in the Americas. In return, he said the United States would not interfere in European matters.

Eighty-one years later, President Theodore Roosevelt—known for modeling his foreign policy on the proverb “Speak softly and carry a big stick”—gave a speech to Congress in which he outlined what became known as the Roosevelt Corollary. In it, he tied his foreign policy approach to the Monroe Doctrine, stating that the U.S. may be forced to use “international police power” to intervene when countries in the Americas engaged in “wrongdoing” that invited interference from European powers.

Roosevelt was referring to incidents like the Venezuela Crisis, in which Venezuela was blockaded by Britain, Germany, and Italy in an attempt to forcefully collect debts that it had defaulted on. Roosevelt’s stated goal was to keep European influence out of the region by preserving stability in the Americas—by force, if necessary. But the policy was soon (and frequently) used as justification for the U.S. to intervene in various Latin American affairs and assert its dominance in the region. (Ironically, that’s exactly what the Monroe Doctrine was intended to prevent European nations from doing.)

Another Roosevelt, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is often credited with turning U.S. foreign policy away from the type of interventionism promoted by the Roosevelt Corollary. But the effects of the Roosevelt Corollary are still relevant. Criticism of U.S. expansionism and debates about its role as the “world’s policeman” continue to be topics in world politics.

The Roosevelt Corollary is not the only thing named after Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt. After a hunting trip during which Roosevelt was reported to have spared a bear, cartoonist Clifford Berryman introduced a “teddy bear” character. The association stuck and toy dealers capitalized by selling stuffed bear toys, forever after known as teddy bears.

From the start, the Roosevelt Corollary has been a topic of debate, and still factors into political discourse about United States foreign policy more than 100 years later.

What did the Roosevelt Corollary?

Brown University

True or false: The Roosevelt Corollary was a pact between the United States and other countries in the Western Hemisphere to join forces against European powers.

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